The Effects of Diversity Exposure on Racial Awareness and Color-Blind Racial Attitudes

Introduction

Many students in the helping professions are unaware of their own biases and how these biases influence their perceptions, attitudes, and practice. While we know that racial awareness and awareness of race-based privilege is essential for competent and ethical practice of the helping professions, it is unclear how homogeneity or heterogeneity of childhood neighborhood or higher education environment impacts an individual’s development of White privilege awareness or ability to identify racism. This study examines the association of diversity of undergraduate institution, diversity of childhood neighborhood, and number of past diversity courses with student color blind racial attitudes and White student’s ability to identify racism.

Methods


This cross-sectional study was conducted in a School of Social Work at a large university in the Southeastern region of the US. The sample consisted of 410 students enrolled in social work (n=304; 74.1%) and psychology (n=106; 25.9%) classes. The sample was predominantly female (80%) and White (54.5%). Forty-six percent of the sample were students of color. Exposure to diversity was measured in two ways: 1) racial composition of neighborhood the individual grew up in and 2) racial composition of undergraduate institution. Ability to identify racism was assessed by responses to three items adapted items from the Survey of Graduate Students’ Experiences with Diversity that evaluated student’s ability to identify individual, institutional, and societal racism (.73). The Color Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (.74) was used to evaluate individual awareness of White privilege. 

Results

Multiple regression analysis revealed that diversity of undergraduate program was a significant predictor of students’ awareness of racism (β = -.17, p < .05).  Student attendance at predominantly or exclusively White undergraduate institutions was associated with higher awareness of ability to identify racism. Race of student (β = -.38, p < .05) and an interaction between race of student and diversity of undergraduate institution (β= .95, p < .001) were significant predictors of color blind racial attitudes. Results from an independent-samples t-tests suggest that there was a significant difference between students of color (M=46.77, SD=10.11) and White students (M=52.53, SD=12.77) [t(378) = -4.91, p< .001] on color blind racial attitude scores with White students scoring significantly higher than students of color. Specifically, being a psychology student and White were associated with a higher score on the Color Blind Racial Attitudes scale. Independent-samples t-tests were also conducted to compare key variables by discipline. There were significant differences between social work students (M=46.18, SD=9.93)  and psychology students (M=60.25, SD=11.00), t(380) = -12.00, p< .001 on color blind racial attitudes. 

Conclusion

Diversity of undergraduate institution was associated with awareness of ability to identify racism and color blind racial attitudes. Implications are discussed in terms of diversity education that better incorporates pedagogical strategies to leverage past diversity exposure.