Respectful Engagement with Diverse People
Students accurately use knowledge and language to describe how people are both similar to and different from each other and themselves. They respectfully express curiosity about others, examining diverse experiences and perspectives in their social, political and historical contexts, exchanging ideas and beliefs in an open-minded way. They build empathy, understanding, respect, and connection across differences and similarities, having examined privilege(s) that derive from one's social identities and thinking critically about ways to deconstruct privileged hierarchies in society.
Evidence shows that young children can learn to accurately describe (using language and knowledge) how people are both similar to and different from each other and themselves, and respectfully express curiosity about others, when the teacher and/or curriculum addresses children's actual concerns with discussion and positive information.
- Third grade teacher Pang Xiong explains how she uses her authority as teacher to bring out often-silenced voices
Evidence shows that teachers using curriculum and interactive pedagogy, particularly student-led discussions that engage students across differences, can help students can learn to examine diverse experiences and perspectives in their social, political and historical contexts, exchange ideas and beliefs in an open-minded way, and build empathy, understanding, and respect.
- Marisol Moreno explains how she does this in her fourth grade classroom.
Evidence shows that, although older students find it very difficult to grapple with their own privileges, using strategies such as film, discussion, and drama, teachers can help them do so constructively.
Aboud, F. E. & Fenwick, V. (1999). Exploring and evaluating school-based interventions to reduce prejudice. Journal of Social Issues 55 (4), 767-786. Experimental study of two curricular inventions designed to help elementary children talk about race, documenting the kind of talk that reduces prejudice, especially among high-prejudiced children.
Aboud, F. E., Tredoux, C., Tropp, L. R., Brown, C. S., Niens, U., Noor, N. M., & Una Global Evaluation Group (2012). Interventions to reduce prejudice and enhance inclusion and respect for ethnic differences in early childhood: A systematic review. Developmental Review 32, 307–336. Review of 32 experimental studies of prejudice reduction programs on young children (14 on the impact of cross-group contact and 18 on the impact of instruction), in different countries (including the U.S.). Studies of contact tended to use peer relations as the main outcome, while studies of instruction tended to look at changes in attitudes. Found that 60% of the effects were positive, only 10% were negative, and the rest showed no statistically significant change. Sixty-seven percent of the outcomes for majority group children were positive; most outcomes for minority group children were not statistically significant one way or the other. Instruction about racial diversity had a more positive impact than direct contact with children who differ from oneself, although both generally produced a positive impact. The authors identified three types of instructional interventions: stories in which the child identifies with an in-group member who has an out-group friend, stories that focus exclusively on out-group people, and anti-bias instruction that focuses on how one might respond to prejudice and exclusion. The least effective type of instructional intervention for improving racial attitudes were stories or lessons that focused exclusively on out-group members.
Clark, C. T. (2010). Inquiring into ally work in teacher education: The possibilities and limitations of textual practice. In M. V. Blackburn, C. T. Clark, L. M. Kenney, & J. M. Smith (Eds.), Acting out! Combating homophobia through teacher activism (pp. 37-55). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Action research study in which a 9th grade literature teacher incorporated queer texts, and using a questionnaire, assessed their impact on students' attitudes. Found that using these texts with discussion improved students' attitudes without compromising their academic achievement.
Malo-Juvera, V. (2016). The effect of an LBGTQ themed literary instructional unit on adolescents' homophobia. Study and Scrutiny: Research in Young Adult Literature 2(1), 1-34. Reports a quasi-experimental study with 8th grade students in 7 English language arts classes, in which students read an LGBTQ themed young-adult novel, engaging with it dialogically and through reader-response. Positive impact was found on measurably reducing students' homophobia, with no evident backlash from students with high pre-test homohobia.
Ryan, C. L., Patraw, J. M., & Bednar, M. (2013). Discussing princess boys and pregnant men: Teaching about gender diversity and transgender experiences within an elementary curriculum. Journal of LGBT Youth 10 (1-2), 83-105. This study documenting how an elementary teacher in an urban school included discussions of transgender and gender-nonconforming people within the curriculum on a regular basis, how students learned to question restrictive social systems, think more inclusively about gender expression and identity, and apply this knowledge to other experiences.
Aldana, A. (2014). Youth civic engagement: Sociopolitical development in schools with lessons from and for multicultural education. Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan. Study of intergroup dialogs involving 140 suburban high school students from diverse racial backgrounds. Quantitative data did not find an impact on students' awareness of racism, but interviews revealed development of awareness of dynamics across multiple identities, particularly when dialog groups were racially diverse and student-led.
Camangian, P. (2010). Starting with self: Teaching autoethnography to foster critically caring literacies. Research in the Teaching of English 45(2), 179-204. Study of the impact on youth of color of using autoethnography as a tool to examine their own lives and multiple identities, as a tool for developing cross-group communication and collective identity across their differences.
Carrell, L. J. (1997). Diversity in the communication curriculum: Impact on student empathy. Communication Education 46, 234-244. Experimental study finding that university students who completed an intercultural communication course that directly focused on cultural awareness and intercultural communication competence made significant gains in empathy, while students who completed a small independent assignment about diversity did not gain in empathy.
Denson, N. (2009). Do curricular and co-curricular activities influence racial bias? A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research 79 (2), 805-838. Meta-analysis of research studies on the impact of diversity-related programming on university students. Most studies report positive impacts on students, particularly when there is opportunity for students to interact across their differences.
Harris, T. M. (2003). Impacting student perceptions of and attitudes toward race in the interracial communication course. Communication Education, 52 (3-4): 311-317. Self-study of student responses to a college interracial communication course designed to reduce racial prejudice and promote racial sensitivity and awareness. Analysis of student narratives and focus groups reveals it was effective in impacting student perceptions of, and attitudes towards, race.
Hughes, J. M., & Bigler, R. S. (2007). Addressing race and racism in the classroom. In G. Orfield & E. Frankenburg (Eds.), Lessons in integration: Realizing the promise of racial diversity in America's schools (pp. 190–206). Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press; and Hughes, J. M., Bigler, R. S., & Levy, S. R. (2007). Consequences of learning about historical racism among European American and African American children. Child Development, 78, 1689–1705. Two related experimental studies documenting the impact on elementary children of a few short stories about people of color and racism. In both studies, the lessons teaching about racism and successful challenges to it, as opposed to simply adding a few African Americans to the curriculum improved racial attitudes White children, and improved the regard of African American children for African Americans.
Keppler, A. (2014). High school students' attitudes toward Islam and Muslims: Can a social studies course make a difference? Report by a high school history teacher of an investigation of the impact of 4 sections of a tenth grade one-semester course on the Middle East on the attitudes of 64 students. Using a pre-post survey and analysis of students' writing, found students' attitudes to shift mainly in a positive direction. Article includes teacher syllabus and description of two major assignments.
Ryan, C. L., Patraw, J. M., & Bednar, M. (2013). Discussing princess boys and pregnant men: Teaching about gender diversity and transgender experiences within an elementary curriculum. Journal of LGBT Youth 10 (1-2), 83-105. This study documenting how an elementary teacher in an urban school included discussions of transgender and gender-nonconforming people within the curriculum on a regular basis, how students learned to question restrictive social systems, think more inclusively about gender expression and identity, and apply this knowledge to other experiences
Schall, J. & Kauffmann, G. (2003). Exploring literature with gay and lesbian characters in the elementary school. Journal of Children's Literature 29 (1): 36-45. Study of the responses of children to an initial exploration of books with gay and lesbian characters.
Simons, L., Fehr, L., Hogerwerff, F., Blank, N., Georganas, D. & Russell, B. (2011). The application of racial identity development in academic-based service learning. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 23 (1): p72-83. Study of the transformation of 19 college students' racial attitudes and multicultural skills during a semester-long diversity service-learning course. Found that students reformulated attitudes about racism and institutional discrimination through their own racial identity development over the semester. They developed greater interest in working with culturally diverse service recipients, acquired deeper understanding of economic and educational conditions that impact the community, and gained multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills.
Harris, T. M. (2001). Student reactions to the visual texts The Color of Fear and Rosewood in the interracial classroom. Howard Journal of Communications, 12(2). Study of college students' reactions to two films shown in two interracial communication courses. Students' reaction papers revealed they found the use of visual text as a powerful tool in educating people about racism and its impact on interracial communication.
Harris, T. M., Groscurth, C. R. & Trego, A. (2007). Coloring outside the lines: Unmasking performances of white identity through classroom role play. In L. M. Cooks & J. S. Simpson (Eds). Whiteness, pedagogy, performance: Dis/placing race (pp. 169-191). Lanham, MD, US: Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield. Discussing of how a role-playing activity in a college-level interracial communication course challenged students to engage in the act of performing racial identities within a fictionalized context, and how this process contributes to understandings of the social construction of race, particularly the power dynamic of whiteness in relationship to other racialized identities.
Miller, A. N. & Harris, T. M. (2005). Communicating to develop White racial identity in an interracial communication class. Communication Education 54(3), 223-24. Study documenting the struggles of White university students in discussing race in a racially diverse context, and difficulties the instructors encountered when trying to address White silence.