Examining how Racial Prejudice is Reduced Through Friendships

I conducted 15 interviews with non-white Hispanic students to ask them about their own racial identities and the importance of race and racial issues to their friendships. I interviewed 5 non-Hispanic white male students in fraternities and 5 non-Hispanic white female students in sororities because Greek Life is more racially homogenous than Colgate as a whole. I also interviewed 3 female and 2 male non-Hispanic white students because student-led religious life groups are more racially heterogenous. I chose students from these groups because I was trying to compare non-Hispanic white students with few friends of color to non-Hispanic white students with many friends of color. I asked interviewees about everything they are involved in at Colgate and all of the close friends they have had at Colgate. I wrote down every person they mentioned so I could refer to them later. I then ask interviewees about their relationships with their friends, what they talk about, what they do, etc. Next, I ask if they ever discuss politics or social issues with their friends. Finally, I ask about the importance of race to their own identities, to their friends' identities, to their conversations with friends, and to who they make friends with. In the end, I ask each interviewee to give me their best guesses for the race and gender of each person they mentioned as a friend. I also collected field notes for 10 to study what is said about race in everyday conversation rather than in an interview with me. Field notes were collected during 8 separate times in 3 different locations: Frank Dining Hall (main dining hall), The Coop (student union dining area), and The Jug (off-campus bar). I wrote down my best guess for the race and gender of everyone in the spaces I observed and who was socializing with who. I also wrote down everything I could hear people say.