Papers by Julie Park
This ethnographic account highlights four Korean American students deciding between participating... more This ethnographic account highlights four Korean American students deciding between participating in a racially diverse campus fellowship versus an ethnically homogeneous group. Despite religious convictions about the importance of diversity, students experienced tensions between their ideals concerning diversity and the difficulty of actually implementing such values. Findings show how religion can mediate how students make sense of race relations and campus diversity. Implications for cross-racial interaction and the campus climate for diversity are discussed.
This article considers whether the socioeconomic diversity of the undergraduate student body and ... more This article considers whether the socioeconomic diversity of the undergraduate student body and experiences with cross-class interaction (CCI) are significantly related to cross-racial interaction (CRI) and engagement with curricular/co-curricular diversity (CCD) activities. Individual students who reported higher levels of CCI had significantly higher levels of CRI and CCD. While the socioeconomic diversity of the student body had no direct effect on student involvement in CCD activities or CRI, it had an indirect effect on these activities via CCI. In other words, a socioeconomically diverse institution is associated with more frequent interactions across class lines, which is associated both with more frequent interactions across race and JULIE J. PARK is an assistant professor in the Downloaded from greater involvement in CCD activities. Findings indicate that both socioeconomic and racial diversity are essential to promoting a positive campus racial climate and that racial and socioeconomic diversity, while interrelated, are not interchangeable. Implications for the campus climate for diversity are discussed.
Student organizations play a vital role in campus life. Besides providing an opportunity for stud... more Student organizations play a vital role in campus life. Besides providing an opportunity for students to become involved in campus activities and leadership development, they are one of the primary vehicles for students to develop relationships and friendships outside of the classroom. Student organizations are not the only way that students develop peer groups during college, but they are one of the key university-recognized structures that support relationships within the collegiate community. Accordingly, they may shape patterns of cross-racial interaction.
We use the Critical Race Theory frameworks of interest convergence and divergence to critique the... more We use the Critical Race Theory frameworks of interest convergence and divergence to critique the anti-affirmative action movement's co-option of Asian Americans. Past discussions of affirmative action and Asian Americans mainly concentrate on how Asian Americans are affected by affirmative action, whether positively or negatively. We demonstrate how Asian American collegiate experiences ought to affect public understanding of affirmative action itself by demonstrating the need for broader conceptualizations of meritocracy and critical mass.
Religion is the most segregated arena of American life, but its effect on collegiate diversity ou... more Religion is the most segregated arena of American life, but its effect on collegiate diversity outcomes has been overlooked, despite the significance of both race and religion in many students' lives. This study examines whether religious observance, religious worldview identification, and participation in a religious student organization are significantly related to cross-racial interaction (CRI), a form of bridging social capital , during college. The current study yielded largely positive relationships between general religiosity and CRI. General religiosity was also positively linked to CRI for Asian American, white, and black students. CRI was higher for students from minority religious backgrounds. Participation in campus religious groups was nonsignificant, regardless of the racial composition of the group. Findings are surprising given previous work that has mainly found negative relationships between religion and diversity-related outcomes in college. We discuss implications for the study of the campus climate and the effect of religion on campus race relations.
Using structural equation modeling, this study examined the effects of peer environments on colle... more Using structural equation modeling, this study examined the effects of peer environments on collegiate interracial friendship and how such effects vary by students' race. The results show that the peer environment of Greek life mediated the relationship between structural diversity and interracial friendship in college, in that students attending institutions with greater structural diversity were less likely to frequently interact with peers from Greek life, which had a positive effect on interracial friendship. This mediation effect was consistent for all four racial groups of the study. This study also uncovers unique findings related to Latino/as and interracial friendship: that structural diversity has an indirect effect on interracial friendship via participation in ethnic student organizations for Latino/a students and that participation in ethnic student organizations is also directly and positively linked to interracial friendship for this group. The study discusses implications for understanding intergroup relations and patterns of interracial friendship.
Higher education researchers and practitioners have emphasized the educational benefits of foster... more Higher education researchers and practitioners have emphasized the educational benefits of fostering meaningful interracial interaction on college campuses. The link between cross-racial interaction and student growth has received considerable empirical attention, but far less is known about whether and when interracial friendship predicts student outcomes. Multiple theoretical frameworks suggest that these two types of inter-personal diversity experiences may have differential effects. The present study examined this issue using a 4-year longitudinal dataset with 2,932 undergraduates at 28 institutions. Regardless of students' race/ethnicity, cross-racial interaction is consistently associated with desired student outcomes, whereas close interracial friendship is often unrelated to these same outcomes.
Journal Articles by Julie Park
Stereotypes of outgroups help create social identificational boundaries for ingroups. When the in... more Stereotypes of outgroups help create social identificational boundaries for ingroups. When the ingroup is dominant, members employ individualist sentiments to justify their status. In this study, we build on advances in social psychological research that account for multiple out-group stereotypes. We argue the Asian American model minority stereotype is analogous tothe ‘‘cold but competent’’ position of perceptions toward Asians in Fiske’s stereotype content model. Asian Americans are perceived to be exceptional to other minority groups, and we hypothesize that perceived competence is associated with individualist sentiments directed at Blacks and Latinos. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen, we find support for our hypotheses but find that perceived coldness has no relationship to individualist sentiments. We discuss the implications and directions for further research.
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Papers by Julie Park
Journal Articles by Julie Park