Abstract

This study investigated effects of college students’ multicultural contacts on multicultural competency. This study also examined mediating effects of perspective taking and prejudice. Multicultural contacts were divided into quality of contacts and quantity of contacts. Effects of quality and quantity of contacts on multicultural competency through perspective taking and prejudice were separately analyzed using two models. For the purpose, 642 Korean college students completed the questionnaires including multicultural contacts, multicultural competency, perspective taking, prejudice and demographic information. The results indicate that both quality and quantity of contacts are associated with multicultural competency, but quality of contacts are more strongly associated with multicultural competency. Also, perspective taking and prejudice mediate the relationship between quality of contacts and multicultural competency while mediators did not mediate the relationship between quantity of contacts and multicultural competency. The results indicate that intimate and positive contacts with outgroup members help enhance college students’ multicultural competency through increased perspective taking and prejudice reduction. Future multicultural education for undergraduate students should focus on increasing the quality of multicultural contacts and help them with perspective taking, and reducing prejudice.