College Students' Racial Attitudes and Friendship Diversity

Abstract

Using the contact hypothesis as a theoretical framework, this study investigates the relationship between college students' racial attitudes and the diversity in their intercultural friendship networks. The results tend to support a conventional view of racial hierarchy, as students in this study categorized ethnic/racial groups into fairly dichotomized categories of Whites and non-Whites. In addition, students who reported fewer ethnically/racially different friends are more likely to define race by skin color than those who have more diverse friendship networks. Further, White students were more much more likely to see race as defined by skin color than students of color. Overall, results reveal an interesting relationship between these college students' racial attitudes and their friendship choices. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

KEYTERMS:

• ethnicity
• friendship
• race
• whiteness

Notes

^a 1 = Definitely not White, 7 = Definitely White.

We begin our discussion by focusing on the conventional Black–White binary of racial categorization, because most discussions about race are centered here. In the remainder of the article, we broaden our discussion of race to race/ethnicity at some points, for example, when we describe how people categorize others—because that is how much of the scholarship on racial categorization is described. We acknowledge that race and ethnicity are both social constructs and we admit that we are following lay (and academic) conventions and not attempting to clarify distinctions between the two terms.