Difference-education interventions teach people a contextual theory of difference: that social group difference comes from participating in and adapting to diverse sociocultural contexts. At two universities, we delivered difference-education interventions during the college transition and examined long-term academic and intergroup outcomes. Nearly 4 years later, first-generation students who received a difference-education intervention earned higher grades and were more likely to attain honors standing than those in the control condition. Based on an end-of-college survey with students at one of the two universities, both first-generation and continuing-generation students showed greater comfort with social group difference compared with students in the control condition. Our results demonstrate for the first time that teaching first-generation students a contextual theory of difference can lead to long-term academic benefits that persist until graduation. This work also provides new evidence that difference-education can improve comfort with social group difference.

差异教育干预向人们传授差异的情境理论：社会群体差异来自参与和适应不同的社会文化背景。在两所大学，我们在大学过渡期间提供了差异教育干预措施，并检查了长期的学术和群体间成果。近 4 年后，接受差异教育干预的第一代学生获得了更高的成绩，并且比对照组的学生更有可能获得荣誉。根据对两所大学之一的学生进行的大学毕业调查，与对照组学生相比，第一代和继代学生对社会群体差异表现出更大的舒适度。我们的研究结果首次表明，向第一代学生教授差异的情境理论可以带来长期的学术收益，这种收益一直持续到毕业。这项工作还提供了新的证据，证明差异教育可以提高对社会群体差异的舒适度。