Ximena Zúñiga

Fostering Meaningful Racial Engagement Through Intergroup Dialogues

Current attention on improving intergroup relations and participation in diverse societies compels us to understand the requisite values and skills for such participation. An action research approach examined an applied model of engagement across differences—intergroup dialogues that are facilitated in face-to-face encounters of college students from diverse social backgrounds meeting over a sustained period of time. Results show that overall program effects are evident only for racial identity outcomes—importance and centrality. However, regression analyses show students’ valuing of the dialogic learning process (e.g. peer facilitation, sharing experiences, and asking questions) is significantly related to increase in frequency of thinking about racial group membership, perspective-taking ability, comfort in communicating across differences, positive beliefs about conflict, and interest in bridging differences.

Working with resistance to diversity issues in the classroom: Lessons from teacher training and multicultural education

Abstract Social work programs are mandated by the Council on Social Work Education to address issues of difference, privilege, oppression, and discrimination at both the baccalaureate and graduate levels. Teaching courses that address these issues can be difficult, especially when students are resistant to the kinds of analysis and self‐reflection that diversity education requires. While the idea of resistance is discussed at length in the clinical social work and social work education literatures, ideas about addressing and using student resistance in multicultural social work education are not well‐developed. This article suggests that social work educators might benefit from an examination of perspectives on student resistance found in the field of education and, specifically, in the multicultural higher education and teacher training literatures. Four areas that are addressed at length in these literatures are described in this paper: Resistance as a source of information about group process: resistance as a measure of student readiness; resistance as a reflection of the larger sociopolitical context; and resistance as a resource for facilitating student learning and engagement. The paper concludes with a discussion of strategies that social work faculty might use to prevent, address, and use student resistance in multicultural social work education.

Intergroup Dialogue: Critical Conversations About Difference, Social Identities, and Social Justice: Guest Editors' Introduction

Intergroup dialogue is a form of democratic engagement that fosters communication, critical reflection, and collaborative action across cultural and social divides. The goals of intergroup dialogue include critical co-inquiry, consciousness-raising in regard to social inequalities, conflict transformation, and civic engagement for social change. Intergroup dialogue has emerged, in recent years, as a set of promising social justice education practices used to address social justice issues in both educational and community settings (Adams, 2007; Maxwell, Fisher, Thompson, & Behling, 2011; Mayhew & Fernandez, 2007; Zúñiga, Nagda, Chesler, & Cytron Walker, 2007). To provide a context for the articles in this special issue of Equity & Excellence in Education, this introduction provides a brief conceptual foundation of intergroup dialogue practices. While the main focus is on intergroup dialogue practices in educational settings, we also introduce several other intergroup dialogue practices that may be used in both educational and community settings. Rooted in a long tradition of efforts to improve intergroup relations nationally and internationally (Abu-Nimer, 1999; Stephan & Stephan, 2001), intergroup dialogue practices gained national attention in the late 1990s as a result of President Clinton’s call for a great national conversation on race and reconciliation (Schoem, Hurtado, Sevig, Chesler, & Sumida, 2001). Intergroup dialogue,

Engaged Listening in Race/Ethnicity and Gender Intergroup Dialogue Courses

Although the importance of engaged listening in intergroup dialogue (IGD) is recognized, we know relatively little about when or why participants in IGD actually listen or what they gain from listening. Using qualitative analyses of interviews conducted with undergraduates who had recently completed a race/ethnicity or gender focused IGD course, this study examines what participants said about moments of engaged listening in IGD. We found that engaged listening was associated with specific dialogue activities, reactions to speakers, and dialogue topics. We also found a number of differences in listening between race/ethnicity and gender dialogues that suggest that participants in race/ethnicity IGDs recall more moments of engaged listening and may have gained a more complex understanding of structural inequality from engaged listening than participants in gender IGDs did. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings, possible implications, and some areas for future inquiry.

Preparing Students for Democratic Citizenship in a Multicultural Society: Engaging Diversity through Project Mosaik.

This study examines whether participation in a diversity initiative, Project MosaiK, helped prepare students to engage and actively address social justice issues in their residence halls. After controlling for background characteristics, findings suggest that the more students participated in Project MosaiK activities, the more likely they were to score higher on measures of multicultural consciousness, capacity for empathy across differences, and motivation to take actions for social justice.