The Importance Of Racial Diversity In College

Review of the literature

Cokley

According to Cokley (2010), European American students had more negative attitudes toward racial diversity then racial minority students. In the same study, women had a more positive attitude towards racial diversity then men. Cokley goes on to explain the importance of racial diversity in a college atmosphere, as it a formative time for students to develop an identity and experiment with new ideas and roles. This racial understanding helps to promote racial understanding, perspective taking, and community service involvement during and after college. These diversity experiences have been found to positively influence student achievement as well as provide increased cultural awareness, critical thinking, and

The university’s mascot was an Indian “Chief”, and this study examined the student’s views on the mascot. Color-blind racial ideology refers to a set of beliefs that minimize, distort, and/or ignore the existence of race and institutional racism. These beliefs contradict the empirical evidence indicating that racism is still thriving in the United States as is apparent in a variety of social inequalities based on race. Examples of social inequalities are the overrepresentation of color among the poor, jobless, under or uninsured, and imprisoned populations and the underrepresentation of people of color among the wealthy and financially secure population. Racism also persists on college campuses across the country. Students of color experience racism in predominantly White institutions. This includes all areas of campus life including the classroom through comments, exclusion of their sociohistorical experiences from the curricula and practices that create inequalities in enrollment and in the creation of a hostile learning environment. There is strong empirical support indicating that create CBRI is related to less tolerant racial and social justice beliefs among students. Each campus has its own cultural milieu around race and racism. This is based on the history and traditions on the campus resulting from shared racial practices, beliefs, and struggles for transformation. This study focused on the discontinuance of “Chief Illiniwek” and the role of CBRI in students’ beliefs. Closely related to this study, Tynes & Markoe(2010) and other researchers have consistently found relations between greater CBRI and greater racial intolerance and lower social justice beliefs among racially diverse college