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Promoting Sustained Engagement with Diversity: The Reciprocal Relationships between Informal and Formal College Diversity Experiences
- The Review of Higher Education
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 36, Number 1, Fall 2012
- pp. 1-24
- 10.1353/rhe.2012.0057
- Article
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College diversity experiences have been praised not only for their role in promoting student growth but also for contributing to future engagement with diversity. However, the evidence supporting this latter claim is quite limited, often relying on cross-sectional analyses. This study examines whether and how students’ first-year diversity experiences predict their senior-year diversity experiences and finds that students’ positive and negative diversity interactions are both associated with greater participation in diversity coursework. Moreover, having negative diversity interactions is not associated with changes in positive diversity interactions or vice versa. All relationships are consistent regardless of students’ openness to diversity.