The following is an excerpt of the intervention methodology. For more information, please see the full text of the article on the publisher's website or through your institution's library.

Subjects. The racial composition of each course was varied at random. In some courses, each of the participants (including the instructor) were white, while in the others, seven participants were white but at least three of the ten participants were African Americans or, in a few cases, African Americans and Latinos. Since, under ordinary circumstances, few of the participants in wilderness courses were African Americans or Latinos, these students were recruited for the course by community outreach campaigns, some of which involved 1- and 2-day Outward Bound excursions coordinated through local schools. The white students, who tended to come from middle-class communities, paid tuition of approximately $2,000 to participate in the course. The class differences between the white students and the minority scholarship students are evident from the neighborhoods from which they are drawn. Using the addresses of the white subjects (n = 54), we located their census tracts and examined the median household income (as of 1989) and racial composition within each tract. The median white student came from a census tract that was 93 percent white and had a median household income of $46,000. These figures contrast markedly with comparable numbers for minority scholarship recipients. The median minority student resided in a census tract that was 30 percent white and had a median household income of just $19,000.

Outcome measures. The survey contained a series of questions tapping feelings of hostility toward outgroups. [...] three of the five questions were asked using a Likert scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” The first question examines whether the respondent bridles at the idea of being subordinate to people of another race. The second item taps feelings of social awkwardness in the presence of other racial groups. The third item measures the desire to ostracize stigmatized groups, in this case, gay teenagers. The fourth item asks respondent to indicate whether they hope to live in a racially integrated or segregated neighborhood. The fifth question asks respondents whether several adjectives describe them, among which is the word “prejudiced.” [...]