Stressing similarities or ignoring differences? : shedding light into different forms of color-evasive ideology with pre- and in-service teachers

Abstract

The color-evasive ideology (commonly termed “colorblindness”) proposes that ethnic and cultural group memberships should be deemphasized. Yet there is a conceptual confusion around the meaning and measurement of color-evasiveness, and this construct is not used consistently in the international as well as German literature. Our purpose is to investigate whether two underlying forms of the color-evasive ideology (i.e., stressing similarities and ignoring differences) are two distinct, albeit related, constructs. We tested this hypothesis by applying these two forms of the color-evasive ideology to teachers’ cultural diversity beliefs. In two cross-sectional field studies conducted with pre-service teachers (Study 1, n = 210), and in-service teachers (Study 2, n = 99), questionnaire items on the stressing similarities ideology and items on the ignoring differences ideology loaded on two separate factors, providing a better fit to the data than the one-factor model. Mean scores on these two types of color-evasive ideology also differed substantially, indicating that participants across the two studies mainly endorsed the stressing similarities perspective. The stressing similarities and ignoring differences ideologies related differently to other intergroup ideologies (i.e., multiculturalism and polyculturalism), and showed different patterns to psychosocial functioning in culturally diverse classrooms (i.e., cultural diversity-related stress).