Colorblind racial ideology and student expectations and reactions to a university-sponsored diversity workshop.

Abstract

often sponsor workshops about diversity and inclusion that students are mandated to attend. Yet, little is known about students' expectations and reactions to such workshops, as well as how such expectations and reactions are associated with students' gender identity, racial-ethnic identification, and race-related attitudes such as power evasion colorblind racial ideology (CBRI). Using a sample of over 1,650 students, in this study, we examined responses to a mandatory diversity workshop occurring at a large Midwestern university for first-year and transfer undergraduate students. We utilized a mixed-methods approach, where we coded open-ended responses using a modified version of consensual qualitative research (Spangler et al., 2012), which resulted in various themes about students' expectations for the workshop (e.g., Developing Skills, Skepticism) and reactions to the workshop (e.g., Developed Awareness, Changed Behavior/Engaged in Action, Gained Nothing). We then conducted a series of logistic regression models to examine how gender identity, racial-ethnic identification, and CBRI predicted endorsement of qualitative themes. We also used linear regression to investigate how these student characteristics predicted quantitative measures of diversity workshop expectations (i.e., positive and negative affect) and reactions (i.e., workshop feedback). Overall, results showed that greater levels of CBRI significantly predicted more negative and less positive expectations and reactions to the workshop, while controlling for students' gender identity and racial-ethnic identification. Our findings highlight ways to better understand college students' attitudes toward and experiences of mandatory diversity education, along with implications for strengthening diversity initiatives in higher education.

Understanding the challenges and opportunities of talking to children about race and racism in child‐facing institutions

“…Colorblindness refers to the false egalitarian belief that minimizing race and focusing on individual characteristics or commonalities will improve racial equality (Bonilla‐Silva, 2010). Colorblindness has been used to describe both power evasion, such as rejecting the notion of White privilege, and color evasion, such as claiming to not notice race (Neville et al., 2013; Yi et al., 2022). As such, colorblindness can be both an institutional approach to race and racism as well as an individually held ideological belief.…”