Creating Conditions for Dialogues Across Difference: How and Why Undergraduates Engage in Conversations About Race

• In Event: A Call for Institutional Response: Racialized Experiences on College Campuses

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate how and why undergraduates engage or choose not to engage in conversations about race on campus. Drawing on in-depth interviews with undergraduates at one small, elite institution (N=48), we find that engagement is context-specific. Students felt positively about engaging in conversations about race in settings that were structured and educational. Students felt discouraged by settings that were divisive and/or confusing. Yet the naturalization of social segregation on campus complicated students’ ability to engage across differences. Our findings underscore the imperative for colleges to teach all students not only the benefits of diversity, but also about historical and structural inequalities.

Authors

• Ingrid A. Nelson, Bowdoin College

• Sydney Avitia-Jacques, Bowdoin College

• Sophie Cowen, The New York Foundling