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Leveraging a Pride Perspective on Difference to Foster Student Achievement and Success

Nicole M. Stephens

Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

MarYam G. Hamedani

Center for Social Psychological Answers to Real-world Questions (SPARQ),

Stanford University

Sarah S. M. Townsend

Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California

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Abstract This article presents a new way to help disadvantaged students succeed in higher education:

pride interventions. Pride interventions teach students a contextual and asset-based

understanding of social difference, leveraging the idea that people’s different backgrounds are an

important source of identity, meaning, and motivation. We propose that pride interventions have

two key benefits: improving disadvantaged students’ academic performance and increasing all

students’ understandings of difference. We begin by describing “pride” vs. “prejudice”

perspectives on social difference, and discuss how these perspectives suggest different ways to

intervene. Second, we review scholarship from education, cultural psychology, and

organizational behavior, which documents that acknowledging or including people’s diverse

backgrounds in their schools and workplaces can improve performance. Third, we use our recent

research on difference-education as an example to illustrate how pride interventions can improve

students’ academic and social outcomes over time. Specifically, we theorize that pride

interventions benefit disadvantaged students (e.g., first-generation students) by providing a

contextual and asset-based understanding of difference that increases their sense of fit and

empowerment in college. Finally, we outline additional benefits of pride interventions, and

describe strategies that researchers and educators can employ to effectively educate students

about social difference in today’s diverse and divided world.

Word Count: 200

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Leveraging a Pride Perspective on Difference to Foster Student Achievement and Success

The culture of American higher education, especially at elite colleges and universities,

reflects and promotes assumptions about what it means to be “smart,” “educated,” and

“successful.” These assumptions are not neutral, but are instead powerfully shaped by White,

middle-to-upper class beliefs, norms, and values (e.g., Fryberg, Covarrubias, & Burack, 2013;

Quaye & Harper, 2014). As a result, students of color, as well as students from low-income or

working-class backgrounds, often feel excluded in these educational settings, which can lead

them to question whether they fit or belong in college (e.g., Covarrubias & Fryberg, 2015;

Ostrove & Long, 2007; Walton & Cohen, 2007). Students from low-income or working-class

backgrounds can also be unfamiliar with the “rules of the game” needed to succeed in higher

education, which can undermine their sense of empowerment and efficacy (e.g., Housel &

Harvey, 2010; Ostrove & Long, 2007; Reay, Crozier, & Clayton, 2009). Taken together,

participating in these kinds of mainstream college environments can systematically disadvantage

underrepresented students,1 and contribute to the persistent achievement gap between these

students and their advantaged peers (Astin & Oseguera, 2004; Bowen, Kurzweil, & Tobin, 2005;

Croizet & Millet, 2011; Goudeau & Croizet, 2017; Sirin, 2005). These psychological challenges

work alongside disparities in resources and pre-college preparation to fuel the achievement gap.

In recent years, college student activists have organized to spotlight these kinds of

disparate educational experiences and the unequal outcomes they can produce (Wong, 2015;

Wong & Green, 2016). On campuses across the nation, these activists have joined together to

bring attention to numerous ways that institutions of higher education can marginalize students,

as well as produce and maintain disparities in students’ social experiences, academic

1 By the term underrepresented, we refer to students who are underrepresented in higher education—for example, students who are first-generation, low income, and/or racial or ethnic minorities.

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performance, and access to opportunities. Student activists have proposed several strategies that

they hope will mitigate these inequities and increase inclusion on their campuses. One proposed

strategy is for schools to implement new programs designed to educate students, faculty, and

staff about the ways in which people’s different backgrounds and social group memberships can

shape their experiences in college and in life, including how they understand themselves, relate

to others, and experience the world (cf., Libresco, 2015). For example, student activists at

Princeton demanded cultural competency training for staff and faculty at the university, as well

as mandatory classes on “the history of marginalized peoples” for students. As these Princeton

activists wrote in their list of demands, “Learning about marginalized groups, their cultures, and

structures of privilege is just as important as any science or quantitative reasoning course.”

Student activists’ demands tap into the larger public conversation about what it means to

be an equal, inclusive, and just society today, especially as the U.S. population becomes more

diverse and grapples with what this diversity means. Today’s multicultural and interconnected

world requires the skills to both understand and navigate across various forms of social

difference, such as those due to race or ethnicity, social class, religion, gender, nation of origin,

and sexuality.2 In fact, educators at leading schools, colleges, and universities across the country

increasingly identify this capacity as critical to a 21st-century education (Binkley et al., 2012;

Harper, 2008; Hurtado, 2007; Soland, Hamilton, & Stecher, 2013). Importantly, efforts to

educate students about difference and inequality would not only help to address student activists’

2 The term social difference refers to the systematic variation in people’s experiences, opportunities, or outcomes that can emerge from different prior experiences in particular contexts over time (Adams, Biernat, Branscombe, Crandall, & Wrightsman, 2008; Bruner, 1990; Markus, 2008; Omi & Winant, 1986). These differences, however, are rarely seen as neutral and are often associated with particular systems of hierarchy and oppression (Markus, 2008; Markus & Moya, 2010).

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concerns, but also provide a way to begin building the crucial understanding and multicultural

skills that are needed in today’s diverse and divided world.3

Can we take advantage of this timely opportunity to educate students about social

difference and inequality while, at the same time, leveraging these insights to help mitigate

persistent disparities in students’ college experiences and academic performance? Bringing

together insights from successful social psychological interventions and literatures in education,

cultural psychology, and organizational behavior, we propose that interventions that

communicate a pride perspective on social difference have the potential to accomplish both of

these important goals. Teaching students a pride perspective on difference means helping them

understand, first, how and why social differences matter, and, second, that social differences can

be a source of identity, meaning, and motivation. We theorize that this perspective can benefit

students from diverse backgrounds, enable them to feel like they fit in college, and empower

them with the know-how and skills that they need to succeed.

In this article, we begin by describing “pride” vs. “prejudice” perspectives on social

difference, and discuss how these perspectives inform different ways to intervene to help

disadvantaged students succeed in school. We then review evidence supporting the efficacy of

pride interventions, and use our recent research on difference-education as an example to

illustrate our theory of how pride interventions can improve students’ academic and social

outcomes over time (cf. Stephens, Hamedani, & Destin, 2014; Stephens, Townsend, Hamedani,

Destin, & Manzo, 2015; Townsend, Stephens, Smallets, & Hamedani, 2017). Finally, we outline

additional benefits—beyond improving the academic performance of disadvantaged students—

3 Like all social psychological interventions, educating students about difference on its own is not a panacea. Sustained changes to individuals’ experiences and outcomes require not only changing individuals, but also changing the institutions that would support and sustain these individual-level changes over time (e.g., changes to policy or practice).

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that a pride intervention can produce for all students, and describe strategies that a pride

intervention can employ to effectively educate students about difference.

Social Psychology: Ambivalence about Difference

What can social psychology tell us about the promises and pitfalls of educating students

about difference? The field provides us with two divergent answers to this question: that calling

attention to differences between social groups can either serve as a source of pride or as a source

of prejudice.

As Markus (2008) argues in her article, “Pride, Prejudice, and Ambivalence: Toward a

Unified Theory of Race and Ethnicity,” social psychology’s first and most common answer is

that calling attention to social difference is a source of prejudice. From this perspective, focusing

on differences between people or social groups is largely viewed as a situational threat.

Differences are seen as negative or divisive because, when they are acknowledged or become

salient, they have the potential to result in stereotyping, bias, and discrimination. As she

explains, this common view of difference derives from the field’s historic desire to distinguish

itself from personality and clinical psychology by locating people’s differences in external and

malleable social situations, rather than internal, stable, or “essential” traits or characteristics. This

prejudice view of difference is also grounded in social psychology’s commitment to

understanding the basic processes by which the immediate situation fuels biased cognition,

emotion, and behavior, rather than the ways in which those processes might be culture-specific,

or function differently for particular social groups. The prejudice literature includes work on

intergroup relations, implicit bias, social categorization, and social identity threat. This literature

tends to view attending to difference as detrimental because of its potential to foster intergroup

conflict, as well as to make people feel threatened, devalued, or excluded (e.g., Brewer & Miller,

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1984; Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000; Steele, 2010; for discussion see Gurin & Nagda, 2006; Gurin,

Nagda, & Zúñiga, 2013).

The second and less common answer is that calling attention to social difference is not

only a source of bias and discrimination, but can also be a source of pride. From a pride

perspective, recognizing differences between people or social groups has the potential to be

positive or affirming because these differences are also a source of self or identity,4 meaning, and

motivation. As Markus (2008) describes, from a pride perspective, social differences are

contextual: they derive from people’s ongoing participation and repeated experiences in

particular sociocultural contexts5 over time. Since these contexts are diverse in cultural beliefs,

values, and practices, as well as material conditions and resources, so too are the people who

inhabit them. In other words, people’s ongoing participation in different social contexts (e.g.,

contexts that differ by race, ethnicity, or social class) produces different lived experiences,

which, in turn, shape the type of self that one is likely to become and how that self thinks, feels,

and acts in the world. These differences can be experienced or perceived positively or negatively

depending on the status, power dynamics, or valuations associated with a given background or

social group membership (Markus, 2008; Markus & Moya, 2010). While the pride perspective

certainly recognizes that social differences can be a source of prejudice, it also acknowledges

that we should not overlook the ways in which they can also function as a source of pride.

4 By the term self, we refer to the “me” at center of experience that continually develops through ongoing engagement in particular sociocultural contexts (Markus, 2008; Markus & Kitayama, 2010). The self can have and use multiple identities that shape how the individual makes sense of experience and responds to the environment. These identities can be personal, collective, social, or organizational. When we use the terms self or identity in this article, we utilize the terms that the researchers have used in the work that we reference. 5 The term sociocultural context refers to a socially and historically constructed environment that contains a set of culture-specific ideas, practices, and institutions (Markus & Hamedani, 2007; Stephens, Markus, & Fryberg, 2012).

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The pride literature includes work on cultural models of self; the sociocultural shaping of

thought, feeling, and action; and identity-based motivation (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991,

Markus & Kitayama, 2010; Mesquita & Frijda, 1992; Oyserman, Fryberg, & Yoder, 2007). This

literature tends to view attending to and acknowledging difference as worthwhile because of its

potential to serve as a source of meaning, motivation, and engagement; affirm or empower the

self; and foster group-based identity and solidarity. Research on culture and the self, for

example, reveals that coming from a working-class background need not be experienced as a

disadvantage in high status workplace environments, but can instead serve as an asset or

strength. For example, in an interview study with Masters in Business Administration students,

one student from a working-class background stated: “There’s a lot of pride that you take in

being self-made to a certain degree, not having people open those doors for you, having to

recognize opportunities and seize them when the time came. And it teaches you a certain level of

work ethic and appreciation because it wasn’t just something that you fell into, you had to work

hard for it, so, you want to make the most of those opportunities” (Dittmann, Stephens, &

Townsend, 2017). While coming from a working-class background in college-educated

workplaces is often associated with needing to confront and overcome background-specific6

challenges (e.g., having limited cultural capital to succeed compared to middle- or upper-class

peers; Rivera, 2012; Rivera, 2015), it can also serve as an asset or strength—a source of pride

and motivation.

Pride and Prejudice Perspectives on Difference Lead to Different Ways to Intervene

Both the pride and prejudice perspectives on social difference are informative and useful,

yet offer different ways to explain educational disparities between groups, as well as suggest

6 The term background-specific refers to content (e.g., obstacles, strengths, or strategies) that is especially relevant to students from particular backgrounds.

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different ways to intervene to reduce these disparities. Keeping the pride and prejudice

perspectives in mind, consider how they might explain the underperformance of first-generation

or working-class7 college students—i.e., students who have neither parent with a four-year

degree—in higher education. Viewing social difference through a prejudice perspective, for

example, might lead you to focus on the features or cues in the immediate situation that could be

threatening and hold students back. For example, the stereotype threat literature demonstrates

that making social class differences salient in performance situations can activate negative

stereotypes about working-class students’ intellectual abilities, increase their levels of stress and

anxiety, and undermine their academic engagement, identification, and performance (Croizet &

Claire, 1998; Croizet & Millet, 2011; Spencer & Castano, 2007; Steele, 1997).

Since the prejudice perspective views difference as a source of situational threat,

interventions grounded in this perspective seek to buffer or protect students from negative

experiences that can result from social difference. Specifically, these interventions tend to focus

on protecting students from the threat of social difference by changing how students construe

their experiences of social identity threat. For example, “belongingness” interventions change

how students construe their particular experiences of adversity so that they interpret it as a

common experience that is shared with other students (e.g., Walton & Cohen, 2007; Yeager et

al., 2016). Similarly, “affirmation” interventions seek to buffer students from social identity

threat by affirming students’ personal values and thereby broadening how they construe their

experiences of adversity (e.g., Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006; Sherman et al., 2013). A

7 Given that parental educational attainment is widely regarded as a proxy for students’ social class backgrounds (e.g., Sirin, 2005; Snibbe & Markus, 2005; Stephens, Markus, & Townsend, 2007), throughout this article, we refer to first-generation students as working-class or as from working-class backgrounds.

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number of popular and successful social psychological interventions that seek to reduce

educational disparities are informed by this prejudice perspective (cf. Brady, Reeves, et al., 2016;

Cohen & Sherman, 2014; Kinias & Sim, in press; Miyake et al., 2010; Sherman et al., 2013;

Walton & Cohen, 2007).

On the other hand, viewing social difference through a pride perspective would involve

explaining the underperformance of first-generation students in a different way. The pride

perspective would take into account not only cues in the immediate situation that could hold

students back, but also how first-generation students’ different experiences in previous

sociocultural contexts and culture-specific selves might cause them to experience a culture clash

with the middle-to-upper class culture of higher education. For example, the literature on cultural

models of self demonstrates that many mainstream educational settings exclude or devalue

working-class students’ culture-specific selves and ways of being, and that acknowledging or

including these students’ different perspectives or experiences can significantly improve their

engagement, motivation, and performance (e.g., Brannon, Markus, & Taylor, 2015; Covarrubias,

Herrmann, & Fryberg, 2016; Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, Johnson, & Covarrubias, 2012).

While there is a growing body of empirical work in social psychology demonstrating the

benefits of including students’ backgrounds in their educational experiences (e.g., Brannon et al.,

2015; Cheryan, Plaut, Davies, & Steele, 2009), to our knowledge, educational interventions

designed to leverage the pride perspective to help disadvantaged students succeed academically

have not been tried until recently. Since the pride perspective views social difference as a

potential source of identity, meaning, and motivation, interventions guided by this perspective

would seek to leverage the positive and empowering benefits of difference by acknowledging its

significance in students’ lives. A pride intervention would teach students a new way of

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understanding8 their own and others’ social differences—both their experiences of feeling

different from others in college and actually encountering different experiences as they engage in

college environments. This understanding can help students learn how their different

backgrounds can shape their experiences and that feeling different from others can also be

positive and serve as an asset or strength.

We theorize that teaching students the pride perspective should enable them to gain an

understanding of social difference that is both contextual and asset-based. That is, students

would learn: (1) that people’s social differences are often contextual (i.e., shaped by their

backgrounds or previous participation in diverse sociocultural contexts), and that (2) social

differences can be assets (i.e., experienced as assets or strengths, not only as challenges, deficits,

or obstacles to overcome). Understanding that difference is contextual and can be an asset should

normalize students’ social differences and help them understand what they need to do to be

successful, thereby increasing their sense of fit and comfort in college. For example, when first-

generation students confront background-specific obstacles in college (e.g., feeling uncertain

about the best way to select a major), this understanding can help them see that these challenges

may be due to their backgrounds (e.g., not having college-educated parents), rather than because

they do not belong or have what it takes to succeed in college. This understanding can also help

students see that their backgrounds have afforded them with strengths or assets to overcome

challenges (e.g., being the kind of person that does not give up), and that someone “like them”

can draw on these assets to succeed (e.g., seeking out additional mentorship from professors). As

8 This approach builds on the core methodological strategy of existing successful social psychological interventions: providing people with a new mindset or lay theory to change how they understand their experience and behavior (Wilson, 2011; Yeager et al., 2016). Lay theories are “fundamental assumptions about the self and social world that guide how individuals perceive, construe, and understand their experiences” (Molden & Dweck, 2006, p. 193).

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a result, first-generation students can feel empowered, rather than threatened, both because they

understand the source of their challenges as well as know what they can do to overcome them.

We propose that pride interventions can accomplish the important goal of fostering

academic success for disadvantaged students, while, at the same time, educating all students

about how and why their differences matter. To support this claim, we first provide an overview

of previous research from education, cultural psychology, and organizational behavior, which

documents that acknowledging or including people’s diverse backgrounds in their schools and

workplaces can produce positive performance-related outcomes. Then, we draw on an example

of a pride intervention that we designed—difference-education—to illustrate our theory of how

pride interventions can produce important academic and social benefits for students.

Evidence to Support the Efficacy of Pride Interventions

To explore whether a pride approach to intervention can accomplish the dual goals of

improving disadvantaged students’ academic performance in college, while also educating

students about social differences, we reviewed several literatures in education, cultural

psychology, and organizational behavior. Together these literatures provide robust evidence that

including students’ or employees’ different backgrounds and experiences in their schools and

workplaces can improve their engagement, motivation, and performance.

Theory and research in education suggests that engaging students’ differences is one key

pathway to foster their success. This research shows that incorporating students’ diverse

backgrounds and experiences into teaching and learning is critical to providing them with an

inclusive and equitable environment in which they can thrive academically. These literatures

include research in multicultural education (Au, 2009; Banks, 2007; Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003;

Noddings, 2005; Sleeter & Grant, 2009); culturally responsive, sustaining, or empowering

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pedagogies (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris & Alim, 2014); intergroup dialogues

(Gurin & Nagda, 2006; Gurin et al., 2013; Zúñiga, Lopez, & Ford, 2012); social justice or

critical education (Adams, Bell, & Griffin, 2007; Carlisle, Jackson, & George, 2006; Freire,

1970/2001; Morrison, Robbins, & Rose, 2008); youth citizenship and activism (Cammarota,

2011; Ginwright & James, 2002; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004); and community-engaged learning

(Butin, 2007; Westheimer & Kahne, 2007). Moreover, recent studies examining the effects of

ethnic studies curricula in schools provide robust empirical support for this claim. Analyses

using administrative data from the Tucson Unified School District indicated that taking Mexican

American Studies classes was positively associated with both passing Arizona state standardized

tests and graduating from high school (Cabrera, Milem, Jaquette, & Marx, 2014). In a similar

study that looked at San Francisco high schools, researchers estimated the causal effects of

assigning students to take an ethnic studies course in ninth grade. The results indicated that

assignment to this course increased ninth-grade student attendance by 21 percentage points,

GPAs by 1.4 grade points, and credits earned by 23 (Dee & Penner, 2016).

Supporting this work in education, research in cultural psychology provides further

evidence explaining why a pride approach to intervention should foster student success.

Research on cultural models of self; the sociocultural shaping of thought, feeling, and action; and

identity-based motivation demonstrates that connecting students’ selves or identities to their

academic environments (e.g., classrooms), behaviors (e.g., completing a homework assignment),

and schoolwork (e.g., an essay prompt) results in greater academic engagement, motivation, and

performance (Brannon et al., 2015; Cheryan et al., 2009; Cheryan, Ziegler, Montoya, & Jiang, in

press; Hamedani, Markus, & Fu, 2013; Fryberg et al., 2013; Fryberg & Markus, 2007; Fu &

Markus, 2014; Syed, Azmitia, & Cooper, 2011). Similarly, identity-based motivation theory

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asserts that people are more likely to take action when the action of interest is congruent with

their identities (Oyserman et al., 2007). For example, including African American college

students’ culture-specific ideas or practices in their coursework (e.g., reading a book like The

Color Purple) can increase these students’ academic persistence (Brannon et al., 2015).

Likewise, including female-friendly ideas about what it means to be a computer scientist in

classroom environments increases women’s interest in entering the field (Cheryan et al., 2009;

see also Cheryan, Master, & Meltzoff, 2015).

Research in organizational behavior provides further evidence that engaging people’s

differences can help them feel like they belong and improve their performance; in this case, by

improving employees’ experiences and job performance in the workplace. Research on

organizational culture and climate, employee socialization, as well as person-environment fit,

suggests that providing a workplace context that acknowledges and supports employees’

different experiences and perspectives can improve trust, reduce attrition, and bolster

performance (e.g., Cable, Gino, & Staats, 2013; Chatman, 1991; Denison & Mishra, 1995). For

example, Cable and colleagues (2013) demonstrate that socialization practices that provide

employees with an opportunity to bring their unique personal identities into the workplace

increase employee retention compared with traditional practices that do not recognize

employees’ diverse identities and backgrounds. Moreover, research on diversity messaging

suggests that underrepresented groups tend to benefit more from diversity messages that

acknowledge the significance of social difference, rather than those that deny or ignore those

differences (Apfelbaum, Sommers, & Norton, 2008; Ely & Thomas, 2001; Plaut, 2010; Plaut,

Thomas, & Goren, 2009; Purdie-Vaughns, Steele, Davies, Ditlmann, & Crosby, 2008). Finally,

research on job crafting suggests that bringing the work context, including the key components

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of one’s job, into alignment with employees’ particular identities or meaning-systems can bolster

performance and engagement (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001).

Together this work in education, cultural psychology, and organizational behavior

suggests that recognizing or including people’s diverse backgrounds in their schools and

workplaces can produce positive performance-related outcomes. In the next section, we use an

example of a pride intervention that we designed—called difference-education—to illustrate our

theory of how pride interventions can produce important academic and social benefits for

students.

What Does a Pride Intervention Look Like? The Example of Difference-Education

The goal of pride interventions is to teach students a contextual and asset-based

understanding of social difference. These interventions could communicate this understanding,

however, through a number of different formats. Pride interventions, for example, could take the

form of an ethnic studies course curriculum, a memoir or documentary, or small group

discussions with a moderator. As a first step, we opted to teach students a pride perspective on

social difference using a simulated dialogue among students from diverse backgrounds, which

we call difference-education.

Difference-education is the first social psychological intervention to leverage a pride

perspective on difference to reduce achievement gaps between social groups. The defining

feature of a difference-education intervention is that it uses the contrasting real-life stories of

both advantaged and disadvantaged students from diverse backgrounds to encourage intervention

participants to see social differences through a pride perspective. These contrasting personal

narratives simulate the experience of “dialoguing about difference” (Gurin et al., 2013), and help

intervention participants learn about how people’s diverse backgrounds and prior life

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experiences can matter for their own and others’ experiences in college—in both positive and

negative ways. This difference-education intervention builds on insights derived from research

on the benefits of students’ participation in intergroup dialogues and diversity courses (e.g.,

Cole, Case, Rios, & Curtin, 2011; Gurin & Nagda, 2006; Gurin et al., 2013; Nelson Laird, 2005;

Zúñiga et al., 2012). In particular, this research suggests the importance of not only

acknowledging the significance of diversity, but of also going deeper to provide students with a

meaningful educational experience that teaches them frameworks or analytical tools to

understand the complex and varied ways in which social differences operate in their own and

others’ lives.

We tested this difference-education intervention with first-generation9 college students to

see if we could improve their experiences and academic outcomes over time (Stephens,

Hamedani, et al., 2014). As noted earlier, due to the predominantly middle- and upper-class

culture of higher education (Bernstein, 1974; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; Bourdieu &

Wacquant, 1992; Stephens, Markus, & Phillips, 2014), many first-generation students feel

different from other students and question whether they fit in and have what it takes to succeed

(cf. Stephens, Brannon, Markus, & Nelson, 2015; Stephens, Fryberg, et al., 2012). By providing

students with a contextual and asset-based understanding of difference, this difference-education

intervention should therefore help first-generation students to overcome the two key

psychological obstacles that they face in higher education: a lack of fit and empowerment.

9 We focused on first-generation students because researchers as well policymakers and practitioners have increasingly acknowledged the impact of students’ social class backgrounds on their outcomes in college, and have asked for solutions to improve their opportunity to succeed (cf., Goudeau & Croizet, 2017; Lott, 2002). Moreover, we focus on first-generation rather than low-income students because we are not only interested in the effects of lacking resources (e.g., income or wealth), but also the effects of not having the types of middle-class cultural capital that come from having parents who have obtained four-year college degrees.

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We use the term fit to refer to a sense of being welcomed, recognized, and included

within the college community (Shnabel, Purdie-Vaughns, Cook, Garcia, & Cohen, 2013; Walton

& Cohen, 2007, 2011). Illustrating what it is like to experience a lack of fit, a first-generation

student from Vanderbilt recounted, “Never before had I truly felt such an extreme sense of

estrangement and alienation… I quickly realized that although I may look the part, my cultural

and socio-economic backgrounds were vastly different from those of my predominantly white,

affluent peers. I wanted to leave” (Riggs, 2014, para. 2). We use the term empowerment to refer

to both: (1) the psychological experience of preparedness, efficacy, ownership, and control over

one’s experience (cf., Gurin et al., 2013) and (2) the understanding of and willingness to enact

the strategies needed to make the most of one’s experience. Describing the lack of empowerment

she felt upon entering college, one first-generation student from Cornell said, “I had no road map

for what I was supposed to do once I made it to campus… Aside from a check-in with my

financial aid officer…I was mostly keeping to myself to hide the fact that I was a very special

kind of lost” (Capó Crucet, 2015, para. 15).

To experimentally investigate whether the difference-education intervention could

improve first-generation college students’ social and academic outcomes by improving their

sense of fit and empowerment, we recruited first-year students at an elite university at the

beginning of the academic year. To assess the benefits of this approach in a rigorous way, we

randomly assigned half of the participants to attend a difference-education intervention and the

other half to attend a control intervention. In both conditions, incoming students attended a panel

in which more senior students told personal stories about how they adjusted to and found success

in college. Both sets of stories were comparable in valence, length, and appeal. The incoming

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students and panelists included both first-generation and continuing-generation students (i.e.,

students who have at least one parent with a 4-year degree).

In the difference-education intervention, panelists’ stories provided a contextual and

asset-based understanding of social difference. To provide a contextual understanding, students’

stories linked their social class backgrounds to the different kinds of experiences that they had in

college. In particular, the stories revealed how students’ backgrounds helped shape: (1) the

challenges or obstacles that they were likely to confront, as well as (2) the strengths and

strategies that they leveraged to be successful. To convey an asset-based understanding of social

difference, the stories also revealed how students’ diverse backgrounds can be an asset or

strength, not only a source of difficulty or challenge.10 Importantly, this contextual and asset-

based understanding of social difference was communicated by not only linking each of the

panelist’s personal stories to their particular social class backgrounds, but also more holistically,

by showcasing the systematic variation in panelists’ stories throughout the panel.

For instance, to highlight the different kinds of challenges or obstacles that students from

different social class backgrounds frequently confront, panelists were asked, “Can you provide

an example of an obstacle that you faced when you came to [university name] and how you

resolved it?” One first-generation panelist responded, “Because my parents didn’t go to college,

they weren’t always able to provide me the advice I needed, so it was sometimes hard to figure

out which classes to take and what I wanted to do in the future.” This first-generation story

conveys a contextual understanding of difference by linking the student’s previous social class

context (i.e., not having college-educated parents) to an obstacle he faced in college (i.e., not

10 To convey a realistic and balanced understanding of social difference, we did not provide a wholly positive representation of how students’ backgrounds can affect their college experiences. We contend that focusing on strengths alone would be unrealistic, or even counterproductive for students. We plan to test this idea in future research.

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knowing which classes to take). In contrast, after previously mentioning her parents’ graduate-

level degrees, one continuing-generation panelist responded, “I went to a small private school,

and it was great college prep. We got lots of one-on-one attention, so it was a big adjustment

going into classes with 300 people.” As in the first-generation story, the continuing-generation

story links the student’s social class background (i.e., having highly educated parents) to a

college obstacle (i.e., having less attention and support in college than in high school).

To further communicate a contextual understanding of difference, as well as highlight

how students’ backgrounds can serve as valuable assets, difference-education also helped

students see that their diverse social class backgrounds can positively inform the strategies and

strengths that they use to succeed in college. To provide examples of their strategies and

strengths, first- and continuing-generation student panelists discussed how they worked to

address and overcome the particular challenges that they confronted. For instance, after the first-

generation student in the example above described the difficult experience of not being able to

get specific advice about college and careers from his parents, he stated “there are other people

who can provide that advice, and I learned that I needed to rely on my adviser more than other

students.” In contrast, after the continuing-generation student in the example above described the

challenge of being overwhelmed in large classes, she explained “I felt less overwhelmed when I

took the time to get to know other students in the class.”

In addition to learning concrete strategies, students also heard the panelists describe their

background-specific strengths. For instance, to highlight their backgrounds as a source of

strength or as an asset, panelists were asked, “What experiences that you had prior to [university

name] prepared you to excel in ways that you wouldn’t have anticipated at the time?” After

describing her social class background, one first-generation panelist responded, “I’ve been

20

through a lot in my life, and am sure that I’m not alone in that experience, but that defines

everything about me. It gave me perspective that made [university name] a lot easier to tackle.

Midterms and papers seem hard, and they are, but at the same time they just seem like another

drop in the bucket, and I love that perspective.” This first-generation story links the student’s

social class background (i.e., overcoming adversity due to coming from a family without college

education) to a strength (i.e., having a broad perspective) that could serve as a source of identity,

meaning, and motivation.

Likewise, after describing her parents as having obtained college degrees, one

continuing-generation panelist responded, “My choice to attend [university name] really was

supported by everyone in my family. There was no sort of imposition by my parents, “you need

to go to the University of Texas”, or anything like that. It was like, ‘wherever you want to go

we’ll fully support you in any way that we really can,’ and so they were very open with it.” As in

the first-generation story, the continuing-generation story links the student’s social class

background (i.e., having college-educated parents) to a strength (i.e., having parents that are

open and supportive) that could serve as a source of identity, meaning, and motivation.11

Students in the control intervention, in contrast, were exposed to similar stories, but these

stories did not communicate a contextual and asset-based understanding of difference. That is,

the panelists’ stories did not include background-specific information about how their social

class backgrounds shaped their college experiences. Using the same panelists and format,

students also told personal stories about their experiences in college—in particular, the

challenging obstacles that they faced, and the strengths and strategies that they leveraged to be

11 Unlike first-generation students, continuing-generation students do not tend to experience concerns about whether their backgrounds could be a deficiency in college. While they may still benefit from this asset-based understanding of difference, it might help them in a different way than first-generation students. We discuss this later in the paper.

21

successful. For example, panelists were asked, “What do you do to be successful in your

classes?” One panelist first told her story12 about an obstacle she faced in college (e.g., the

coursework was difficult) and then suggested a strategy for success, “Go to class, and pay

attention. If you don’t understand something or have a hard time with the material, meet with

your teaching assistant or professor during office hours.” As in the difference-education

condition, participants in the control condition learned about panelists’ different experiences in

college, including the challenges they faced (e.g., a student found coursework to be difficult),

and the strengths and strategies that they learned to be successful (e.g., a student found it helpful

to meet with a professor). Notably, across both conditions, participants learned the same types of

strategies for success, such as seeking help from peers and professors. The key difference

between the conditions was that students in the control condition did not learn how their own and

others’ backgrounds could inform their experiences in college (i.e., their obstacles, strengths, or

strategies for success).

Difference-education Teaches Students About Difference and Closes the Achievement Gap

Outcomes of difference-education. To examine whether a pride intervention can

accomplish the dual goals of educating students about how difference matters, while also

reducing achievement gaps between groups, we provide an overview of the social and academic

outcomes of difference-education. To identify these outcomes, in an initial study, we followed

intervention participants throughout their first two years of college, conducting a series of

12 Across conditions, the stories were as similar as possible. That is, both sets of stories included the same panelists, format, and strategies for success. They were also comparable in valence, length, and appeal. Yet, the stories could not be identical. If the stories were identical across both conditions (e.g., if the control condition contained the story of a student being embarrassed about relying on financial aid), then the participants in the control condition would have been able to infer the panelists’ social class backgrounds, and thus, they would have gained the same message about how students’ backgrounds matter.

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surveys and an in-person laboratory study (Stephens, Hamedani, et al., 2014; Stephens,

Townsend, et al., 2015).

First, suggesting that the difference-education intervention effectively educated students

about difference (i.e., provided the contextual and asset-based understanding of difference), a

survey administered soon after the intervention revealed that intervention participants reported

that they learned how their different backgrounds matter in college. Further, suggesting that

students retained the contextual and asset-based understanding of social difference, and gained

some multicultural skills associated with that understanding, follow-up surveys one and two

years later showed that participants had greater appreciation for difference, higher levels of

perspective-taking, and an increased comfort and willingness to discuss their backgrounds with a

peer (Stephens, Hamedani, et al., 2014; Stephens, Townsend, et al., 2015).

Second, an analysis of students’ official first-year grades revealed that the difference-

education intervention effectively reduced the social class achievement gap: first-generation

students in the difference-education condition earned higher end-of-year grades than their

counterparts in the control condition (Stephens, Hamedani, et al., 2014). This improvement in

grades was explained by an increase in first-generation students’ empowerment—in this case,

operationalized as an increased tendency to engage in the behaviors needed to be successful at

their university (e.g., seeking campus resources; Stephens, Hamedani, et al., 2014). In a

replication study, we tested the difference-education intervention using different methods (i.e.,

the same intervention content was administered individually and online) at another university,

and found the same grades benefits for first-generation students (Townsend et al., 2017). Like

the first study, the improvement in grades was explained by empowerment—in this case,

operationalized as a greater sense of efficacy, preparedness, and control (Townsend et al., 2017).

23

Beyond the academic benefits, in the initial study of difference-education (Stephens,

Hamedani, et al., 2014), we also found that the difference-education intervention helped all

students—both first-generation and continuing-generation—to experience a higher quality

college transition, as well as academic and social experience, compared to the control condition.

In particular, they showed higher levels of academic identification, perceived academic

preparation, psychological wellbeing, and social fit, as well as reduced stress and anxiety. In

addition, at the end of their second year in college, difference-education again produced benefits

for both first- and continuing-generation students. In a follow up study, difference-education

participants showed greater willingness to talk about their backgrounds with a peer, displayed

higher levels of comfort in the face of academic stressors (i.e., based on their physiology), and

described feeling more academically prepared for college than control participants (Stephens,

Townsend, et al., 2015). Together these results provide the first evidence that a pride intervention

can accomplish the dual goals of educating students about difference, while, at the same time,

reducing the social class achievement gap.

How a contextual and asset-based understanding increases fit and empowerment among

first-generation students. Next, drawing on difference-education as an example of a pride

intervention, we describe the processes by which a pride intervention can improve first-

generation students’ academic and social outcomes over time. Specifically, we theorize that a

pride intervention provides a contextual and asset-based understanding of social difference that

can help to increase first-generation students’ sense of social fit and empowerment in college.

First, by showing students that difference is contextual, a pride intervention should serve

to communicate that difference is a normal and expected part of the college experience, thereby

increasing first-generation students’ comfort and fit (cf., Plaut, 2010). More specifically, when

24

first-generation students feel different from other students or face different challenges (e.g.,

feeling uncertain about the best way to select a major), this contextual understanding can help

them see that these different experiences are likely due to their backgrounds (e.g., not having

college-educated parents), rather than because they do not belong or have what it takes to

succeed in college. Supporting this claim, as described above, difference-education interventions

have been shown to increase first-generation students’ sense of social fit with the college

environment13 (Stephens, Hamedani, et al., 2014; Townsend et al., 2017). For example, after

participating in our difference-education intervention, a first-generation student described her

newfound sense of fit, recounting “I am a first-generation college student so it’s nice to know

that not everyone comes from a highly educated, upper middle class family. I feel like I’m an

outsider here, but the panel made it clear that’s not exactly how it is and you can be successful no

matter what background you come from.”

Second, by showing students how difference can be an asset, a pride intervention should

serve to communicate that students from different backgrounds can leverage their background-

specific strengths and strategies to find their own path to success in college, thereby increasing

first-generation students’ sense of empowerment (cf., Gurin et al., 2013). Specifically, when

first-generation students confront background-specific challenges, they can feel empowered,

rather than threatened, both because they understand the source of their challenges as well as

know what they can do to overcome them. Supporting this claim, as described above, difference-

education interventions are effective at improving students’ long term academic outcomes, in

13 As noted in the results section above, Stephens, Hamedani, et al., 2014 showed that difference-education increased social fit for both first- and continuing-generation students. In contrast, Townsend et al., 2017 found that difference-education improved social fit just for first-generation students. We return to this issue later when we discuss how the intervention can produce benefits for both disadvantaged and advantaged students.

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part, because they empower students with the concrete, behavioral strategies and also the

psychological entitlement that they need to take advantage of the resources available to them

(Stephens, Hamedani, et al., 2014; see also Townsend et al., 2017). After participating in our

difference-education intervention, one first-generation student described gaining a sense of

empowerment, stating, “I found that the panelists who came from backgrounds similar to mine

and […] who had parents that didn’t attend a university ran into many of the similar dilemmas

and obstacles in their lives. And I found this information that I received very helpful because I

realized that there are students here that have faced and overcome similar obstacles to me and it

just gives me a sense of encouragement that I can also overcome those obstacles.” Another

student added, “It might give me some insight when I actually go through those obstacles to see

what they did or maybe try out what they did and see if it works for me.”

Pride Interventions Can Benefit All Students

The results from difference-education show that a pride intervention can, in fact,

accomplish the dual goals of reducing the social class achievement gap while also educating

students about difference. However, given that pride interventions reduce achievement gaps by

providing all students with a new understanding of social difference (i.e., an understanding of

difference that is contextual and asset-based), they should provide an additional set of benefits

that go beyond improving disadvantaged students’ academic performance in college.

Specifically, we propose that educating students about social difference has potential to ease all

students’ transitions to college and also equip them with the multicultural skills that they need to

thrive both while in college and beyond. While the claim that pride interventions can help all

students is novel in the literature on social psychological interventions and academic

achievement, it is supported by our research on difference-education, as well as the literature on

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multicultural education, intergroup dialogues, and work on the benefits of diversity courses. As

education scholar Geneva Gay (1997) describes:

Multicultural education is intended for all students and deals with issues that affect

everyone. In other words, its [beneficiaries] are both the privileged and oppressed; the

European American majority as well as the many minority groups of color; the valiant

and the vanquished; men and women. (Gay, 1997, p. 5)

Consistent with Geneva Gay’s suggestion, we argue that, by educating all students about

the significance of social difference, pride interventions have the potential to benefit everyone.

First, by providing a contextual and asset-based understanding of difference, a pride intervention

has the potential to improve all students’ experiences as they transition to college. For example,

if a continuing-generation student were to face challenges due to her background (e.g., being

accustomed to having a lot of support from parents and then feeling lost in college),

understanding that difference is contextual and can be an asset could help that student see that

her different experiences are a normal and expected part of the college experience due to her

particular background. Such an understanding could foster a greater sense of ease and comfort

for this student, and, in turn, improve her ability to effectively adjust to college. As noted above,

difference-education did indeed improve the overall quality of the college transition (e.g.,

increased academic preparation, psychological wellbeing, and social fit) for both first-generation

and continuing-generation students. In contrast, most existing interventions that improve the

academic outcomes of disadvantaged students do not produce significant intervention benefits

for advantaged students (e.g., Cohen et al., 2006; Sherman et al., 2013; Walton & Cohen, 2007).

27

Second, by providing a contextual and asset-based understanding of social difference,

pride interventions have potential to not only improve the college transition for everyone, but

also help all students to better understand each other’s differences and equip them with the

multicultural skills to better navigate across those differences (cf. Banks, 2007; Gay, 1997; Gurin

et al., 2013; Noddings, 2005; Zúñiga et al., 2012). As noted above, difference-education did

indeed improve both first- and continuing-generation students’ understanding of and behavioral

responses to social difference in ways that suggest they gained multicultural skills (e.g.,

increased appreciation of difference, perspective-taking, and willingness to talk about their

backgrounds). In contrast, existing interventions that improve the academic outcomes of

disadvantaged students do not typically provide these types of multicultural skills (cf. Yeager &

Walton, 2011).14

Along the same lines, building on work on the benefits of intergroup dialogues and

diversity courses, we theorize, but have not yet tested, the hypothesis that pride interventions

should improve intergroup relations, increase community or civic engagement, decrease

students’ need to cover or hide their identities, and enable students to feel like they can be their

full, authentic selves (cf. Bowman, 2011; Cole et al., 2011; Ford & Malaney, 2012; Gurin et al.,

2013; Krings, Austic, Gutiérrez, & Dirksen, 2015; Nelson Laird, 2005; Yoshino, 2007). We also

theorize that providing a contextual and asset-based understanding has the potential to render the

larger institutional culture more open to and accepting of students from different backgrounds.

Strategies to Effectively Educate Students about Difference

Drawing on the example of difference-education, we have demonstrated that pride

interventions can accomplish the dual goals of fostering academic achievement for

14 While existing academic interventions do not document these types of multicultural benefits, it is possible that they do have other effects that have not yet been documented.

28

disadvantaged students, while also educating students about social difference. Yet, if

opportunities to learn about social difference are not delivered in the “right” way, as the

prejudice perspective has long acknowledged, students could experience them as threatening and

these efforts could instead undermine students’ performance (Bowman, 2010; Croizet & Claire,

1998; Milem, Chang, & Antonio, 2005). Given the challenges that come with discussing social

difference, an important question remains: what are some strategies that researchers or

practitioners can employ in a pride intervention in order to educate students about difference in a

way that is empowering, rather than threatening? Below we briefly describe these strategies, the

literatures that support why taking these steps is important, and how we would suggest

implementing these strategies in a pride intervention, using difference-education as an example.

Avoid stereotyping. When discussing social difference, research suggests that it is critical

to avoid stereotyping or making assumptions about people based on their social group

memberships. Instead, it is important to recognize the intersection of multiple identities that is

unique to each person (cf. Ashmore, Deaux, & McLaughlin-Volpe, 2004; Cole, 2009; Crenshaw,

1989, 1991; Gurin et al., 2013; Markus & Conner, 2013; Rosenthal, 2016; Shelton & Sellers,

2000). A large body of research on stereotyping and prejudice suggests that students will feel

threatened, and that their performance will be undermined, when others make broad

generalizations about who they are, or what skills or abilities they have, due to their social group

membership (e.g., Carter, 2007; Downey & Pribesh, 2004; Major, Spencer, Schmader, Wolfe, &

Crocker, 1998; McKown, 2013; Nasir, Snyder, Shah, & Ross, 2013; Oates, 2003; Schmader,

Major, & Gramzow, 2001; Steele, 1997, 2010).

In a pride intervention, multiple strategies can be used to meet this goal. First, it is

important to demonstrate variation in students’ experiences both across and within social groups;

29

signal that these social differences are tendencies or patterns, rather than one-to-one

relationships; and show that social differences are malleable, fluid, and subject to change with

new experiences. In the difference-education intervention, the panelists’ stories were designed to

differ not only across students’ social class backgrounds, but also within their particular social

class background. For example, first-generation students talked about similar, but not identical,

kinds of experiences in college. Another strategy is to help students maintain a sense of

individuality by showing them how the diverse sociocultural contexts of their lives—e.g., their

social class background or the region of the country in which they grew up—can intersect to

shape people in distinct ways. For example, while our difference-education intervention

highlighted students’ social class backgrounds, we also had the panelists talk openly about their

other intersectional identities (e.g., one panelist discussed his experience as an African

American, male, first-generation college student).

Acknowledge both the negative and the positive. When teaching students about social

difference, research suggests the importance of balancing negative and positive content. On the

one hand, teaching positive content alone (e.g., pride in one’s group or identity) would not

provide a realistic portrayal of students’ experiences, nor would it prepare students for the

background-specific challenges they are likely to face in their college environment (e.g., Adams

et al., 2007; Freire, 1970/2001; Gurin et al., 2013). On the other hand, focusing on negative

content alone (e.g., prejudice frequently experienced by one’s group) would likely be highly

demotivating and harmful for students (e.g., Major & O’Brien, 2005; Steele, 2010). Relatedly,

research on helping students face obstacles or challenges also shows that it is important to

balance negative discussions of difficulty or challenge with positive strategies and a path to

success. For example, the literature on incremental mindsets suggest the importance of showing

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students that they can overcome challenging obstacles in order to foster their motivation,

persistence, and performance (e.g., Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007; Dweck, 2002;

Dweck, Chiu, & Hong, 1995). Likewise, research on “wise feedback” shows that negative

feedback can have motivating consequences when it is paired with “an invocation of high

standards and by an assurance of the student’s capacity to reach those standards” (Cohen, Steele,

& Ross, 1999, p. 1302; see also Cohen, 2008; Yeager et al., 2014).

In a pride intervention, it is important to provide students with opportunities to learn

about how people’s backgrounds can shape their experiences in both positive and negative ways.

To provide a realistic and balanced portrayal of students’ experiences and to convey that specific

obstacles can be overcome, a discussion of the negative challenges associated with one’s

background can be counterbalanced with a discussion of the positive strengths and strategies

(e.g., seeking help from professors) that can provide a path to success. In the difference-

education intervention described above, panelists described challenges they faced in choosing a

major, identifying a future career path, or reconciling their life back home with their new life in

college. Panelists not only discussed these challenges, but also ways to overcome them, thereby

empowering intervention participants with actionable, concrete strategies that they can use to be

successful. Moreover, to counteract potential threat that could come from a focus on negative

challenges, panelists also shared stories about background-specific strengths that could serve as

valuable assets.

Make difference relevant to everyone. When educating people about social difference,

research further suggests the importance of making difference relevant to everyone, irrespective

of one’s particular background or social group memberships (see Moss-Racusin et al., 2014;

Moss-Racusin et al., 2016). Making difference relevant to everyone can serve to normalize the

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experience of difference and reassure disadvantaged students that they are not being singled out

or marginalized (cf., Hummel & Steele, 1996). Making difference relevant is also critical for

advantaged students. Importantly, in the absence of such efforts, research suggests that

advantaged groups will experience diversity as irrelevant to their experience or as actively

threatening (e.g., Craig & Richeson, 2014; Dover, Major, & Kaiser, 2016; Plaut, Garnett,

Buffardi, & Sanchez-Burks, 2011; Wilkins, Hirsch, Kaiser, & Inkles, 2016). Finally, efforts to

make difference relevant to everyone may encourage perspective-taking, and thereby generate

greater intergroup understanding and empathy (cf. Broockman & Kalla, 2016).

In a pride intervention, it is critical to present social difference as relevant to all students.

One strategy to accomplish this goal is to include both panelists and participants who come from

both advantaged and disadvantaged groups. In the difference-education intervention, the

panelists and the participants included first- and continuing-generation students. As a result, the

participants in the audience heard panelists from diverse social class backgrounds tell personal

stories about their experiences. For example, one continuing-generation student recounted having

a difficult time being successful in large classes because she had been accustomed to attending a

small private school with a tight-knit community. Intervention participants therefore learned that

all students’ backgrounds shape their experiences in college. Including individuals from diverse

backgrounds as panelists and participants also makes it possible to frame the intervention as a

general (vs. group-specific) program that can help everyone adjust to a new setting.

Give voice to underrepresented narratives. When educating students about social

difference, research also reveals that giving voice to underrepresented students’ narratives is

crucial for empowering them to find a path to success (Adams et al., 2007; Alterio & McDrury,

2003; Delgado & Stefancic, 2000; Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008 Freire, 1970/2001; Mitra,

32

2004; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). This research underscores the importance of including

alternative narratives—e.g., student stories that are typically excluded from the mainstream—

that provide diverse perspectives and also serve to recognize and validate the perspectives of

disadvantaged students. Further supporting this idea, research on narrative identity demonstrates

the powerful ways in which people “create identity by constructing stories about their lives”

(Hammack, 2008; McAdams, 2001; McAdams & McLean, 2013, p. 233). The process of

constructing narratives about the self and learning from others’ stories provides a particularly

effective, realistic, and authentic context in which to engage students in dialogue about

difference.

In a pride intervention, these insights should be implemented in at least two key ways.

First, the narratives that panelists share should enable participants, especially those who are

disadvantaged by the setting, to recognize themselves in these stories and learn about the

background-specific strategies that they need for success. In the difference-education

intervention described earlier, we presented panelists’ stories in a way that illuminated their

diverse ways of experiencing college and being successful students. These narratives varied

systematically according to panelists’ social class backgrounds. Second, it is critical to choose

narratives that convey comfort and self-acceptance, rather than discomfort or embarrassment. In

the intervention described above, the panelists shared their own authentic stories and discussed

difficult topics, but at the same time, demonstrated an understanding and acceptance of their own

experiences. For example, as one first-generation panelist confidently shared, “Once I came to

[university name], I realized that I didn’t have to be strong all of the time and that most people

had no expectations of me besides trying my best and putting in effort in classes. After that, I

realized that there was no shame in struggling or asking for help.”

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Discussion

In higher education, social differences along the lines of class, race, ethnicity, gender,

sexuality, and disability continue to shape students’ academic and social experiences and

outcomes. Given the attention to social difference on college campuses and in American society

today, we have a timely opportunity to expand and improve how people understand themselves

and others. As college student activists have proposed, understanding how difference matters is a

vital skill needed to navigate today’s increasingly diverse and divided world. Notably,

understanding difference is also a crucial first step to making institutions like college campuses

more inclusive and equitable—spaces in which people of all backgrounds can thrive. We began

this article by asking whether it was possible to take advantage of this spotlight on social

difference to educate college students about how their differences matter, while, at the same

time, improving the performance of students who are frequently disadvantaged by mainstream

educational environments. By teaching students to understand social difference through a pride

perspective, we propose that the answer is yes.

First, we described pride vs. prejudice perspectives on social difference in social

psychology, and discussed how these perspectives inform different ways to intervene to help

disadvantaged students succeed in school. Second, we reviewed literatures in education, cultural

psychology, and organizational behavior, which provide evidence that engaging

underrepresented students’ and employees’ identities and backgrounds can improve their

performance and success. Third, we used our recent research on difference-education as an

example to illustrate our theory of how pride interventions can produce important academic and

social benefits over time (cf. Stephens, Hamedani, et al., 2014; Stephens, Townsend, et al., 2015;

Townsend et al., 2017). Specifically, we provided evidence that pride interventions benefit

34

disadvantaged students (e.g., first-generation college students) by providing a contextual and

asset-based understanding of difference, which increases their sense of fit and empowerment in

college settings. Finally, we outlined additional benefits that pride interventions can produce for

all students, and also described strategies that pride interventions should employ to effectively

educate students about difference.

Implications and Future Directions

In this paper, we theorized about how and why an intervention that leverages a pride

perspective on difference can be an effective approach. Yet, a number of important questions

remain unanswered. As is also the case with other popular and successful social psychological

interventions, future research on pride interventions should further specify the necessary and

sufficient components that drive the intervention’s benefits. One question is whether

background-specific role models are necessary for students to gain the understanding that

difference is contextual and can serve as an asset. For example, would intervention participants

need to listen to the stories of successful senior students, or could they simply read an article

about social inequality (e.g., research on how social class backgrounds can impact the college

experience)? On the one hand, research suggests that students are most likely to learn from and

personalize the intervention message when they listen to the stories of successful older students

(e.g., Marx, Ko, & Friedman, 2009; Marx & Roman, 2002). On the other hand, research on the

causal effects of ethnic studies curricula suggests that these programs yield similar benefits as

difference-education, and do so without utilizing peer role models to deliver the message

(Cabrera et al., 2014; Dee & Penner, 2016). Another related question is whether students in pride

interventions need to learn about how their different backgrounds shape their experience in both

positive and negative ways, or whether learning about the positive—strengths and strategies—is

35

sufficient. While we theorize that it is important to acknowledge both the positive and negative,

we are currently examining this question in a difference-education study by comparing the

effects of stories that focus on both the positive and negative effects of one’s background to

those that focus solely on the positive.

Further, while we theorize that pride interventions can improve disadvantaged students’

academic, social, and multicultural outcomes by increasing fit and empowerment, future research

should further specify the impact of each of these processes. Our difference-education studies

suggest that both of these processes are important, but that empowerment (i.e., using campus

resources; feeling prepared, efficacious, and in-control) is the primary mechanism that explains

first-generation students’ improved academic achievement (i.e., GPA). Future research should

investigate the specific ways in which fit and empowerment catalyze behavioral change and

impact particular college outcomes over time. It is also important to consider the multiple and

reciprocal pathways through which fit and empowerment are likely to influence each other. For

example, an initial sense of fit may be necessary for empowerment to have a chance to impact

students’ behavior in significant and enduring ways. Future work should also consider how fit

and empowerment unfold across different domains over time—both in college and after students’

transition to the workplace—as well as how these processes may unfold similarly or differently

for disadvantaged and advantaged students.

In addition to gaining a better understanding of how a pride intervention approach

benefits students, future research should also consider how to catalyze culture change at an

institutional level. While we theorize that pride interventions can benefit disadvantaged students

by increasing their fit and empowerment, these individual-level changes are not a panacea and

cannot support long-term change if they are not built into and reinforced by the larger college

36

culture. To maintain and support these individual-level changes over time, policies, practices,

and resources must also be changed in tandem at the institutional level (Hamedani, Zheng,

Darling-Hammond, Andree, & Quinn, 2015; Markus & Conner, 2013; Okonofua, Paunesku, &

Walton, 2016; Stephens, Markus, et al., 2012). As a starting point, pride interventions focus on

changing individuals’ psychological understanding, experience, and behavior (e.g., how students

make sense of their experience). However, in the process of increasing fit and empowerment, we

theorize that widespread use of a contextual and asset-based understanding of difference, in turn,

has the potential to change the institutions themselves. For example, this understanding could

alter the nature of students’ intergroup relationships, their levels of engagement on campus, and,

ultimately their empowerment to change their universities. As in the case of the Princeton

student activists, increasing individual-level awareness and understanding of difference has

potential to change institutions over time by creating a more inclusive and accepting

environment in which student activists are empowered to effect change.

Beyond changing culture at an institutional level, future research should also examine

how to translate interventions that leverage a pride perspective to different settings (e.g., the

workplace, community colleges) and different social groups (e.g., women or racial or ethnic

minorities). Notably, across diverse settings and groups, the general methodological strategy of

the approach would be the same: the intervention would seek to change people’s experiences,

behaviors, and outcomes by providing a contextual and asset-based understanding of social

difference. However, as is the case for any intervention, it is important to take the local context

into account. In practice, what this means is that researchers must first seek to understand the

existing views, concerns, and challenges that a particular disadvantaged group faces in a

particular setting. As a second step, the intervention content (i.e., the themes conveyed in the

37

stories) should be tailored to address the particular background-specific concerns that are most

relevant to the targeted groups in that context.

In the case of different settings, we suggest that pride interventions hold the potential to

improve students’ outcomes in settings beyond elite universities. In community colleges,

students’ experiences (e.g., living off campus) and concerns (e.g., paying for tuition) may differ

significantly from elite university students’ experiences (e.g., living on campus) and concerns

(e.g., fitting in). Thus, an effective pride intervention at a community college would need to

address the particular challenges that students confront and equip them with the particular

strategies needed to overcome those challenges. As for different social groups, we theorize that

pride interventions have the potential to help not only first-generation students, but also women

and racial or ethnic minorities. For example, gender is a topic that is often acknowledged and

discussed in American society much more frequently than social class, which suggests that views

about gender could be harder to change. Thus, a pride intervention designed to reduce gender

disparities might need to be tailored to counteract people’s existing erroneous ideas about

gender, rather than simply focusing on raising their awareness.

Conclusion

Economic inequality in American society has skyrocketed since the 1970’s (Duncan &

Murnane, 2011; Piketty & Saez, 2014; Reardon & Bischoff, 2011), and has spurred a powerful

and on-going national conversation about its impact on economic opportunity, racial equity, and

educational attainment. The enduring spotlight on these issues has raised the voices of those who

seek to reduce disparities between social groups, while also increasing societal awareness about

the significance of difference. Popular social movements, such as Occupy Wall Street’s

consciousness-raising around economic inequality, Lean In’s push for increased gender equity in

38

the workplace, and Black Lives Matter’s call to end racial injustice in policing and the legal

system, reflect this focus. Likewise, student movements across college campuses nationwide

highlight the critical need for institutions to begin to educate faculty, students, and staff about

how social difference matters.

Although social psychology provides tools that can help reduce educational disparities,

the field has historically been ambivalent about explicitly calling attention to social difference—

more often viewing difference as a potential source of prejudice than a potential source of pride.

While both pride and prejudice perspectives suggest different and effective ways to intervene to

reduce gaps in opportunity and achievement among students, the pride perspective has the added

benefit of meeting the important societal goal of educating students about the significance of

difference and providing multicultural skills. In our recent research, we designed and tested an

intervention that leveraged the pride perspective’s view that recognizing social differences

between groups, if done in the right way, can be beneficial and produce a range of positive

outcomes. Our review of research suggests that pride interventions do indeed provide a viable

path to begin to both reduce the social disparities that divide us, while also providing students,

employees, and citizens with the understanding of difference that is a necessary first step to

navigating the increasingly diverse and multicultural reality of today’s world.

39

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