Michigan State University Extension
Diversity and Pluralism - 11180239
12/95/
ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED313979 AUTHOR: Wergin, Jon F.
TITLE: Assessing Student Attitudes towards Cultural
Diversity. ASHE Annual Meeting Paper.
YEAR PUBLISHED: 1989
NOTE: 13 p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
Association for the Study of Higher Education (Atlanta, GA,
November 2-5, 1989).
ABSTRACT: The findings of a survey on freshmen attitudes in
four areas: interest in cultural diversity, racism,
ethnocentrism, and cross-cultural beliefs and values, are
presented. The 81-item survey was given to 234 students at
Virginia Commonwealth University. Results indicated: most
freshmen express an interest in learning more about other
cultures, and a clear majority assert their willingness to
live with a foreign classmate, spend vacations abroad with
people of other cultures, and take at least some of their
college courses in a foreign country; most freshmen feel
Americans do not receive enough information about other
world cultures and disagreed with the idea that it is
important to teach American values to people in other
countries; most freshmen agree in abstract that learning
about diverse cultures is an important part of a college
education and value cultural diversity in the institution;
and most freshmen disagree with the notion that blacks need
to conform to American cultural standards and that blacks
need to learn to behave the way whites do. The findings
indicate that freshmen may be more comfortable dealing with
issues of diversity in the abstract that in the concrete,
and discussions of attitudes and beliefs are likely to
arouse defensiveness. Contains 6 references. (SM)
KEY DESCRIPTORS: Attitude-Measures; Beliefs-; College
Students; Cultural-Differences; Ethnocentrism-; Higher
Education; State-Universities; Student-Characteristics;
Values-
KEY DESCRIPTORS: *College-Freshmen; *Cultural-Pluralism;
*Racial-Attitudes; *Student-Attitudes
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