Suchergebnisse

The effectiveness of an Introductory Psychology course module on racism was assessed using a short questionnaire immediately afterwards and then later at the end of the semester. Students of color were consistently more aware of the prevalence and manifestations of racism in U.S. society today, compared to White students. White students also appeared to exhibit self-serving biases related to ethnicity-based privileges. Reported attitude changes were not correlated with actual attitude changes, as assessed with this questionnaire. Overall, this course module was effective in changing the attitudes about racism in White students, yet its effect was limited. On the other hand, given the permanence of racist attitudes and beliefs, any measurable success in this context should be celebrated.

Class discussions of White privilege can increase sociocultural and international awareness in our students. Therefore, instructors should be encouraged to teach this topic in introductory college survey courses (e.g., psychology and sociology), although negative reactions by White students can affect student evaluations of an instructor's teaching skills. We decided to further explore college students' cognitive and emotional reactions to this topic. Principal components analysis revealed four factors. Agreement with items related to the factor Societal (e.g., American society is not a meritocracy) was associated with understanding White privilege. Agreement with items associated with the factor Personal (e.g., feeling personally attacked) was associated with failure to understand this concept. The remaining two factors, Denial and The Bad Guys (feeling like one of "the bad guys" in society), were not significantly associated with understanding White privilege. These findings are discussed in the context of successfully teaching antiracism.