Racial Habitus and Diversity: A Historical Comparative Analysis Amongst College Alumni

Initiatives to encourage and maintain diversity within higher education have been in place for decades. However, the vagueness of the definition of 'diversity' has left white and minority students to have drastically different experiences at PWIs. This project explores the way that racial habitus affects student interactions, and, thus, their conceptualizations of diversity. Specifically, this project intends to answer three questions: 1) 1) how does habitus influence conceptualizations of diversity?; 2) are these conceptualizations similar or different amongst black and white students?; and 3) how do these conceptualizations change over time? Ultimately, I find: racial isolation leads to structural conceptualizations of diversity; black and white students seem to conceptualize diversity similarly, but with different effects; and structural conceptualizations of diversity have remained consistent over time. This project makes several important sociological contributions to racial habitus, meaning-making around diversity, and to diversity initiatives in higher education.