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Let's Talk About Race: Evaluating a College Interracial Discussion Group on Race

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The authors evaluate Dialogues on Race, an interracial group intervention in which undergraduate student facilitators led conversations about race with their peers. The evaluation process is described, including developing collaborative relationships, identifying program goals, selecting measures, and analyzing and presenting results. The authors discuss lessons learned about evaluating an interracial dialogue intervention that did not originally include researchers in the hope that this examination will encourage others to evaluate similar campus interventions. Diálogos sobre Raza es una intervención de grupo interracial en la que estudiantes universitarios moderaron conversaciones sobre raza con sus compañeros. Se describe el proceso de evaluación, incluyendo el desarrollo de relaciones de colaboración, la identificación de objetivos del programa, la selección de medidas, y el análisis y presentación de los resultados. Los autores discuten las lecciones aprendidas sobre la evaluación de una intervención interracial dialogada que en principio no incluyó a investigadores con la esperanza de que este examen animará a otros a evaluar intervenciones similares en sus campus.
Content may be subject to copyright.
JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46 97
© 2018 American Counseling Association. All rights reserved.
Received 01/31/15
Revised 05/13/17
Accepted 08/11/17
DOI: 10.1002/jmcd.12095
Let’s Talk About Race:
Evaluating a College Interracial
Discussion Group on Race
Kimberly M. Ashby, Dana L. Collins, Janet E. Helms,
and Joshua Manlove
The authors evaluate Dialogues on Race, an interracial group intervention
in which undergraduate student facilitators led conversations about race
with their peers. The evaluation process is described, including developing
collaborative relationships, identifying program goals, selecting measures,
and analyzing and presenting results. The authors discuss lessons learned
about evaluating an interracial dialogue intervention that did not originally
include researchers in the hope that this examination will encourage others
to evaluate similar campus interventions.
Keywords: interracial dialogue, higher education, diversity, program evalua-
tion, group intervention
Diálogos sobre Raza es una intervención de grupo interracial en la que
estudiantes universitarios moderaron conversaciones sobre raza con sus
compañeros. Se describe el proceso de evaluación, incluyendo el desarrollo
de relaciones de colaboración, la identificación de objetivos del programa,
la selección de medidas, y el análisis y presentación de los resultados. Los
autores discuten las lecciones aprendidas sobre la evaluación de una inter-
vención interracial dialogada que en principio no incluyó a investigadores con
la esperanza de que este examen animará a otros a evaluar intervenciones
similares en sus campus.
Palabras clave: diálogo interracial, educación superior, diversidad, evaluación
de programas, intervención grupal
Throughout the United States, many colleges and universities have
developed programs to facilitate meaningful engagement in inter-
racial dialogues among students whose racial affiliation groups have
had histories of long-standing racial conflict and discord. Facilitated inter-
racial dialogues usually involve semistructured topical discussions, content
learning, structured interactions, and support by skilled facilitators (Yeung,
Spanierman, & Landrum-Brown, 2013). The goals of these dialogues are to
(a) encourage students to engage in critical examination of power relations
and structural inequalities among racial groups and (b) provide a nonhostile
context in which such discussions can occur.
Kimberly M. Ashby, Dana L. Collins, and Janet E. Helms, Department of Counseling, Developmental,
and Educational Psychology, and Joshua Manlove, Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center, all
at Boston College. Joshua Manlove is now at Department of Urban Education and Leadership, Indiana
University–Purdue University Indianapolis. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Kimberly M. Ashby, Department of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology, Boston College,
Campion Hall, Room 309, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 (e-mail: ashbyk@bc.edu).
98 JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46
Developing an understanding of the ways in which power, privilege, and op-
pression operate in society (specifically as they are manifested through race
and racism) is important for the development of students as whole persons
in a diverse world. Arguably, developing this understanding is important for
all people’s personal development, and, perhaps, particularly for counselors
and the clients whom they treat.
Interracial dialogue programs may be valuable tools in developing well-rounded
education and wellness interventions on college and university campuses. Such
programs may be highly relevant for counselor education programs. Engaging in
and developing a better understanding of interracial dialogue programs would
help counselors develop the skills necessary for facilitating and evaluating these
programs. Evaluation and program development skills are valuable competencies
for practicing counselors and counselors-in-training to acquire within university
settings and beyond—especially when social justice programming is the focus.
In an era in which college campuses across the United States are involved
in a variety of conversations about racism at their institutions and in which
increasing antiracist student activism is gaining momentum on a number of
campuses, many colleges and universities may consider turning to interracial
dialogue programs to meet the demands of students (Dickey, 2016). Although
interracial dialogue programs, many of which have established descriptions
of the specific program foci and goals, may be becoming more numerous at
colleges and universities around the country, very little systematic information
has been provided about the process of evaluating the effectiveness of these
programs in meeting their intended goals.
Orsini, Wyrick, and Milroy (2012) defined evaluation as the investigation of
the effectiveness of a particular program in a particular place at a particular
time. This definition suggests that the contextual factors relevant to the pro-
gram make each evaluation unique to the program being evaluated. Evaluators
collect information and investigate program implementation and outcomes
to better understand the program process. This information is then used to
inform program improvement.
Although the results of a program evaluation are often specific to the pro-
gram at hand, learning about the ways in which other evaluators go through
their evaluation process with interracial dialogue programs is valuable to
other researchers who would like to evaluate interracial dialogue programs—a
necessity that has been neglected. Perhaps evaluations of interracial dialogue
programs do not occur or are not reported because researchers are rarely
involved in the development or implementation of such interventions.
In this article, we describe a collaborative evaluation process for Dialogues
on Race (DOR), an undergraduate discussion group developed by our uni-
versity’s student life office to support student group leaders in facilitating
interracial dialogues about race and racism. Because there is clearly a need
to evaluate the many interracial dialogue programs that have been developed
at colleges and universities, the purpose of examining the process of evaluat-
ing this intervention is to describe some of the issues faced when researchers
JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46 99
join a preexisting interracial campus intervention program with the intent
of assisting other researchers interested in evaluating interracial dialogue
programs on their campuses.
the value of interracial dialogue
During the implementation and evaluation of the program of focus, the
United States was in the midst of a national conversation on racial profiling
and the increased visibility of the killing of Black men, women, boys, and
girls by police officers (Raab, 2014; Sanchez & Prokupecz, 2014). On August
12, 2014, a month before the start of DOR and its evaluation, Officer Dar-
ren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager in
Ferguson, Missouri (Raab, 2014). This killing triggered protests and riots
throughout the Ferguson area and around the country.
On November 24, 2014, it was announced that there was insufficient evidence
to indict Officer Wilson. As a result, for over a week, further protests and riots
broke out in Ferguson and in many major cities, including New York City and Los
Angeles (Raab, 2014), as well as the metro city in which DOR was implemented
(Andersen, 2014). Soon after, on December 4, 2014, a Black man named Eric
Garner was killed by New York Police Department Officers Daniel Pantaleo and
Justin Damico. A grand jury declined to indict these officers, sparking further
protests throughout the country (Sanchez & Prokupecz, 2014).
This racial violence and upsurge of activism around the country has strongly
influenced college and university campuses (Dickey, 2016). Many campuses
have been the sites of antiracist activism, and students of color may feel that
their racial backgrounds have become more salient.
U.S. college and university campuses are generally becoming more racially
and ethnically diverse. Several factors may contribute to this increase in ra-
cial and ethnic diversity, including federal and state education subsidies for
nontraditional students, as well as increased globalization (Mitchell, 2014).
Perhaps as a consequence, racial discord has become a national problem on
college campuses despite societal perceptions that students are being educated
in a postracial era (Kahlenberg, 2014; Parks & Hughey, 2011). Many students
of color and students with nondominant ethnicities on predominantly White
campuses report dissatisfaction and adverse experiences, such as a lack of
racial diversity on campus, a sense of feeling devalued or unheard, racial
segregation, and victimization through racist or ethno-violent symbols and
graffiti (“I, Too, Am Harvard,” 2014; “Racial Incident at Saint Louis Univer-
sity,” 2014; Watson, 2010).
In general, interracial dialogue interventions may be effective tools for
ameliorating racial tensions on college campuses, given that both students
of color and White students may benefit from them in different ways. They
offer students of color a forum for sharing their experiences of power and
oppression and spreading awareness of how power and oppression are expe-
rienced on campus. In addition, they offer students of color an opportunity
100 JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46
to get support from students who may identify with or share their experiences;
by offering other students an opportunity to learn about systemic power and
oppression, these students may recognize the ways in which they have uninten-
tionally perpetuated the oppression of racial and ethnic minorities. For their
part, White students can benefit from interracial dialogues by gaining an un-
derstanding of racial and ethnic inequities, engaging in self-examination, and
becoming allies for students of color and students from nondominant cultures.
Interracial dialogues can be thought of as a specific form of intergroup
dialogue (IGD). As a theoretical framework, IGD draws from theory and
research from psychology and education (Allport, 1954; Freire, 1973;
Zúñiga, Nagda, Chesler, & Cytron-Walker, 2007; Zúñiga, Nagda, & Sevig,
2002). The theories on which IGD is based posit that, in order for inter-
group relations to improve, individuals of diverse identities must engage
in prolonged, meaningful exchanges, whereby they can develop a critical
understanding of how their and others’ identities situate them in posi-
tions of power, privilege, and oppression, and develop an appreciation for
intergroup similarities and differences.
As an intervention, IGD brings together individuals from social groups
(for our purposes, racial groups) that have historically experienced inter-
group conflict. IGD uses dialogue as a means of encouraging members to
increase awareness of their own and others’ identities, understand power
and privilege, address intergroup tensions, and promote social justice
(Gurin, Nagda, & Zúñiga, 2013; Muller & Miles, 2017; Zúñiga et al., 2007).
Community- and school-based interracial dialogues with diverse adolescents
have been shown to be effective in shifting racist attitudes (Boulden, 2007;
Checkoway, 2009). Aldana, Rowley, Checkoway, and Richards-Schuster
(2012) found that, after engaging in interracial dialogues, both White
participants and participants of color demonstrated an increase in racial
consciousness and racism awareness. Furthermore, White college students
who have participated in interracial dialogues experienced positive inter-
personal and social justice–related outcomes, such as increased empathic
perspective taking (Gurin, Nagda, & Lopez, 2004; Gurin, Peng, Lopez,
& Nagda, 1999). Also, both White students and students of color have
shown enhanced awareness of social inequities (Nagda, Gurin, Sorensen,
Gurin-Sands, & Osuna, 2009; Nagda et al., 1999), greater levels of cultural
awareness (Hurtado, 2005), greater appreciation of between-groups differ-
ences, greater engagement in alliance building, and increased engagement
in proracial justice behaviors (Alimo, 2012).
Thus, the limited evidence suggests that participation in interracial dialogues
is beneficial for both White students and students of color. Despite their rela-
tive popularity, however, these programs often have not been evaluated, but
evaluation is important for understanding what components of an interven-
tion might be successful or unsuccessful. The Thea Bowman AHANA and
Intercultural Center at Boston College provided an opportunity to evaluate
the components of an interracial dialogue intervention.
JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46 101
DOR intervention
DOR uses a discussion group format to provide a forum for sophomore, junior,
and senior students at a university located in the Northeast to discuss issues of
race and racism on campus and beyond. Some students participate as volunteers,
whereas others participate to fulfill course requirements. Two trained undergraduate
cofacilitators led each discussion group, which was composed of approximately eight
student participants. Two objectives of DOR were to (a) develop group cohesion
among group members and (b) increase students’ comfort talking about race.
DOR sessions consisted of six 2-hour weekly meetings in which different
topics related to race and racism were discussed each week. Topics included
(a) defining race, racism, and privilege; (b) race at the university; (c) insti-
tutionalized racism; (d) race and the media; (e) open topic; and (f) action
project. At the conclusion of the intervention, participating students developed
an action project to facilitate dialogue throughout the campus community.
institute for the study and
promotion of race and culture
The Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture (ISPRC) was
founded by Janet E. Helms with the goal of promoting the strengths and address-
ing the societal conflicts connected with race or culture in theory and research,
mental health practice, education, business, and society at large. Through pro-
duction of and continued engagement with research, writing, clinical training,
advocacy, and community building, Helms and a team of counseling psychology
doctoral students, mental health counseling master’s students, and undergraduate
students strove to examine the ways in which race and culture affect individuals
and communities, as well as to combat various intrapsychic, interpersonal, and
structural forms of racial and cultural oppression. Two of the ISPRC researchers
(the first and second authors) acted as evaluators for the DOR program.
method
DEVELOPING A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PROGRAM
Prior to the DOR evaluation, the ISPRC had a long-standing relationship with
DOR’s administrative office, for whom members of the ISPRC had provided
trainings and consultations with a racial/cultural focus. Given that one of the
ISPRC staffers (the first author) had interests in studying intercultural dialogues,
as well as nurturing the ongoing collaborative relationship between the two
agencies, she contacted the administrators to determine whether her interests
and the Center’s efforts to serve the needs of diverse students on campus could
be merged. The Center administrators informed her that they needed a way to
assess whether their interracial dialogue intervention was meeting its proposed
goals and invited the researchers to a meeting.
102 JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46
According to McMillan and Willard (2008), the first step in program evaluation
methodology is to “identify and empower” (p. 3) the evaluators. It is important
that the evaluators have a detailed understanding of the evaluation process or a
commitment to becoming familiarized with this process. Therefore, before fur-
ther communicating with the DOR administrators, the evaluators consulted the
literature on program evaluation methods and the expertise of research mentors
to develop a draft of a comprehensive plan for the evaluation. The evaluators were
then responsible for creating and presenting preevaluation products, such as core
project documents, to the DOR program administrators (McMillan & Willard, 2008).
We scheduled several initial meetings with administrators who were currently
working with the DOR program. The program evaluation literature suggests that
evaluators should provide program administrators with opportunities to articulate
their needs (Orsini et al., 2012). Consequently, at these meetings, the first two au-
thors introduced themselves and listened to and discussed the Center staff’s goals
as a means of building relational familiarity between the evaluators and program
administrators. According to the program evaluation literature, evaluators must
effectively communicate their philosophical approach to evaluation to program
administrators in their initial meetings. In addition, an important initial step in
developing a collaborative evaluation process is to mutually agree on the purpose
of the evaluation (Orsini et al., 2012, p. 531). Therefore, we also expressed our
desire to conduct an evaluation of DOR that would be highly collaborative and
would prioritize the needs of the program as well as meet the desire to use high-
quality and rigorous research and evaluation practices.
We also ensured that the evaluators and program administrators had a shared
understanding of the purpose of the evaluation, the goals of the program, the goals
of the evaluation, and the variables that would be evaluated to determine whether
DOR was achieving its program goals. During this preformative stage, the evalua-
tors and program administrators were given the opportunity to decide whether the
evaluation team had the expertise and theoretical orientation toward evaluation that
corresponded well with the values and goals of the program (Orsini et al., 2012).
It should be noted that what became the research collaborative team was interracial,
consisting of three Black women (the two ISPRC researchers and their supervisor)
and the assistant director of the Center, a man of Filipino and White descent. The
latter introduced the researchers to DOR by describing its creation, development,
and the current directions of the program. He emphasized that the program was
aiming to (a) foster group cohesion among the facilitators and participants and (b)
help students feel more comfortable talking about race so that they would spread
these types of discussions across campus.
In addition to hearing about the DOR program from the program administrator,
and in line with the literature on program evaluation methods, the evaluators pre-
pared for the evaluation by thoroughly reviewing the DOR program’s curriculum
(Orsini et al., 2012). This gave the evaluators a better conceptualization of the
program they would be evaluating.
In order for the evaluators to form relationships with the DOR program
facilitators, the first author attended the facilitators’ training retreat. She
JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46 103
explained the mission of the ISPRC and the goals of the proposed research. By
engaging with the facilitators, the researchers hoped to provide transparency
and to give voice to this important group in their research. Such inclusion
expanded the collaborative nature of the evaluation. Subsequently, the re-
searchers developed and delivered a 2-day training on facilitation techniques,
particularly in the context of conversations regarding social justice issues.
Over the course of several meetings, the researchers shared their proposed
process with the assistant director of the Center and received his input on their
methodological choices. They proposed and agreed on implementing a pre–
post design to evaluate the DOR’s success in meeting its goals. Collaboratively,
the researchers, their ISPRC supervisor (the third author), and the assistant
director selected the measures to assess fulfillment of each program goal.
The evaluators conducted a separate study focused specifically on the cur-
riculum and process of the DOR program. However, at the request of the
DOR program administrators, this particular evaluation study focused on
outcomes. The researchers completed their university’s institutional review
board process and received approval to conduct the proposed research study.
PARTICIPANTS
During the semester, 56 students (36 women, 19 men, one participant who iden-
tified as other) signed up for the DOR program. Students identified as Asian/
Pacific Islander American (n = 10), Black or African American (n = 6), Hispanic
or Latina/o American (n = 8), White (n = 27), or two or more races (n = 5). Class
designations were freshman (n = 6), sophomore (n = 32), junior (n = 15), and
senior (n = 3). Ultimately, only 22 of the original 56 students completed DOR
and all of the measures at pretest and posttest.
MEASURES
The researchers selected one measure for each DOR goal. To assess the first goal,
enhancing group members’ sense of cohesion, the researchers selected the Group
Cohesiveness Scale (GCS; Wongpakaran, Wongpakaran, Intachote-Sakamoto,
& Boripuntakul, 2013). To assess the second goal, helping participants to feel
more comfortable talking about race on campus, the researchers searched for
measures that assessed individuals’ feelings about and willingness to talk about
race. Upon discovering that no such measures existed, the researchers developed
the Comfort With Racial Dialogues Scale (CRDS).
GCS. The GCS is a seven-item quantitative measure. Respondents rate each item
on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). For
their sample (N = 96) of young adults (mean age = 28.22, SD = 6.84) with various
psychiatric disorders, Wongpakaran et al. (2013) reported a Cronbach’s alpha of
.87 for scores on the GCS, which was sufficient for their purposes. Our sample
was too small to calculate an interpretable Cronbach’s alpha, but the average
interitem correlation was .43 at pretest and .42 at posttest, suggesting that the
items were acceptably interrelated (Briggs & Cheeks, 1986). Wongpakaran et al.’s
104 JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46
evidence of construct validity were correlations between the GCS and the Cohe-
sion to Therapist Scale (Piper, Marrache, Lacroix, Richardsen, & Jones, 1983; r =
.77, p < .001), a measure of group cohesion, and between the GCS and the Group
Benefit Questionnaire (Wongpakaran et al., 2013; r = .71, p < .001), essentially a
measure of satisfaction.
CRDS. To develop the CRDS, we defined the concept of comfort with talking
about race and racism and generated 35 items that described different ways that
individuals might talk about race and racism. For feedback on items and to reduce
the number of items, doctoral students on the ISPRC research team evaluated
items for clarity and to reduce redundancy.
The CRDS consists of 20 items, which are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). It was designed to assess participants’
comfort with talking about issues of race and racism. We developed the CRDS
because no published measures assessing comfort with talking about race were
available. To ensure that the CRDS met standards of validity, we pilot tested the
measure on several individuals to determine which items assessed the desired
construct and which variables of interest required better items (Orsini et al., 2012).
The final administered scale contained 20 items rated with three subscales: (a) Start-
ing Conversations About Race (six items; e.g., “Initiating conversations about race
does not feel difficult for me”), (b) Having Conversations About Race (six items; e.g.,
“I feel comfortable talking about race”), and (c) Challenging Racism (eight items;
e.g., “When I witness racist incidents, I am likely to respond”). The interitem correla-
tions for the subscale items were .40, .35, and .22, respectively, at pretest and .19, .45,
and .49, respectively, at posttest. With the exception of the “Initiating conversations
about race does not feel difficult for me” item at posttest, these correlations were
in an acceptable range. Interitem correlations for the Starting Conversations About
Race subscale are shown in Table 1, interitem correlations for the Having Conversa-
tions About Race subscale are shown in Table 2, and interitem correlations for the
Challenging Racism subscale are shown in Table 3.
TABLE 1
Interitem Correlations for the Starting Conversations About Race
Subscale of the Comfort With Racial Dialogues Scale
Variable
1. Item 1
2. Item 8
3. Item 15
4. Item 16
5. Item 18
6. Item 20
–.14
.72**
.50**
.61**
Note. N = 22. Items 1 and 15 were reverse coded. Item 1 = I feel comfortable starting conversa-
tions about race; Item 8 = I feel uncomfortable when the topic of race is brought up; Item 15 = I
am uncomfortable speaking up against racist actions; Item 16 = When I hear racist statements,
I am comfortable challenging the speaker; Item 18 = I am willing to start dialogues about race;
Item 20 = Initiating conversations about race does not feel difficult for me.
*p < .05. **p < .001.
.25
.16
–.21
.64**
.45*
.50*
5
432 6
.58**
–.27
.29
.41
.58**
1
JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46 105
To investigate convergent validity, we administered the Social Issues Ques-
tionnaire (SIQ; Miller et al., 2009), a measure of individuals’ propensity to
engage in social justice behavior. The questionnaire includes measures of
domain-specific social justice self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests,
choice goals, and social supports and barriers related to social justice en-
gagement. In the development of the CRDS, it was logical to use the SIQ
to establish convergent validity because the CRDS and the SIQ have both
been created, in part, to assess the degree to which one can conceptualize
racial oppression and feel capable of engaging with the topic of racism. The
measures differ in that the SIQ is more general and the CRDS has a more
TABLE 2
Interitem Correlations for the Having Conversations About Race
Subscale of the Comfort With Racial Dialogues Scale
Variable
1. Item 2
2. Item 3
3. Item 5
4. Item 6
5. Item 12
6. Item 17
.28
.32
.47**
.50*
Note. N = 22. Items 2, 6, 12, and 17 were reverse coded. Item 2 = I feel uneasy talking
about race; Item 3 = I feel comfortable talking about race; Item 5 = I am comfortable talking
about racial inequality; Item 6 = Conversations about race make me uneasy; Item 12 = It
feels difficult to have dialogues about race; Item 17 = I feel uncomfortable when the topic of
race is brought up.
*p < .05. **p < .001.
.16
.30
.73**
.17
.15
.42
5
432 6
.86**
.41
.33
.38
.63**
1
TABLE 3
Interitem Correlations for the Challenging Racism Subscale of the
Comfort With Racial Dialogues Scale
Variable
1. Item 4
2. Item 7
3. Item 9
4. Item 10
5. Item 11
6. Item 13
7. Item 14
8. Item 19
.25
–.13
.62**
.48*
.10
.41
Note. N = 22. Items 9 and 14 were reverse coded. Item 4 = When I hear racist statements,
I am comfortable challenging the perpetrator; Item 7 = Speaking up against racism does not
intimidate me; Item 9 = Challenging racist comments feels difficult for me; Item 10 = I think that
I should address racial inequalities; Item 11 = When I witness racist incidents, I am likely to
respond; Item 13 = When I notice racial inequality, I address it; Item 14 = I am uncomfortable
speaking up against racist actions; Item 19 = I feel alright when challenging racism.
*p < .05. **p < .001.
–.03
.40
.49*
–.06
.22
.12
.06
–.17
.28
.59**
–.07
.74**
5
432 6
.46**
.61**
–.25
.51*
.48*
.30
.55*
1 7 8
–.08
.48*
–.05
106 JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46
narrow focus on an individual’s propensity for social justice engagement in
the form of dialogue about race.
On the basis of Moeschberger and colleagues’ (as cited in Miller et al., 2009)
nonlinear developmental model of social justice engagement, it is logical
to consider participation in dialogue about race as a necessary stage in the
development of a person’s social justice engagement. They suggested that
individuals (a) have contact with the reality of oppression and conflict, (b)
develop an increased awareness of social injustice, (c) formulate a sense of
efficacy to bring about change, (d) understand their role in relation to this
change, (e) develop a deeper understanding of the sociopolitical context of
social issues, and (f) engage in advocacy to bring about change. In the case
of social justice engagement focused on race and racism, it is impossible for
individuals to accomplish many, or possibly any, of these steps without the
ability to speak about race.
Therefore, the constructs of interest that the CRDS and the SIQ aim to
measure, although not synonymous, are strongly intertwined. This makes the
SIQ a highly appropriate measure to use in establishing convergent validity.
The interitem correlations for the SIQ were .39 at pretest and .43 at posttest.
To examine convergent validity, we correlated SIQ pre- and posttest scores with
each of the three CRDS subscales’ pre- and posttest scores. The correlation
between the SIQ and the Starting Conversations About Race subscale of the
CRDS yielded a Pearson’s r of .08 at pretest and .55 at posttest. The correla-
tion between the SIQ and the Having Conversations About Race subscale of
the CRDS yielded a Pearson’s r of .45 at pretest and .65 at posttest. Finally,
the correlation between the SIQ and the Challenging Racism subscale of the
CRDS produced a Pearson’s r of .46 at pretest and .55 at posttest.
THE EVALUATION
A pretest–posttest design was used to evaluate the DOR program. All mea-
sures were administered to the DOR group participants at both the pre- and
posttest. At the beginning of the first session, the researchers each went to
the groups and introduced themselves, explained their role working with
DOR, their objectives, and the general mission of the ISPRC. The research-
ers explained the reasons for evaluating the DOR program and obtained the
group members’ informed consent. At the conclusion of the 6 weeks, the
measures were readministered. After collecting posttest surveys, we conducted
the data analyses.
The evaluation of the DOR program began in September 2014 and ended
in December 2014, during which time a police officer had recently killed
Michael Brown, a Black adolescent. In addition, a Black man, named Eric
Garner, was killed by police officers. In both cases, the officers involved in
the killings were not indicted, and many marches, protests, and riots broke
out as a result (Raab, 2014; Sanchez & Prokupecz, 2014).
In the midst of a racially tense national climate, it is likely that participants’
involvement or noninvolvement in DOR was influenced by the racial dynamics
JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46 107
in society. Their willingness to engage, their comfort in doing so, and their
knowledge of race and racism may have led them to experience DOR differ-
ently than they would have if they were not living in such a racially contentious
national climate at the time. The evaluators acknowledged and considered
this context during the evaluation by engaging the facilitators in discussion
about how these current events had affected them and the campus climate
during the analyses.
results
PRELIMINARY ANALYSES
Preliminary results were prepared for the Center to be included in a report
submitted to the university’s student affairs administrators, a layperson audi-
ence. For the report, participants’ percentages of agreement to disagreement
with some individual goal-related items were prepared at the request of the
Center’s assistant director. We also examined these selected items for statistical
significance. Observing that a number of specific items from the CRDS and
the GCS were highly relevant to the explicit goals of the program, we chose to
report the results of these individual items, given that they are likely valuable
data for the program’s coordinators to consider in determining whether the
stated goals of the program are being accomplished. Paired-comparison t tests
were used for all pre–post statistical analyses. Means and standard deviations
are reported in Table 4.
GOAL ATTAINMENT ANALYSES
With respect to the first goal, enhancing group members’ sense of cohesion,
participants’ GCS total scores after the intervention were significantly higher
than they were before it, t(1, 21) = 3.42, p = .003. Regarding the GCS item “I
feel accepted by the group,” the results also indicated that participants experi-
enced significantly greater acceptance following the dialogues, t(1, 21) = 3.46,
p = .002. Although participants’ scores on the GCS item “The members reveal
TABLE 4
Participants’ Total Scores and Item Scores for the
Group Cohesiveness Scale and Comfort With Racial Dialogues Scale
Scale and Item
Group Cohesiveness Scale total score
Comfort With Racial Dialogues Scale total score
Starting Conversations About Race subscale
Having Conversations About Race subscale
Challenging Racism subscale
3.90
14.95
3.90
3.14
4.35
PosttestPretest
MSD MSD
5.01
14.95
8.68
2.95
3.67
25.45
80.79
15.13
18.95
24.59
28.86
76.13
14.45
20.22
22.68
Note. N = 22. Significant at the p < .05 level.
108 JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46
sensitive personal information or feelings” were not significantly differ-
ent at posttest, there was a trend toward greater self-revelation, t(1, 21)
= –1.78, p = .09.
Regarding the second goal, helping participants to feel more comfortable
talking about race on campus, participants’ CRDS total scores indicated a
significant decrease in comfort with talking about race at posttest, t(1, 21) =
3.52, p = .002. Scores from the Starting Conversations About Race subscale, t(1,
21) = –1.98, p = .014, matched this trend, indicating that participants’ comfort
with initiating conversations about race was significantly lower following the
intervention. Scores on the Having Conversations About Race subscale were
not significant, t(1, 21) = 0.35, p = .67. However, analysis of scores on the
subscale item “I feel comfortable talking about race” indicated significantly
greater comfort following the intervention, t(1, 21) = 2.35, p = .029. Scores
on the Challenging Racism subscale decreased significantly after the inter-
vention. Nevertheless, scores on the CRDS items “I think I should address
racial inequalities” (Challenging Racism), t(1, 21) = –0.27, p = .79, and “I am
willing to start dialogues about race” (Starting Conversations About Race),
t(1, 21) = 0.53, p = .60, did not change significantly from pretest to posttest.
discussion
Our evaluation of the DOR program indicated that although participants in
our sample demonstrated that the program has been successful in accom-
plishing aspects of its goals, the program has yet to accomplish all of its goals
fully. In addition to analyzing the GCS and CRDS total scores, as well as the
subscale scores of the CRDS, at the request of the Center’s assistant director,
we also analyzed participants’ percentages of agreement to disagreement
for some individual items from both scales that related strongly to the DOR
program’s stated goals.
Regarding the DOR program’s success in meeting the goal of developing
group cohesion among group members, the results of the primary analyses
indicated that, after taking part in DOR, participants experienced a greater
sense of group cohesion with their fellow participants than they did before
engaging in the program. This finding suggests that the process of discussing
race and racism among a diverse group of students may cultivate relational
connections and group cohesion among the members of the group. In sup-
port of this supposition, participants’ scores on the GCS item “I feel accepted
by the group” indicated a significant increase in perceived acceptance from
pretest to posttest. However, participants’ scores for the GCS item “The
members reveal sensitive personal information or feelings” did not change
significantly, perhaps suggesting that although group members felt accepted
by one another, they did not necessarily feel compelled to share personal
information or feelings or, alternatively, perhaps they did not discuss race as
it pertained to themselves.
JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46 109
Surprisingly, the evaluation of the DOR program’s success in increasing
students’ comfort with talking about race indicated that, in general, par-
ticipants did not experience greater comfort talking about race after engag-
ing in DOR. Thus, even though one of the stated goals of DOR is to make
student participants feel more comfortable talking about race, after taking
part in this program, the opposite became true for the participants in our
study. Specifically, there was a significant difference in participants’ scores on
the Having Conversations About Race subscale of the CDRS from pretest to
posttest, indicating that participants were less comfortable having conversa-
tions about race after engaging in the program. When considering possible
explanations for these results, we considered the possibility that participants
indicated experiencing less comfort with racial dialogue after participating
in DOR because they had learned first hand the difficulty of engaging in
conversations about race through DOR. Going through the program dem-
onstrated for participants that although participating in dialogues about race
initially sounded like a difficult task, it is actually much more difficult than
participants originally imagined.
Despite the general results, scores on the CDRS item that most directly ex-
amines participants’ comfort with talking about race (i.e., “I feel comfortable
talking about race”) revealed a significant difference between pretest and
posttest, with students indicating greater comfort after having participated
in DOR. This finding may suggest that the act of discussing race may have
made participants feel more sure of themselves when engaged in race-related
dialogues in the groups, but it is not clear whether this comfort generalized
to comfort with discussing race in other settings.
Participants’ scores on the Challenging Racism subscale also demonstrated
that participants may have felt more comfortable engaging in various forms
of antiracist work after participating in DOR. However, participants’ scores
on the CDRS items “I think I should address racial inequalities” (Challenging
Racism) and “I am willing to start dialogues about race” (Starting Conversa-
tions About Race) did not change significantly from pretest to posttest.
Thus, the intervention, as designed, may have inspired participants to feel
ready to take action against racism, but this action may not have taken the
form of initiating or engaging in conversations about race or addressing racial
inequities. As mentioned previously, participating in DOR ultimately resulted
in many students feeling less comfortable talking about race.
If it is greatly important to the Center that DOR influences student partici-
pants to become inspired to engage in antiracism—particularly in the form
of initiating or participating in dialogues about race and racism—then the
Center may need to focus more specifically on these topics in its future DOR
interventions. It is particularly important for the Center to focus more of the
DOR curriculum towards engaging in conversations about race considering
that students’ development of an action project, which will likely require stu-
dents to dialogue about race, is an intended outcome of the DOR program.
110 JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46
methodological limitations
and lessons learned
As outside researchers invited to assist in evaluating the DOR program, we
recognize that our evaluation had some limitations from which we learned
many lessons that we hope will improve future evaluations. One limitation
was the high attrition rate prior to the evaluation. Although 56 students vol-
unteered to participate in DOR, for unknown reasons, only 22 (39%) com-
pleted the program and all of the measures at pretest and posttest. Although
the Center collected and provided us with demographic information about
the original 56 volunteers, we were not able, because of requests from the
Center, to collect demographic data from the final 22 participants. Thus, we
were unable to compare the original and final samples. As a result, we were
not able to obtain information about trends or reasons for the participants’
attrition, and, therefore, we can only speculate about the impact of attrition
on the final results.
However, the assistant director of the Center (the fourth author) noted that
every year the program experienced some attrition, which was likely related
to a number of factors. One such factor is that the university’s wide range of
student organizations and activities may have resulted in students electing to
become involved in other campus programs. Thus, the students who remained
had a stronger commitment to discussing race and were able to engage in
discussions and with the material more deeply.
A second and perhaps related explanation for the attrition is possible
confusion about the commitment that DOR required. The assistant director
acknowledged that the initial information that the Center provided about the
program may not have fully explained the nature and structure of the pro-
gram. As a result, students who signed up were unclear about what they were
signing up for. Thus, upon learning more about the program’s requirements,
students who felt less willing to invest time and energy in talking about race
may have dropped out. Dropouts attributable to a lack of sustained interest
would have resulted in a sample that initially reported more comfort with
talking about race perhaps because the participants rarely did so. Conse-
quently, their responses may have resulted in more heterogeneity in the data
at pretest. The responses of the less committed students may have skewed the
initial responses in the direction of positive outcomes because in the begin-
ning they had no racial experiences on which to base their self-evaluations.
If a greater number of the less committed students had stayed in the pro-
gram and thus completed the evaluation measures, then two possible out-
comes might have resulted. First, having a greater number of less committed
students might have resulted in a decrease in group cohesion, because these
participants possibly would have been less interested in engaging in the
development of the group culture and relational connections. On the other
JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46 111
hand, it is also possible that these students might have initially felt discon-
nected from the program and from their fellow participants but experienced
an increase in connectedness as the program progressed. Second, if the less
committed students had remained in the groups, then the participants’ overall
comfort with engaging in racial dialogues might have decreased—or perhaps
remained unchanged—over the course of the program because of these stu-
dents’ lower levels of interest, passion, and enthusiasm. Alternatively, having
a greater number of less committed students might have led to an increase
in comfort with racial dialogue if these students never had discussed race in
the past and, thus, started the program with comparatively low comfort levels.
Therefore, it is possible that, relative to students who dropped out, students
who completed the program were more committed to discussing race, and
doing so contributed to their feelings of cohesiveness.
A second limitation is that the small sample size may limit generalizability
to the larger population. In addition, the small sample size prevented the
calculation of reliability estimates for the measures used. We recommend that
the Center investigate the incentives for attendance to discover why so many
students were unavailable for the evaluation.
Finally, in the interest of protecting participant confidentiality, the Center did
not permit us to collect information about participants’ age, race, gender, or
class. This is a notable limitation, given that it is possible that some students in
particular racial groups may have been more or less able to meet the program
goals. In future research, efforts should be made to examine demographic
group-level differences in the success of the program in meeting its goals.
One lesson we learned is that sometimes methodological compromise is
necessary. The Center requested students’ percentages of agreement to
disagreement with individual goal-related items so that it could visually
present these results to a layperson audience (i.e., the university’s student
affairs administrators). Thus, we prepared pie charts of these percent-
ages as a preliminary analysis before conducting the statistical analyses.
Although the pie charts were supportive of our results, it may be fruitful
to ask whether this is a practice researchers want to repeat in the future
because it may disseminate results in a manner that is not as statistically
rigorous as possible.
Another lesson learned is that the measures used in such evaluations may
not allow one to conform to the rigorous standards one learns in research
design or psychometrics courses—particularly if relevant measures are not
available. As with our evaluation of the DOR program, sometimes an agency’s
needs may identify significant gaps in the assessment literature and neces-
sitate researcher-developed measures. The CRDS, which assesses individuals’
comfort talking about issues of race and racism, is such a measure, and we
hope to develop it further in the future.
Perhaps the most important lesson that we learned is that it is necessary
to capitalize on existing relationships and build new ones at every level of
112 JOURNAL OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT • April 2018 • Vol. 46
the program to be evaluated. The ISPRC and the Center have collaborated
multiple times in the past. Consequently, there was a preexisting trusting
relationship between the two organizations at the administrative level. This
trust allowed for more effective communication and collaboration with respect
to a sensitive topic.
Yet, the importance of forming relationships with the program participants
(i.e., facilitators and participants) has to be emphasized as well. We attended the
facilitators’ training retreat before beginning data collection and were permit-
ted to introduce ourselves and our research objectives. Gaining this familiarity
with the facilitators before beginning the evaluation allowed us to design the
process with an understanding of the culture and structure of the program and
to encourage buy-in from the student facilitators because they were consulted.
Further direction on developing relationships with facilitators might be
gleaned from Orsini et al.’s (2012) recommendations, which, although origi-
nally intended for program administrators, may be relevant for relationship
building with other program stakeholders as well. Researchers should ensure
that there is mutual understanding of the purpose, goals, and process of the
evaluation, and, when possible, solicit feedback about facilitators’ needs.
We also recommend attending any facilitator meetings that occur before the
program and evaluation begin, as the first author did. We believe that provid-
ing training to the facilitators enabled us to form a collaborative relationship
with them but recognize that this may not be a possibility for all researchers.
Furthermore, visiting the multiple locations of the group discussions and
introducing ourselves and our research institute to participants before ask-
ing them to complete the measures provided them the opportunity to ask
questions. Perhaps greater attention to multilevel relationship building at
the beginning of the DOR process will help reduce the attrition problem.
conclusion
This article has outlined our process of evaluating an interracial dialogue
facilitation intervention on a predominantly White undergraduate campus.
The growing need for interracial dialogue programs on college campuses
means that strategies should be put in place to evaluate the effectiveness of
these programs. We hope that our narrative of the evaluation process will as-
sist others in implementing evaluations of interracial dialogue interventions
in their campus communities, thereby contributing to the improvement of
their interventions.
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Dilemmas of Allyship investigates the political phenomenon of social justice allyship—in the form of white anti-racism—from a novel perspective. The book argues that 21st-century allyship is best understood as a set of socially mediated personal problems and challenges, and that these problems and challenges furnish the material with which many allies’ identities are formed. Through an analysis of in-depth interviews with white American anti-racist activists, Dilemmas of Allyship provides a picture of the ambivalent struggles with which allies grapple, tracing the “theoretically irreducible” contradictions they regularly encounter. These contradictions, or dilemmas, are central to the ongoing project of many white activists’ allyship, presenting them again and again with challenges that test their authenticity and commitment. The book also investigates how these same dilemmas can become “practically reducible” through a set of mitigating factors and strategies that intervene in and redefine allyship crises. Taken together, these analyses present a picture of allyship rarely seen: one of a lifestyle intrinsically marked by the kinds of challenges people typically avoid. Dilemmas of Allyship takes allies on their own terms, paying attention to the true ambivalence of their struggles, refusing to reduce these experiences to mere success or failure. As a result, it is able to contribute to discussions of identity politics and “white fragility” by presenting a clear picture of the existential stakes of allyship. With this picture in hand, we can better appreciate what challenges exist within the 21st-century movement for racial justice—and we can also learn something more fundamental about what it means to be a person in a contested, conflictual social world.
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Given persistent evidence of discrimination toward students of color in K-12 schools, group dialogue about multiculturalism can help individuals understand and advocate for equity and inclusion. In this article, we introduce a new model for a multicultural dialogue intervention: Diversity Dinner Dialogues (DDDs). DDDs are a small group intervention that school counselors can implement to engage students and faculty/staff in dialogues about diversity. We also provide findings from a qualitative case study exploring the experiences of school counselors leading group work in DDDs. Five themes emerged suggesting that DDDs are valuable interventions and school counselors are well-positioned to lead them.
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In this chapter, the authors review the factors that contribute to sociocultural conversations, their outcomes, and potential new directions for research and practice. They also provide ways to incorporate sociocultural conversations in practice.
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We examined group climate and outcomes in 19 intergroup dialogues (IGD) focused on gender, race and ethnicity, religion and spirituality, sexual orientation, or social class at a large, public university. Group members completed pre- and postdialogue outcome measures of colorblind racial attitudes, ethnocultural empathy, and attitudes toward diversity. Following each weekly session, participants also completed a group climate measure assessing engagement, avoidance, and conflict. Across 8 weeks, group members' perceptions of engagement significantly increased and their perceptions of avoidance significantly decreased; however, there were no significant changes in perceptions of conflict. In addition, we found significant pre- to postdialogue decreases in 2 aspects of colorblind racial attitudes: blindness to racial privilege (RP) and blindness to institutional discrimination (ID), and significant increases in empathic perspective taking (EPT). Finally, change in individual group members' perceptions of group engagement over time predicted postdialogue RP, ID, and EPT, when controlling for predialogue scores on the same variables. These findings are discussed in relationship to the critical-dialogic model of IGD, and implications for research and practice are explored. (PsycINFO Database Record
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The purpose of the present study was to investigate White students' experiences in an intergroup dialogue course that employed critical Whiteness pedagogy (Kincheloe & Steinberg, 2000) and focused on being White in a multicultural society. Using a qualitative approach, the authors investigated student participants' (n = 6) perceptions of the dialogue course and what they learned from engaging in this dialogue. Data from semistructured, individual interviews revealed several themes. With regard to students' general experiences during the course, findings suggested that they benefitted most from a balance of reading, personal reflection, and peer dialogue. Additionally, students reported mixed feelings about the racial composition of the students and cofacilitators in the course. With regard to the goals of critical Whiteness pedagogy, findings indicated that students increased their racial self-awareness, enhanced their knowledge of critical racial issues (e.g., institutional racism and White privilege), and engaged in some small behavioral steps toward becoming allies. Limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed. Additionally, the authors provide practical implications of the findings for university personnel.
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Since the milestone election of Barack Hussein Obama on November 4, 2008, some have wondered whether the United States can now be considered a post-racial nation. According to this book's contributors, a more nuanced and contemporary analysis and measurement of racial attitudes undercuts this assumption. Despite the election of the first black President and rise of his family as perhaps the most widely recognized family in the world, race remains a salient issue-particularly in the United States. Looking beyond public behaviors and how people describe their own attitudes, the contributors draw from the latest research to show how, despite the Obama family's rapid rise to national prominence, many Americans continue to harbor unconscious, anti-black biases. Nonetheless, the prominence of the Obamas on the world stage and the image they project may hasten the day when America is indeed post-racial, even at the implicit level.
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Due to continuing immigration and increasing racial and ethnic inclusiveness, higher education institutions in the United States are likely to grow ever more diverse in the 21st century. This shift holds both promise and peril: Increased inter-ethnic contact could lead to a more fruitful learning environment that encourages collaboration. On the other hand, social identity and on-campus diversity remain hotly contested issues that often raise intergroup tensions and inhibit discussion. How can we help diverse students learn from each other and gain the competencies they will need in an increasingly multicultural America? Dialogue Across Difference synthesizes three years worth of research from an innovative field experiment focused on improving intergroup understanding, relationships and collaboration. The result is a fascinating study of the potential of intergroup dialogue to improve relations across race and gender. First developed in the late 1980s, intergroup dialogues bring together an equal number of students from two different groups such as people of color and white people, or women and men to share their perspectives and learn from each other. To test the possible impact of such courses and to develop a standard of best practice, the authors of Dialogue Across Difference incorporated various theories of social psychology, higher education, communication studies and social work to design and implement a uniform curriculum in nine universities across the country. Unlike most studies on intergroup dialogue, this project employed random assignment to enroll more than 1,450 students in experimental and control groups, including in 26 dialogue courses and control groups on race and gender each. Students admitted to the dialogue courses learned about racial and gender inequalities through readings, role-play activities and personal reflections. The authors tracked students progress using a mixed-method approach, including longitudinal surveys, content analyses of student papers, interviews of students, and videotapes of sessions. The results are heartening: Over the course of a term, students who participated in intergroup dialogues developed more insight into how members of other groups perceive the world. They also became more thoughtful about the structural underpinnings of inequality, increased their motivation to bridge differences and intergroup empathy, and placed a greater value on diversity and collaborative action. The authors also note that the effects of such courses were evident on nearly all measures. While students did report an initial increase in negative emotions a possible indication of the difficulty of openly addressing race and gender that effect was no longer present a year after the course. Overall, the results are remarkably consistent and point to an optimistic conclusion: intergroup dialogue is more than mere talk. It fosters productive communication about and across differences in the service of greater collaboration for equity and justice. Ambitious and timely, Dialogue Across Difference presents a persuasive practical, theoretical and empirical account of the benefits of intergroup dialogue. The data and research presented in this volume offer a useful model for improving relations among different groups not just in the college setting but in the United States as well. https://www.russellsage.org/publications/dialogue-across-difference
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Key Points · Youth civic engagement can take various forms, of which intergroup dialogue is one. Some forms – such as electoral participation – are inappropriate for young people. · This article describes Youth Dialogues on Race and Ethnicity in Metropolitan Detroit, the nation’s most segregated metropolitan area. · High-school-age students participated in intraand intergroup dialogues, metropolitan tours, residential retreats, and community action projects. · Youth participants increased their knowledge of their own racial and ethnic identities and those of others, increased their awareness and understanding of racism and racial privilege, and developed leadership skills and took actions to challenge racism in their communities.