Accounting for lack of interracial mixing amongst South African university students

Abstract

The persistence of informal segregation in post-apartheid South Africa is now well documented. As the articles in this journal issue attest, this segregation is rife in many public spaces, including university campuses. This article explores the reasons to which students attribute the lack of interracial mixing at their institutions. Students from four universities were surveyed using an internet-based questionnaire. The final sample consisted of 1 068 black African and 1 521 white students. Their agreement or disagreement with eight reasons for avoidance of contact was analysed and found to vary as a function of race. The relationship of their responses to levels of prejudice and amount of interracial contact was examined