Dynamic Relationships: Identifying Moderators that Maximize Benefits Associated with Diversity

This study examined factors that can moderate the relationship between cross-racial interaction and undergraduate students’ development. While previous studies have shown that students benefit from interacting across racial differences, they have not examined whether those educational benefits are moderated by other factors. The moderators examined in this study included measures of the quality of cross-racial interactions, students’ support of race-conscious admissions, and students’ satisfaction with their college’s respect for diverse beliefs. The results show that the benefits associated with those interactions on students’ academic self-concept and social agency depend on the quality of their interactions and their perceptions of their campus climate. The findings suggest that while efforts to enhance access are vital, those initiatives should not be conflated with efforts to improve an institution’s capacity to address the quality of the context in which students engage with diversity.