Climate for learning and students’ openness to diversity and challenge: A critical role for faculty.

Abstract

Utilizing data from 15 institutions that participated in the 2013 and 2014 administrations of the Personal and Social Responsibility Inventory (PSRI), this study employed a multilevel modeling approach to examine the relationship of students' perceptions of their climate for learning to their scores on the Openness to Diversity and Challenge Scale (ODC). Guided by Bronfenbrenner's process-person-context-time (PPCT) model of student environments, we found that a climate for learning perceived as valuing a wide range of ideas and perspectives and including faculty advocacy for the respect of diverse ideas and points of view is positively related to students' openness to diversity and challenge.

How Does Adolescents’ Openness to Diversity Change Over Time? The Role of Majority-Minority Friendship, Friends’ Views, and Classroom Social Context

“…However, other aspects of school context, including varieties of multicultural education and teachers’ approaches to diversity, may also play a role in how adolescents diversity beliefs develop and change over time. In fact, in a study focusing on university students, it was shown that young adults taught by faculty members who advocate that their students respect diverse viewpoints are more likely to be open to diverse perspectives (Ryder et al 2016 ). Thus, future research tapping into different aspects of the school context is needed to better understand the role of school context in youth’s views on diversity.…”

“…Further, social influence has also been shown to be involved in the formation of openness to diversity. Specifically, being in a non-discriminatory college environment (Flowers and Pascarella 1999 ; Pascarella et al 1996 ), interacting with a diverse group of peers (Antonio 2001 ), or having faculty members who advocate respect on the part of students for diverse viewpoints (Ryder et al 2016 ) is associated with greater willingness to embrace differences among university students. Together, these findings indicate that individual differences (e.g., empathy and identity formation) and socialization context (e.g., being in an inclusive or non-discriminatory context) may determine how individuals approach others’ perspectives and embrace differences.…”

Sense of Civic Responsibility Among University Students

“…This result suggests that there was a significant relationship between these two variables and it also indicated that the higher the level of campus environment concern, the higher the sense of civic responsibility. This result was supported by Ryder et al (2016) as they also reported that there was a significant relationship between campus climate perception and sense of civic responsibility. The result of Pearson correlation analysis, which determined the relationship between sense of civic responsibility, curriculum and cocurricular diversity and campus climate perception amongst students were shown in Table 2.…”

Improving Classroom Climate of the Course of Educational Administration and Supervision

“…Research on classroom climate in elementary and secondary schools in Indonesia has begun to be implemented, for example by (Silalahi, 2008), (Saptiawati & Hadiyanto, 2009), (Amelia, 2016), (Hadiyanto & Pransiska, 2017), all conducted by students for completion of studies at the undergraduate, master and doctoral levels, or carried out by college lecturers. However, this amount is still very minimal compared to the study abroad as implemented by (Gascoigne, 2012), (Ryder et al, 2015), (Fraser, 2015), and as reported by (Hadiyanto, 2016). The classroom climate research in Indonesia has been carried out to a limited extent in exploratory studies or correlational studies that link the classroom climate as a free variable with other dependent variables.…”