Racial Attitudes of College Students from Urban and Rural Backgrounds

Based on the contact hypothesis, I hypothesized that college students from rural backgrounds, who are less likely to have had contact with members of minority groups, will be more likely to hold stereotypic beliefs about and may hold more negative attitudes toward those groups than students from urban areas, who have had more opportunities for intergroup contact. Students from Ball State University completed a questionnaire assessing depth of contact with African-Americans, negative and positive stereotypes of African-Americans, affective prejudice toward African-Americans, symbolic racism, and perceived threat and perceived competitiveness toward African-Americans. Contrary to the hypothesis, there were no differences between students from urban and rural backgrounds on the indicators of prejudice. However, students from rural backgrounds did report having less contact with African-Americans and intergroup contact was negatively related to prejudice. These results suggest that personal experiences maybe better indicators of prejudice than demographic background