title: Social energy and racial segregation in the university context.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Universities often promote their diversity as a selling point, but are students of different races at these universities integrated socially? Using theories on social energy, I examine racial segregation among university students.
  
  
  METHODS
  Quantitative data were collected on student residence patterns and social groupings formed at lunch tables at a case study university. In addition, interviews were conducted with 25 students.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Students are substantially more segregated than chance predicts. Blacks and Hispanics are particularly segregated. Interviews reveal that these students spend large amounts of social energy coping with prejudice and discrimination as well as functioning in a student culture they find unwelcoming and foreign.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Social energy drains on minority students from discrimination and an unwelcoming campus culture reduce energy left for interracial interaction, making these racial groups more segregated. The study highlights the need for understanding segregation as a function of the interaction of out-group preferences, in-group preferences, and the larger social context.
authors.affiliation: The Dartmouth Institute.
authors.forename: Valerie A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Lewis
mesh_terms: D018864:Cultural Diversity; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D011287:Prejudice; D011822:Race Relations / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology; D012918:Social Alienation / Q000523:psychology; D012919:Social Behavior / Q000266:history; D012933:Social Identification; D012934:Social Isolation / Q000523:psychology; D013334:Students / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology; D014495:Universities / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history