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This study aims to examine how change in white college students’ beliefs about race over the course of a semester impacted their interactions with diverse others. While there is an increasing interest in understanding people's beliefs about race, there has been limited research examining how people’s beliefs about race can and do change over time and how education can facilitate this change.

White students (N = 98) at a predominantly white college completed a multidimensional racial essentialism measure and measures of both self-report and behavioral interactions with diversity, at the beginning and end of a semester. Multilevel modeling with time-varying predictors was used to examine how change in beliefs about race related to change in diversity interactions.

The impact of racial essentialism on student diversity interaction varied considerably depending on the type of racial essentialism. Higher levels of speciation and genotypic essentialism at Time 1 were related to lower interaction with diversity at Time 2. Decreases in phenotypic essentialism were concurrent with increases in diversity interaction over the duration of the semester. For a subgroup of students enrolled in a race and diversity course, unexpectedly, decreases in genotypic essentialism were concurrent with decreases in diversity interaction.

By using a multidimensional model of beliefs about race with a longitudinal assessment, this study contributes to our understanding of how specific components of beliefs about race change over time and how change in these beliefs occurs concurrently with students’ diverse interactions. The findings are discussed in relation to the impact of education on students’ peer interactions with diverse others, with specific implications for race and diversity pedagogy.

In recent years, diversity and inclusion in higher education has become a topic of increased interest both nationally and internationally. Given the importance of this topic in today's world, it is surprising that the research is limited, especially with university students in the rural areas. This study examines on-campus students' perceptions of university diversity initiatives, and their value to the university environment.

Focus-group interviews with both undergraduate and graduate students from a public university in rural Michigan, USA, were conducted. Focus groups were used in this study because they are a particularly good method for generating discussion and stimulating ideas.

Overall, the participants identified several positive attitudes toward diversity and inclusion that included being accepting and respectful. However, it is significant that some participants are limited in their perceptions of culturally diverse backgrounds, which has resulted in some anxiety.

This study not only provides guidance to current institution administrators to create effective inclusive environments in their university. It can also be treated as a model for other rural universities, as building a successful inclusive environment in the future.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of the implementation of safety-oriented knowledge management (KM) processes and student diversity acceptance in schools and the interaction effect of safety-oriented KM processes and student diversity acceptance over school performance and student academic orientation.

Responses of 977 American schools available in the database of the National Center for Education Statistics were analyzed using hierarchical regression analyses.

Results show that implementation of safety-oriented KM processes and diversity acceptance in schools have varying effects on school performance and student academic orientation. The impact of knowledge acquisition from parents on the academic achievement of students is positive and stronger in schools that are low in student diversity acceptance than schools that are high in student diversity acceptance.

This study adds value to the KM literature by exploring how KM processes are executed in American schools to improve their performance and students’ academic orientation and how diversity among students alters the strength of the relationships.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of diversity programs on female student representation within sport management preparation programs. A questionnaire was sent to 172 undergraduate and graduate sport management preparation programs at the North American Society for Sport Management member institutions and 72 completed surveys were returned. These data were used to test a confirmatory path model at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Results show that diversity programs continue to be developed, and that diversity program leads to increase female student representation within undergraduate and graduate sport management preparation programs. Based on the findings of this study, student diversity programs are assisting to eradicate barriers for women in the sport management profession.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how Ontario principals make sense of difference within student populations and how this sensemaking influences how they do their work.

The paper reports on a qualitative study in Ontario, Canada that included 59 semistructured interviews with school principals from English public, secular school districts in Southern Ontario.

Four themes emerged in principals’ descriptions of student populations: perceiving everyone as the same, or homogeneous; perceiving visible differences associated with particular religions, race and cultures; perceiving invisible or less visible differences, such as academic differences, socioeconomic status, mental health issues, gender identity and sexual orientation; and perceiving both visible and less visible differences through an inclusive lens. When asked about how their understanding of difference influenced how they did their work, principals’ responses varied from not influencing their work at all to influencing practices and activities. Participants’ context – both personal and local – influenced some of the work they did in their role as school principal. Lastly, multiple sources of disconnect emerged between how principals understood difference and the practices that they engage in at their school site; between their sensemaking about difference and diversity and preparing students for the twenty-first century competencies as global citizens; and between principals’ understanding of difference and diversity and existing provincial policy.

Study insights not only contribute to an existing body of literature that examines principals’ sensemaking around difference, but also extend this line of inquiry to consider how this sensemaking influences their professional practice. These findings pose additional research questions about how to approach principal professional learning for inclusive and equitable education. For example, even though principals are contractually responsible for students in their care, why is it that their efforts toward equitable and inclusive schooling appear to be limited to the school site and not the wider community?

Study findings can be used to inform principal preparation programs and professional learning opportunities. Namely, these programs should provide the skill development required as well as the time needed for principals to reflect on their local context and beliefs, and to consider how their local context and beliefs are connected to larger societal efforts to create a more inclusive and equitable society.

School leadership is integral to creating and building more inclusive and equitable public education that improves all students’ success at school. As Ontario’s general population becomes increasingly diverse, it is imperative that principals support success for all students; this can only happen if they understand the complexity of difference within their student populations and beyond, how to address these complexities and how their own understandings and beliefs influence their leadership practices.

Although other papers have examined how principals make sense of difference and diversity in student bodies, this paper also explores how this sensemaking influences how school leaders do their work.

Numerous studies have provided evidence that interracial interaction can contribute to the development of leadership skills and behaviors for university students. Yet, little empirical research has been dedicated to understanding the effects of structural (compositional) racial diversity within leadership programs on program participant outcomes. This study examined the impact of the structural racial diversity of 50 leadership program sessions on student leadership capacity gains over time. A total of 667 participants in sessions coded as either “High,” “Moderate,” or “Low” with regard to racial diversity within the session served as the sample. Results from data collected immediately prior to, directly after, and 3-4 months after program participation suggest the training effects of a leadership initiative may be augmented by the recruitment of racially diverse participants.

This study aims to examine North American master's programs in higher education administration, leadership and student affairs; the extent to which these programs incorporate diversity coursework; and their reasons for doing so. Graduate programs must prepare practitioners who are able to work effectively with multiple groups of students, ameliorate persistence and graduation gaps, and create more socially just campuses.

Using an open-ended questionnaire and document analysis, the authors analyzed the extent to which and why these master's programs incorporate courses and course material on diversity.

Exactly half of higher education leadership (50%) and a small majority of student affairs (52%) programs require some type of diversity course, while only 42% of higher education administration programs do so. Reported reasons for including such coursework include students' demand for such courses, the centrality of diversity to university missions and standards in the field.

Research on faculty perceptions regarding the need for diversity courses with a focus on interest convergence may be productive.

Program directors should ensure that coursework on diversity is required, and that faculty teaching these courses are comfortable discussing these topics to prepare students to work with diverse groups in multiple contexts.

This study uses multiple methods (document analysis, open-ended questionnaire of program directors) to analyze programs and program design intentions. The authors use the critical race theory framework's tenet of interest convergence to understand program rationales.

As part of the broader effort to diversify higher education in the USA, many science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) doctoral programs are deeply engaged in diversity work – an array of formal activities and practices meant to boost the representation of women and students of color. This paper aims to examine how underrepresented doctoral students in high-diversity STEM PhD programs contribute to diversity work in their programs.

A case study approach was used to understand the nature of diversity work in four STEM doctoral programs that have enrolled and graduated women and/or underrepresented students of color at rates significantly higher than their disciplines, despite being located in states with affirmative action bans. This study analyzes qualitative data from 24 semi-structured interviews and four focus groups with students from across the four departments.

Data reveal that underrepresented students are simultaneously positioned as representatives of progress and uncompensated consultants in their departments’ ongoing equity and diversity efforts. As a result, student contributions to diversity work are experienced as an ongoing process of emotional labor in which institutional ethos and/or feeling rules in the department shape how students manage their internal and external emotions.

Although diversity-related work is widespread and growing within colleges and universities, this study shows how student engagement in diversification efforts can lead to significant emotional burdens that go unnoticed and uncompensated. In highlighting the invisibility of emotional labor and the skew of its distribution toward minoritized groups, this research calls attention to how tacit feeling rules can undermine the ultimate goal of diversity initiatives within graduate departments and programs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and characterise students’ historical thinking as they attempt to work simultaneously with two second‐order concepts – change and diversity, to examine student difficulties in so doing and to reflect on the value of certain teaching approaches.

The paper is a case study using data gathered from teaching and learning experiences across five history lessons taught to two Year 9 classes.

“Diachronic diversity” may be a useful characterisation of the distinctive student accomplishment of linking change and diversity in discursive historical analysis. An elaboration of shortfall in the form of “proto‐diachronic diversity” helps to establish the boundaries of that achievement and the possible properties that future curricular goals and assessment might privilege.

History teachers may need to find ways of integrating teaching of change and diversity rather than expecting the two to merge naturally after separate analyses. Possible impediments may include difficulties with language and limitations in students’ existing concept of “change”.

“Diachronic diversity” points to a new curricular category for characterising a particular disciplinary property of student thinking and learning in history lessons.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of classroom interdisciplinary diversity, a type of classroom diversity that has been under-examined by previous literature, on the formation of university students’ entrepreneurial intentions (EI).

Based on Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour and the interactionist model of creative behaviour by Woodman et al. (1993), this paper provides empirical evidence demonstrating that classroom interdisciplinary diversity is important in the formation of university students’ EI at early educational stages using a cross-sectional study design and survey data on first-year business school students and partial least squares analysis.

Classroom interdisciplinary diversity is important in the formation of university students’ EI through its positive impact on entrepreneurial perceived behavioural control (PBC) (self-efficacy), a key antecedent of EI.

The results have important implications for educational practice as well as for both public and private organisations willing to promote entrepreneurial activity, in particular, the positive effects of combining people with different profiles and career fields of interest on entrepreneurial PBC (self-efficacy).

This study contributes to the scant literature on early university experiences in entrepreneurship education and their influence on EI. It studies the impact of an under-examined dimension of diversity (classroom interdisciplinary diversity) on the formation of students’ EI.