1) Are black students more likely than their white peers to bring up different issues or topics in these classes? If so, are there significant race differences in the degree to which students reference different sociological institutions, cultural symbols, and demographics categories?
2) Do students with different race backgrounds utilize different strategies or resources in these course discussions?
1) Intersection with Key Sociological Categories: Research found that
students, regardless of race, were more likely to deal with intersections
between race and social institutions than they were to bring up
intersections of class, gender, or sexual orientation, or intersections with primary relationships like marriages. There was a difference in
intersection between race and social institutions with 19 percent of
black students dealing with three areas: politics, education, and criminal
justice systems, and 31 percent of white students dealing with these issues and various others.
2) Mentions of Racial/Cultural Institutions or Racial/Ethnic Groups:
There are no significant differences between black and white students
in the frequency at which they mention racial/ cultural institutions.
Qualitatively, the researchers did observe differences in the student
mentions of particular ethnic and racial groups. Postings by both black
and white authors were more likely to mention nonblacks and
nonwhites than they were to mention specific white ethnics. White
students were significantly more likely to mention these groups than
their black peers.
3) Invocation of Supplementary Materials: Black and white students
both contributed to the blogs invoking some supplementary material,
which accounted for nearly one third of the blogs overall. There was no
significant difference between black and white student mentions of
discussion occurring in other courses or in the average number of posts
including a link to a news story. There were racial differences in the
number of posts that mentioned the media, with black students
contributing nearly two thirds of these, with an average mention of two
per black student.
4) Experiences with Race or Racism: White students were more likely
than black students to introduce their secondhand experiences with
race or racism into the course discussion. Black students were much
more likely to describe their own experiences with race and to express
some emotion about it than their white peers.
5) Extending the Race Findings to Religion Discussions: There was no
significant difference between black and white students on the number
of blog posts referring to religious holidays or institutions. Whereas in
the race course, black students mentioned other races 1.3 times on
average, in the religion course black students averaged 3.3 blog posts in
references to non-Christians which is a significant difference. Mentions
of non-Christians between black and white students were not
significantly different.
Overall, this study shows that racial diversity in a classroom is necessary
for diverse contributions. However, the findings complicate the
argument, as the researchers find that black students contribute in two
major ways: invoking media depictions or race and religion as well as
describing personal experiences or emotions related to these social
phenomena. The researchers argue that the value of these
contributions, especially the latter, should not be taken for granted.