Do we act the way we think? Multicultural education and the disconnect between racial attitudes and behaviors in college students

Why do people discriminate? Why do others intervene to prevent discrimination? The common assumption is that discriminatory and anti-discriminatory behaviors are direct outgrowths of attitudes. However, researchers have documented the disjuncture between racial attitudes and racial behaviors. This dissertation engages the critique on interpersonal racism theories and demonstrates that theories of interpersonal racism, which singly attribute discriminatory behavior to attitudes, do not adequately conceptualize interpersonal racism. This dissertation explicitly focuses on racial behavior and challenges racism theories' tendencies to assume, rather than explore, racial behavior. Furthermore, the dissertation establishes that the weak attitude-behavior link notion is the major strategy for change utilized in multicultural education courses. Thus, this dissertation examines (1) the racial attitude and racial behavior link, (2) non racial attitudes and racial behavior, (3) the impact of multicultural education courses on racial behavior, and (4) social peer influence and racial behavior.;Relying on data from a multi-year survey project of students involved in three multicultural education courses, the dissertation uses a quasi-experimental design to identify the impact of the race related attitudes, non race related attitudes, social influence of peers, and different multicultural educational initiatives on racial behavior.;The dissertation's findings redress the lack of theoretical attention and research on racial behaviors. In addition, it questions the effectiveness of racism interventions based on the notion that changes in racial attitudes will result in changes in racial behavior. Both contributions highlight the necessity of including an explicit discussion and study of racial behaviors in racism theory and practice. Finally, the dissertation poses social influence theories as an innovative and useful framework for understanding racial behavior.