Question

some evidence suggests that universities are a great place to improve interracial attitudes. Why might that be (or not be) the case? How do intercultural relationships develop on college campuses.

Answer 1

• Several recent studies, at Ohio State and elsewhere, have found that having a roommate of a different race can reduce prejudice, diversify friendships and even boost black students’ academic performance. But, the research found, such relationships are more stressful and more likely to break up than same-race pairings.
• Several studies have shown that living with a roommate of a different race changes students’ attitudes. One, from the University of California at Los Angeles, generally found decreased prejudice among students with different-race roommates — but those who roomed with Asian-Americans, the group that scored the highest on measures of prejudice, became more prejudiced themselves.
• Universities are the place where students get exposed to diversity,seeing people around from various cultures and backgrounds is exciting. And sometimes the education system itself encourages positive interaction between people from different races and cultures. But yes already joining the university with preconceived notions about a particual race can lead to negative attitude and not being friendly at all.
• In colleges students develop intercultural relationships by sharing rooms with people from various cultures,the communication helps to understand each other and emphasize with each other thereby developing a relationship.
• Colleges also organization intercultural programs,seminars etc, which is a great opportunity to meet and share ideas with students from different cultural backgrounds.
• Also learning and reading about differenct cultures at college helps in opening up minds which help in developing intercultural relationships.