Intergroup dialogue is a face-to-face, structured, and facilitated group experience that creates opportunities for participants to listen deeply, engage in self-reflection, and gain new perspectives on polarizing societal issues. Dialogues have helped to build relationships between conflicting groups, reduce polarization, promote increased self-awareness about biases, and strengthen diverse groups’ abilities to work together towards common goals. Intergroup dialogue draws on different fields such as social psychology (in particular Gordon Allport’s ‘intergroup contact hypothesis’), John Dewey’s democratic education, and Paulo Freire’s ideas on dialogic pedagogy to promote transformative learning.
The REDI Office is looking to connect with individuals interested in learning more about intergroup dialogue or participating in one. Register your interest and indicate the topics you would like to explore in an intergroup dialogue in this survey.
References
- Evaluation of Intergroup Dialogue: A Review of the Empirical Literature
- Meaningful Interpersonal Contact: Interreligious Dialogue as a Response to the Cognitive and Social Dynamics of Bias
- Can We Really Reduce Ethnic Prejudice Outside the Lab? A Meta-Analysis of Direct and Indirect Contact Interventions
Additional Resources
- Watch an incredible example of intergroup dialogue in action in a recent TED talk here.
- The Executive Director of the WOSK Center for Dialogue and former Director of the Equity & Inclusion Office writes about facilitating intergroup dialogue here.
- Learn more about intergroup dialogue in this book “Facilitating Intergroup DialoguesBridging Differences, Catalyzing Change.”
- William Ury, the co-founder of the Harvard Program on Negotiation, recently published a book titled “Possible: How We Can Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict,” which also includes examples from intergroup dialogue.
- Learn more about UBC’s Conflict Engagement Initiative here.