Student Acceptance of a Multicultural Education

Abstract

While the virtues of a multicultural education are debated in the general US populace, most social work educators and organizations have embraced such an approach. Subsequently, social work journals have offered numerous essays on multicultural teaching techniques. Yet, these same journals have rarely explored the multicultural attitudes of social work students. To fill this gap, this paper empirically explores the ways in which BSW students accept or reject some multicultural goals. To do so, close-ended surveys were distributed to 437 undergraduates. After describing their responses to the authors' multicultural index, the project explores the survey results via demographic, social-psychological, and educational variables. With the assistance of a multiple regression, this project suggests that student acceptance of multiculturalism is swayed by the matters of gender and their stances on White privilege and institutional racism. However, student perceptions do not seem static since students become more positive toward a multicultural education after they have initiated interracial exchanges and completed a social diversity class.

Key Words:

• Racial attitudes
• cultural pluralism
• symbolic racism
• university effects
• college students