Scholars theorize racial apathy is one form contemporary white racial prejudice takes. Racial apathy signals not caring about racial inequality. Invoking intergroup contact theory, we hypothesize interracial contact would predict less racial apathy among whites. To test our hypothesis, we analyze survey data from white teenagers participating in the 2003 National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). We find interracial contact matters and its inclusion improves model fit over and above previously specified correlates. Specifically, interracial friendship and dating, and having a different race mentor predict the tendency to care about racial equality. Furthermore, any interracial contact and a count of interracial contact experiences across five settings, respectively, predict less racial apathy. We encourage scholars to investigate further the sociological significance of racial apathy and its correlates, including interracial contact.

学者们认为，种族冷漠是当代白人种族偏见的一种形式。种族冷漠表明不关心种族不平等。援引群际接触理论，我们假设跨种族接触可以预测白人之间的种族冷漠程度较低。为了检验我们的假设，我们分析了参与 2003 年全国青年与宗教研究 (NSYR) 的白人青少年的调查数据。我们发现跨种族接触很重要，并且它的包含改善了模型拟合超过先前指定的相关性。具体来说，跨种族友谊和约会，以及拥有不同的种族导师预示着关心种族平等的趋势。此外，在五种环境中的任何异族接触和异族接触经历的计数分别预示着较少的种族冷漠。