Incorporating Diversity Content Into Courses and Concerns About Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

I examined concerns surrounding teaching culturally diverse students and attitudes toward incorporating diversity content into courses, held by a national sample of psychology educators ( N = 91). Findings indicated that as instructors’ personal acceptance of culturally diverse students increased, instructors’ level of “backlash” attitudes toward those students decreased, and instructors attached a greater level of importance to incorporating diversity issues into their course content. Lower levels of instructor concern surrounding managing cultural differences in the classroom was associated with instructors attaching a greater level of importance to incorporating diversity issues into course content. Instructors of color spent a significantly greater amount of class time teaching about diversity issues in their psychology courses than their European American counterparts. I discuss implications of these findings for established and future psychology educators.