Mediators of Students’ Interethnic Interactions: The Case of Ethiopian Public Universities

Abstract: Ethnic diversity of students on university campuses make interethnic interactions possible. Notwithstanding the presence of ethnic diversity, the interactions among students of different ethnicities are complex. Ethiopian public universities are known for their ethnically diverse student composition, which reflects the country’s indigenous diversity. However, recently, public university students’ interethnic interactions are characterized by prejudice, interethnic tensions, and conflict. This presentation draws on an ongoing doctoral study that explores the interethnic interaction experiences of 30 purposefully students selected from three Ethiopian public universities. The overview of participants’ profiles indicated that they were drawn from 11 different ethnic groups. The study used Allport’s (1954) contact theory and subsequent theoretical extensions (Pettigrew, 1998; Pettigrew & Troop, 2006; Thijs & Verkuyten, 2013; 2014; Laurence et al., 2018) as a framework for analysis and discussion. Findings indicated that many factors either facilitated or hindered students’ interethnic interactions on campuses. On the positive side, individual characteristics like behavior, interest to explore culture, similarity of religion, and multilingualism played an important role to break ethnic boundaries and make interethnic interactions. On the other hand, despite the available opportunities for interactions, complex and tangled interethnic interactions of students seemed to result from mainly the prejudice students developed about different ethnic groups before joining their university, the inability to communicate through common local languages, the spillover effect of the country’s political situation, and ethnic peer pressures on campuses. The study has implications for universities in suggesting priority areas of focus to strengthen students’ interethnic interaction to promote positive interethnic relations and manage ethnic diversities on campuses.

Keywords: ethnicity, interethnic interaction, public universities, university students