Interpersonalizing cultural difference: A grounded theory of the process of interracial friendship development and sustainment among college students.

Abstract

College students' achievement of diversity-related learning outcomes is primarily facilitated by intercultural peer interactions. Close friendships across cultural differences are especially powerful, yet we know little about how or why these relationships develop and are sustained. The purpose of this study was to understand how college students develop and sustain interracial friendships, as one form of intercultural friendship, by developing a grounded theory of this process. Twenty-one undergraduate students who had a close friend of another race or ethnicity participated. Data were obtained via interviews, journals, and written questionnaires. The resulting theory of interpersonalizing cultural difference consists of four central subprocesses in which college students engage in developing and sustaining their interracial friendships: (1) cultivating trust and establishing a silent contract, (2) embracing similarity without forgetting difference, (3) exploring other cultures, and (4) bridging difference to connect. This research provides insight into how colleges and universities can support interracial friendships to more effectively facilitate students' achievement of diversityrelated learning outcomes. Specific implications address the types of campus environments that facilitate interracial friendship development and the need for interventions to ensure that students from all cultural backgrounds have the support they need to positively and meaningfully engage with culturally different peers.

The Evangelical Puzzle Partially Explained: Privileged Prejudice and the Development of Appreciative Attitudes Toward Evangelical Christianity

“…The need for empathy becomes increasingly important in the context of evangelical Christianity, given the potential coercive exchanges research has documented (see Shaheen et al, 2022) and students also discussed when engaging specifically with evangelicals. Adding dimensions to findings from previous research that established the importance of relationship mattering in student life (see Hudson, 2018;Hudson, 2020), our study offers relationship empathy as a distinctive epistemic mechanism for offsetting the fear of coercion with the opportunity for understanding.…”

Examining the Relationship Between College Students’ Interworldview Friendships and Pluralism Orientation

“…Finally, the primary variable of interestnumber of close interworldview friends-measures the quantity, but not the quality, of students' friendships. Qualitative factors are, of course, difficult to capture with a quantitative instrument such as a survey, yet the quality of interactions students have within their friendships can affect whether the relationship is sustained over time and, relatedly, the learning and development that may result (Engberg, 2007;Hudson, 2018Hudson, , 2020Hurtado, 2007). A more thorough understanding of the relationship between interworldview friendship and student learning and development therefore necessitates qualitative investigation to complement and/or complicate the results we present here.…”

Conceptions and the experience of friendship in underrepresented groups

“…Hudson (2020) gathered extensive data from 21 students attending university in the United States who had a close friend of another race or ethnicity. Participants were asked (via interviews, personal journals, and questionnaires) how they developed and sustained their friendship.…”

“…Four processes were extracted from their accounts: “embracing similarity without forgetting about difference,” “bridging differences to connect,” “exploring other cultures,” and “cultivating trust.” Participants in this research emphasized that the racial difference was only one among other differences that they experienced in their friendship (e.g., religion, nationality). Hudson (2020) concluded that “rather than experiencing inter racial friendships, college students may experience inter cultural friendships, in which their racial differences are only one, more or less salient, component of the cultural differences shaping their relationships” (p. 17). Relatedly, Sias et al (2008) conducted in‐depth interviews with friends from different cultural backgrounds and found four factors that facilitated cross‐cultural friendship initiation: targeted socializing (“Socializing opportunities targeted toward either specific cultural groups or intercultural gatherings”), cultural similarities (“Similarities between the partners' national cultures”) differences (“Cultural differences helped to start the friendship because, at least on my side, I was attracted to her because she was unique”), and past intercultural experience (“Prior experience in another country or in relationships with people from a different culture”; p. 7).…”

“…Turning to cross‐race friendships, Rose and Hospital (2017) argue that the formation of trust also is more difficult in these friendships, particularly if the minority group person anticipates that the majority group will be prejudiced, deny racism, or expect them to assimilate into the majority culture. In Hudson's (2020) research on cross‐race friendships, “cultivating trust and establishing a silent contract” was identified as one of the processes that students engaged in forming and sustaining these friendships. Participants emphasized the role of self‐disclosure and feeling safe in being vulnerable as important aspects of building trust.…”