‘Crossing lines of difference’: how college students analyse diversity

Contemporary American college students confront increased diversity during their college years—in race, class, nationality, religion, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, age, and disability. Yet, how do students conceptualize this diversity, evaluate the options it provides, and assess its limitations? Furthermore, how do those researching diversity develop approaches that are flexible and open enough to reflect emerging student ways of thinking about diversity? Based on work at a diverse US public university—especially a pilot project on free‐form student essays—this paper examines how students conceptually navigate an environment that both encourages and inhibits interaction across difference. These students indicate scepticism about the marketing of diversity and frustration at the limited interaction across difference on campus, yet also an appreciation of the opportunities that diversity provides.