What Are the Long-Term Effects of Learning About Racism?

What happens when a diversity class is over? How does awareness change during the course of the subsequent year? Only a handful of studies have addressed this question, and none has done so by examining the same participants before the class starts, when it is finished, and 1 year later. Our findings showed that although students' awareness and attitudes shifted during a diversity course in psychology (as has been previously shown), some of the changes appear to plateau or even wane in the intervening year. Encouragingly, this is balanced by increased feelings of comfort with racial issues and an apparent increase in interaction with those of other races.