How ‘campus climate’ affects students’ attitudes to people of different religions

This year’s new university students are settling into life on campuses often notable for their diversity – and that includes in religion. Over 33,000 Buddhist students started university in the UK in 2023-24, for instance, alongside 769,220 Christian and 37,520 Sikh students.

Universities have a role to play in helping their students relate to others of different religious backgrounds, especially at a time of concern over antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus.

Our research has pinpointed some key things universities can do that make a positive difference. We can also highlight the things they shouldn’t do.

We surveyed 1,000 students twice, one year apart. We wanted to investigate how the university environment, or campus climate, influences how students engage with other religions and worldviews. To assess this we asked students how far they agreed with statements such as “there are people of other faiths or beliefs whom I admire”, “I try to build relationships with people who hold religious or non-religious beliefs that I disagree with”, and “my faith or beliefs are strengthened by relationships with those of diverse religious and non-religious backgrounds”.

We call students’ positive engagement with differences in religion and worldview their “pluralism orientation”.

Diversity, discussion and safety

We found that three key features of the campus climate affect how positively students feel about difference in religion and worldview.

First, students feel more positive about difference when they see a diversity of worldviews around them. When students think of their campus as a place inhabited by students of a wide range of religious and non-religious worldviews, this correlates with growth in pluralism orientation. Interestingly, this is less about actual diversity than perceived diversity. We tested an analysis of actual diversity, and it wasn’t significant. It’s what students perceive that makes a difference.

Second, students’ pluralism orientation grows when they have spaces to express their religion or worldview. Having spaces where students feel safe to be themselves, with like-minded others, leads them to have a more positive attitude to those who are different from them.

It might seem paradoxical. But feeling safe on campus, such as through having a chaplaincy space to pray at lunchtime, a student society for others of the same worldview, or a religious diet that’s catered for by the university cafeteria, gives students the resilience they need to engage well with different religions and worldviews.

Third, it’s important that students have critical conversations that help them challenge their own and others’ worldviews.

We call these “provocative encounters”. They are conversations that provoke students to question the stereotypes they hold about others, as well as their unexamined assumptions about their own beliefs. These happen both in the classroom and outside it, as students socialise or live in student accommodation. A Sikh student we interviewed talked about the dinners she cooked for her white Christian and non-religious flatmates. Eating together sparked conversations about their different faiths and cultures.

Striking a balance

We also found that aspects of the campus climate led to students’ pluralism orientation declining. One example is when they heard insensitive comments about their worldview. These might be from friends, peers or staff.

This is a tricky area, as one person’s insensitive comment is another person’s provocative encounter. The key point is that when students feel their worldviews are under significant threat, they’re less likely to engage with religiously different others in a positive way. Instead, they will close down, compartmentalise life and study, and miss out on the value university provides.

Healthy debate is vital to ensuring freedom of speech and helping students grow intellectually. But if students feel under threat, or that their religious views are seen as incompatible with student life, they’ll stop discussing their views, stop sharing their lives with anyone who thinks differently, and interfaith relations will be impaired.

It can help student relations when universities demonstrate that the campus is religiously diverse and represents a wide range of worldviews. This can be done through communications from universities to students, such as by posting “Happy Vaisakhi” or “Eid Mubarak” on social media to acknowledge religious festivals, or by advertising events, such as World Humanist Day.

Creating opportunities for students to have the provocative encounters they need to mature in their own views should be central to what universities do. Students are good at doing this in their own social spaces. But sometimes staff shy away from classroom discussions of students’ worldviews, perhaps out of fear of causing offence.

Some students we spoke to talked about feeling their views were “shut down” by lecturers who didn’t want to discuss religion. This needs to change. Provocative encounters should not turn into coercive or hate-filled shouting matches, but universities should nurture robust debate and dialogue about religion, politics and social relations.

Religion is global and ubiquitous. So it’s something universities should highlight – not avoid. Our findings show the need for institutional practices that promote pluralism. This can be done through providing supportive spaces for students to engage with worldview differences in ways that ensure safety and exploration, creating climates where students learn about religion.

Kristin Aune receives funding from Porticus.

Mathew Guest receives funding from Porticus and the Spalding Trust.

Matthew J. Mayhew receives funding from the Templeton Religions Trust, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Merrifield Family Trust, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Merrifield Family Trust, Porticus, and the United States Department of Education.