Intergroup Contact in the College and University

Office of Diversity and Inclusion Author

03/18/2021 Added

31 Plays

Description

There are many initiatives and programs in higher education aimed at recognizing our biases. Unfortunately, simply being aware of our biases does not necessarily minimize or improve perceptions of others. The purpose of the webinar is to provide an overview of intergroup contact as a potential framework for developing programs to reduce bias in college and university communities.

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[00:00:09.340]I want to thank everyone for joining us today
[00:00:12.630]during the lunch hour and providing me the opportunity
[00:00:15.790]to talk with you today about the potential
[00:00:18.340]of intergroup contact in reducing bias
[00:00:21.440]in the college and university setting.
[00:00:23.890]I want to thank the Office of Diversity and Inclusion
[00:00:26.300]and particularly Jesse Peter
[00:00:27.730]for assisting and putting this together.
[00:00:34.210]When we talk about intergroup contact
[00:00:36.560]we need to mention its cousin or partner in crime
[00:00:40.570]or whatever term you want to use,
[00:00:42.430]intergroup dialogue and explain
[00:00:45.229]how these are similar and how they differ
[00:00:49.500]and what we're actually going to be talking about today.
[00:00:52.720]So both intergroup dialogue and intergroup contact
[00:00:55.310]refer to interactions between individuals
[00:00:57.840]from different social identity groups.
[00:01:00.150]So when we talk about social identity groups
[00:01:01.830]we're talking about groups such as race, ethnicity
[00:01:05.720]political affiliation,
[00:01:08.930]gender, and sexual identity.
[00:01:10.690]And then on college campuses there are some unique groups
[00:01:14.760]that we perhaps don't think about
[00:01:16.630]in the larger social context.
[00:01:18.200]So Greek, non-Greek, international versus domestic students,
[00:01:23.280]students, and student athletes.
[00:01:25.630]So what we're talking about, both in intergroup dialogue
[00:01:27.720]and intergroup contact is interactions
[00:01:30.710]between these different groups,
[00:01:33.160]oftentimes were issues of bias
[00:01:35.020]and stereotypes come into play.
[00:01:38.620]Intergroup dialogue really gets at the question
[00:01:40.800]of how can we communicate across difference
[00:01:42.890]in a manner that leads to constructive outcomes
[00:01:45.480]or alliance building?
[00:01:48.160]Things like Husker Dialogues, for those who were involved
[00:01:51.940]in the Diversity Inclusion events
[00:01:56.870]two weeks ago for the Athletic Department.
[00:01:59.110]I forgot the exact name of that.
[00:02:01.610]They'll have dialogue sessions
[00:02:03.190]where we're talking about difference
[00:02:06.290]in a ways to perhaps, achieve a certain goal
[00:02:10.050]or again like these constructive outcomes.
[00:02:12.670]Intergroup contact has a different goal.
[00:02:17.200]The question is, can we minimize negative attitudes
[00:02:19.560]towards groups or change worldviews by bringing individuals
[00:02:22.990]from different social groups together?
[00:02:25.920]So the key here is minimizing negative attitudes
[00:02:29.570]or changing world views.
[00:02:31.670]You'll see the Venn diagram between intergroup contact
[00:02:34.143]and intergroup dialogue, they overlap,
[00:02:36.870]because sometimes part of our intergroup dialogue,
[00:02:39.470]part of coming together to talk across difference
[00:02:42.350]is with the goal of minimizing negative attitudes,
[00:02:45.070]changing attitudes but that's not always the case.
[00:02:48.590]And so intergroup contact is something specific
[00:02:52.160]and that's what we're going to talk about today.
[00:02:56.510]So the focus of this webinar are really to be
[00:02:59.550]on four different areas.
[00:03:00.920]Why should we consider
[00:03:02.410]intergroup contact initiatives on campus?
[00:03:04.690]What types of attitude change are possible
[00:03:06.940]in intergroup contact?
[00:03:08.310]What are the facilitating conditions
[00:03:09.880]for effective intergroup contact?
[00:03:11.780]And then how do we consider some of the changes
[00:03:14.060]in the university landscape with Zoom
[00:03:16.760]and remote instruction and remote events and everything?
[00:03:21.560]How can we perhaps facilitate intergroup contact
[00:03:24.780]in this changing university landscape?
[00:03:28.050]The ultimate goal here is to simply provide you a framework
[00:03:31.480]and foundation for developing the contact programming.
[00:03:35.390]So we're not going to give you,
[00:03:36.860]here's exactly what you should do, because every situation,
[00:03:40.910]every groups you're bringing together
[00:03:44.330]is going to be slightly different.
[00:03:46.100]Working with Greek and non-Greek communities, for instance,
[00:03:49.080]is going to be slightly different
[00:03:50.370]if you had interracial contact.
[00:03:52.590]And so the goal here is to give you things to think about
[00:03:55.800]and then whether it's individuals
[00:03:58.730]in the Office of Diversity Inclusion, or myself,
[00:04:01.280]to help you kind of develop, refine the programming,
[00:04:05.570]and put it into action.
[00:04:08.890]So the first area I want to talk about
[00:04:11.950]is why we should consider
[00:04:13.570]intergroup contact initiatives on campus.
[00:04:16.870]So few things to think about, first of all
[00:04:19.210]there's a great deal of work
[00:04:20.660]on implicit bias and recognizing biases.
[00:04:23.540]I'm sure all of us have been involved in,
[00:04:26.010]or even facilitated discussions
[00:04:29.770]about understanding our biases,
[00:04:31.980]and especially implicit biases.
[00:04:33.930]However, there's not a great deal of evidence
[00:04:36.700]that shows that understanding our biases
[00:04:38.840]actually changes our attitudes towards others.
[00:04:41.090]And in fact, some people argue that it might even backfire
[00:04:45.560]because we have this idea of like,
[00:04:46.840]well I know my biases, so I'm good now.
[00:04:49.397]And so we have to recognize that we have to move
[00:04:52.180]beyond simply just making people aware of biases
[00:04:55.520]and how can we change this?
[00:04:58.553]In addition to structural and co-curricular diversity
[00:05:02.660]we need to consider diversity interactions.
[00:05:06.160]There's an article that talks about one university
[00:05:09.050]two cultures talking about interracial interactions
[00:05:13.110]at predominantly white institutions.
[00:05:15.570]And we could also just think about this
[00:05:16.760]as one university, many cultures.
[00:05:18.920]So we need to consider these diversity interactions
[00:05:21.640]and be very purposeful in them.
[00:05:25.570]A third reason, non-structured interactions
[00:05:28.330]can have some negative outcomes, right?
[00:05:31.030]So if you think about it, university environment
[00:05:34.440]is the first time a lot of people
[00:05:35.930]are interacting with social others, okay?
[00:05:38.540]Whether it's racial, ethnic, religious,
[00:05:42.720]people from different parts of the country,
[00:05:44.310]international, gender, sexual identity.
[00:05:47.170]When these are non-structured, meaning non purposeful,
[00:05:49.680]these are just your everyday interactions,
[00:05:51.560]just like in society,
[00:05:52.590]those can actually have negative outcomes.
[00:05:54.200]So while we think bringing people at campus
[00:05:56.680]is automatically going to create these great experiences,
[00:06:00.640]it can actually reify stereotypes.
[00:06:02.750]It can actually reinforce them.
[00:06:04.190]It can make people feel marginalized.
[00:06:06.630]And we see that a lot.
[00:06:08.670]And so we need to think about how we create
[00:06:10.890]these structured interactions and opportunities.
[00:06:14.860]We know that students do not necessarily
[00:06:16.790]seek out engagement with other groups.
[00:06:19.380]And if we're selling university and colleges on this idea
[00:06:23.150]that we can interact with others,
[00:06:24.870]and it's a way to learn about ourselves
[00:06:26.520]and make us better citizens in the world,
[00:06:28.590]we need to think about how we can develop programming
[00:06:30.453]to allow this to happen.
[00:06:34.030]And perhaps most importantly,
[00:06:35.770]we know that we can reduce bias from very purposeful
[00:06:39.230]and structured intergroup interactions.
[00:06:41.790]And that's proven whether we're talking about
[00:06:44.330]an ethno political conflict
[00:06:46.260]in Northern Ireland, Israel, Palestine,
[00:06:48.620]whether we're talking to interracial interactions
[00:06:50.670]in communities, there's been hundreds
[00:06:52.770]and hundreds of studies that have shown
[00:06:54.993]that intergroup contact does work.
[00:06:57.050]Not only that, they've pointed us to understanding
[00:06:59.681]what actually makes it work.
[00:07:02.310]And that's what we're going to talk about today.
[00:07:09.650]What types of attitude change are possible
[00:07:11.160]in intergroup contact?
[00:07:12.220]What are we talking when we talk about attitude change?
[00:07:16.640]When individuals from different social groups
[00:07:18.370]interact in a constructive matte manner,
[00:07:21.360]what attitude change can emerge?
[00:07:23.380]What are we thinking about?
[00:07:24.710]And there's really three types that the research has shown.
[00:07:27.840]And this is important because you want to consider
[00:07:30.870]what your goals are if you're involved in this.
[00:07:33.770]One of it is you could just have more positive views
[00:07:35.810]of the individuals and interactions.
[00:07:37.710]Sometimes that's a goal.
[00:07:39.680]So you bring in groups together, you have a community group
[00:07:41.870]maybe this is a learning community.
[00:07:43.470]Maybe this is another group on campus.
[00:07:45.900]Maybe this is a residence hall.
[00:07:47.560]And your goal is you just want to change the views
[00:07:49.840]of those individuals in there.
[00:07:53.480]You might have more positive views of social groups.
[00:07:56.220]Your goal here is to say can we change our stereotypes
[00:07:59.070]and biases overall by interacting with someone
[00:08:02.870]from a different social group?
[00:08:04.760]In other words, that interaction generalizes
[00:08:07.340]and changes are our biases towards that group.
[00:08:11.169]Or we may want to think we just want to change.
[00:08:14.490]Can we just create more inclusive worldviews in general?
[00:08:17.630]So maybe by interacting with someone
[00:08:19.240]from a different religious group,
[00:08:21.350]I'm now having more inclusive worldviews,
[00:08:23.750]it's changed my ideas overall.
[00:08:27.110]So kind of just to visualize this, I'm a visual person.
[00:08:30.370]This is actually a intergroup contact group
[00:08:33.720]at Townsend University,
[00:08:35.480]but let's say this group was together.
[00:08:37.270]And so the question is, are we concerned
[00:08:40.360]about how these interactions change perceptions
[00:08:45.750]of each of the individuals in here?
[00:08:47.990]So maybe these two individuals had negative views
[00:08:50.240]of each other based on their social group,
[00:08:51.950]and now we want to change that attitude.
[00:08:54.400]Or do we want to change the attitudes of the social groups
[00:08:58.480]reflecting the individuals participating?
[00:09:01.050]So maybe this group is about sexual and gender identity.
[00:09:04.180]And we want to see if we can,
[00:09:05.400]just by interacting with people
[00:09:06.830]who are in a different group, we can change those biases,
[00:09:12.530]or are we interested in our worldviews
[00:09:15.700]above and beyond the individuals
[00:09:16.977]and social groups reflecting the interactions?
[00:09:21.570]So we have one poll question
[00:09:23.160]just to kind of see where you are on this.
[00:09:27.290]And this poll will be popping up in a moment.
[00:09:30.290]But just asking what type of attitude change
[00:09:32.550]are you most interested in
[00:09:34.550]based on your role at the university?
[00:09:36.570]Are you more interested
[00:09:37.830]in more positive views of individuals, changing those,
[00:09:41.160]more positive views of groups,
[00:09:43.180]or more inclusive worldviews in general?
[00:10:17.573]Just a few more coming in.
[00:10:32.208]So what we have is,
[00:10:35.620]most people, a vast majority
[00:10:37.370]want more inclusive world views in general.
[00:10:39.750]And that was kind of split between individuals and groups.
[00:10:42.860]What we have here is kind of
[00:10:47.110]a staggering of this from easiest to most difficult.
[00:10:51.150]So the easiest to do
[00:10:52.690]is to change perceptions of the individuals.
[00:10:57.370]The next step is still complicated.
[00:10:59.740]And we'll discuss this in a moment,
[00:11:01.280]is changing these groups
[00:11:03.430]and then how to change those worldviews
[00:11:06.070]is sometimes the most difficult
[00:11:07.730]but it's still a possibility in this.
[00:11:11.040]And I think this is important because as we talk about
[00:11:14.470]you always want to understand when, at the end,
[00:11:16.910]when I talk about the steps for designing these,
[00:11:19.110]one of the things is trying to understand
[00:11:20.560]what you're hoping to accomplish with whatever program
[00:11:23.830]that you're going to be involved in.
[00:11:32.380]There is some emerging evidence, this is relatively new,
[00:11:36.610]that intergroup contact can also increase
[00:11:41.060]the desire to engage in collective action
[00:11:43.750]or social justice work.
[00:11:45.680]So there's some new research showing
[00:11:47.740]can this actually engender behavior
[00:11:51.050]where people are like, okay I'm not only
[00:11:52.840]changing my attitudes, I'm going to be an advocate for you.
[00:11:55.410]I'm going to try to change things
[00:11:58.150]whether it's on the campus or in the community.
[00:12:01.270]So again, that's some of the new stuff
[00:12:03.060]that we're working on, but that is a possibility
[00:12:05.440]of the type of attitude change that can come out of this.
[00:12:10.190]So let's go back and let's think about this notion
[00:12:13.510]of the positive attitude change emerging from interactions.
[00:12:17.090]Because at the heart of this, we need to understand
[00:12:20.520]how we actually create effective intergroup contact.
[00:12:23.870]And there's this great quote
[00:12:25.740]from Gullo and Beachum in the article,
[00:12:27.927]"Framing Implicit Bias,
[00:12:29.660]Impact Reduction in Social Justice Leadership."
[00:12:33.630]And what this quote says is,
[00:12:35.537]"While intergroup contact can occur in a myriad of manners,
[00:12:40.090]educational leaders must ensure that efforts
[00:12:42.660]for such contact respect all individuals involved
[00:12:46.090]and those experiences are positive and supportive."
[00:12:49.140]And this is perhaps
[00:12:52.150]one of the most important things to understand
[00:12:57.550]on a college, a university environment
[00:13:01.310]is understanding what's going on structurally,
[00:13:05.460]understanding experience of students,
[00:13:07.530]understand marginalization and how you bring that in.
[00:13:12.590]So I mentioned earlier that there's been hundreds
[00:13:15.460]and hundreds of studies done on intergroup contact.
[00:13:20.960]And because of that, we know these facilitating conditions.
[00:13:25.270]We know what needs to be there
[00:13:27.010]in order for constructive contact to happen
[00:13:29.750]and for positive attitudes to emerge.
[00:13:32.350]So what I want to do is I want to go through these briefly
[00:13:35.540]and then talk about
[00:13:41.480]some of the things that are unique to college campuses
[00:13:44.630]that we may need to consider.
[00:13:46.860]I saw a comment up there online that said
[00:13:50.057]"I've always struggled with ways
[00:13:51.130]to document the change of heart and attitudes."
[00:13:55.100]Sorry the chat moved over.
[00:13:57.407]"Do you have some good tips?"
[00:13:59.310]Something I'll talk about at the end a little
[00:14:01.670]about how you decide how you're going to assess these.
[00:14:05.830]I can help you perhaps after the webinar
[00:14:08.220]can look at specifically the types of attitudes
[00:14:10.700]you're looking at and give you some advice on that.
[00:14:14.810]So let's talk about equal status first.
[00:14:18.150]Equal status is one of the most important
[00:14:20.070]facilitating conditions for effective intergroup contact.
[00:14:24.150]In one sense, this seems common sense,
[00:14:27.700]pretty straightforward,
[00:14:28.620]individuals have to feel like they're on equal footing
[00:14:30.900]if you're going to have a positive interaction,
[00:14:33.600]if something positive is going to come out of this.
[00:14:37.130]But then you really have to think about it in terms of,
[00:14:40.910]how do you frame bringing people together?
[00:14:43.200]How do you design a program
[00:14:47.000]that really thinks about the complexity
[00:14:49.330]of equal status, right?
[00:14:51.370]So this could even be something like location.
[00:14:54.230]Let's say you're developing programming,
[00:14:57.170]it's interfaith programming.
[00:14:58.920]And you have Christian students and then you have students
[00:15:02.210]that are Jewish and Muslim.
[00:15:04.750]And you're bringing them together, intergroup contact,
[00:15:07.360]hopefully change some attitudes or stereotypes.
[00:15:09.900]Well, if you hold that in a church
[00:15:12.940]that's not equal status, right?
[00:15:17.320]You have to figure out a place that makes people,
[00:15:19.370]especially if they're from a marginalized
[00:15:21.260]or traditionally underrepresented group
[00:15:23.670]to basically still feel like they're not in a place
[00:15:28.570]where there's still that hierarchy and power.
[00:15:30.560]So this takes a lot of time and a lot of attention
[00:15:33.700]in designing these programs.
[00:15:35.750]What type of interactions you're going to have?
[00:15:37.670]Who are going to be the facilitators?
[00:15:39.770]Who are gonna be the people that introduce these?
[00:15:42.150]All of the things you have to consider
[00:15:44.710]in terms of creating equal status.
[00:15:47.390]Over the last few years we've seen a lot more attention
[00:15:50.010]being devoted to understand the structural marginalization,
[00:15:53.440]the issues that happen at universities
[00:15:56.050]with students who don't feel
[00:15:57.260]like they have a sense of belonging, who feel,
[00:15:59.570]like I said marginalized.
[00:16:01.940]And you have to make sure
[00:16:03.140]that you're not just repeating those things
[00:16:06.704]when you create this contact together.
[00:16:09.890]Now, it also depends on the groups that come together.
[00:16:13.430]So some groups, and we'll talk about this here
[00:16:15.550]in a moment too, there's not going to be
[00:16:17.180]as much of a power differential.
[00:16:19.850]So for example, if you're bringing Greek and non-Greek,
[00:16:23.360]there's not a socio historical context
[00:16:27.470]in society, perhaps, that says that,
[00:16:30.870]Greeks always have more power than non Greeks,
[00:16:32.980]and there's this marginalization.
[00:16:35.100]I'm sure we can point to certain incidents and everything
[00:16:37.430]but Greek and non-Greek is a completely different situation
[00:16:41.830]than interracial or trying to give voice
[00:16:44.560]to people from LGBTQ communities.
[00:16:47.537]And so equal status is something
[00:16:49.470]that's incredibly important in this.
[00:16:52.940]The next facilitating condition,
[00:16:55.210]is what's called common or understood goals.
[00:16:59.660]So historically this used to mean
[00:17:01.720]that in order to have effective intergroup contact,
[00:17:04.220]people have to come together and they all agree
[00:17:08.070]that they're trying to change attitudes.
[00:17:12.090]That's still the case.
[00:17:13.350]But more recent work that's taken
[00:17:14.870]a bit more critical perspective has said,
[00:17:18.010]not everyone needs to change attitudes.
[00:17:21.520]So for example, let's say you have white
[00:17:23.850]and non-white students, a predominantly white institution.
[00:17:27.920]We're not asking everyone
[00:17:29.510]to perhaps change stereotypes and biases on this.
[00:17:33.760]Perhaps for some students, the goal is that
[00:17:37.270]we hope you interact and you'll recognize your biases
[00:17:39.530]and you'll change or biases
[00:17:40.820]towards marginalized and minority groups.
[00:17:44.570]But for the non white students, maybe the goal is,
[00:17:48.180]it's gonna give you opportunity to share experiences,
[00:17:50.990]talk about this in a way
[00:17:53.090]that you can be part of the process of changing attitudes.
[00:17:57.180]So whether we're talking about common goals
[00:17:59.790]where both groups have the same goal
[00:18:01.700]of changing attitudes or understanding
[00:18:04.200]that there's some different groups
[00:18:05.980]some different goals here based on who the groups are,
[00:18:09.330]there's an agreement.
[00:18:10.170]People know why they're doing this.
[00:18:11.830]We're not tricking people into doing this.
[00:18:14.120]People understand what's happening here.
[00:18:23.260]The next facilitating condition is intergroup cooperation.
[00:18:30.720]Unlike intergroup dialogue, sometimes where you have people
[00:18:34.220]talking about their experiences,
[00:18:36.197]and there's very much sometimes an us and them approach,
[00:18:40.830]and that's one of the goals of dialogue
[00:18:42.355]is understanding people's experiences.
[00:18:45.410]That can be part of contact, but there has to be something
[00:18:47.890]where you're integrating individuals together
[00:18:50.390]in a cooperative environment.
[00:18:52.070]This is an important facilitating condition.
[00:18:54.350]Sometimes that can have nothing to do
[00:18:56.120]with the social groups that are involved.
[00:18:58.060]It could be everything from working together
[00:19:00.860]for a charitable or civic initiative.
[00:19:04.940]It could be, they've done this with sports,
[00:19:07.540]they've done this just with social engagements.
[00:19:09.940]But the important thing here is there's integration
[00:19:13.768]and there's cooperation between the groups.
[00:19:16.410]Because what you're trying to do here
[00:19:17.720]is develop interactions and develop,
[00:19:22.990]sometimes relationships too, that are going to allow people
[00:19:27.380]to see people in a different light.
[00:19:31.500]And then finally institutional support.
[00:19:34.890]There has to be a credible perception
[00:19:37.660]that the institution and the community
[00:19:42.250]are behind this and support it.
[00:19:45.720]We don't want people to think something is just performative
[00:19:50.300]or we're just putting programs together
[00:19:53.050]just because this is what we should be doing right now.
[00:19:56.260]There has to be a credible perception
[00:19:58.810]that there's support for this
[00:20:00.690]and that the communities that people come from
[00:20:04.150]also want to see this happen.
[00:20:06.370]And I'll give an example from the ethno political realm.
[00:20:09.450]So like in Northern Ireland, for instance,
[00:20:11.450]they would bring Protestant and Catholic teenagers
[00:20:14.330]to the US to have intergroup contact programs.
[00:20:17.850]They come together, they change attitudes
[00:20:20.220]but then they went back to their communities
[00:20:21.990]and they didn't have that support in the community for this.
[00:20:25.760]And so institutional support is incredibly significant
[00:20:30.190]and making sure that we can have these positive attitudes.
[00:20:33.260]So you have to think about it.
[00:20:34.760]Are you in residence halls? Are you in learning communities?
[00:20:39.210]Wherever you are at this university,
[00:20:40.970]your roles and responsibility, do they feel
[00:20:43.790]like this is something that there's a lot of support
[00:20:49.230]behind this.
[00:20:51.143]And sometimes I think that asking people
[00:20:53.550]what they actually think about it,
[00:20:54.890]do they believe there's credible support,
[00:20:56.570]is important because we may think we're doing a lot of stuff
[00:20:58.930]but are we conveying that?
[00:21:01.400]So my next poll question for you,
[00:21:03.580]and I thought, what you could do also
[00:21:05.680]is when you answer this poll is,
[00:21:08.410]is if you'd like to, in the chat just mention why
[00:21:11.340]you think this one is the most challenging.
[00:21:13.140]So the poll is which of the facilitating conditions
[00:21:16.820]do you believe is most challenging to achieve in university
[00:21:21.635]and college communities?
[00:21:24.300]And you can answer that.
[00:21:25.580]And also if you'd like to add anything to the chat
[00:21:28.100]related to this, just to kind of see where people are
[00:21:31.290]and how they feel about this.
[00:22:15.420]Just a few more coming in.
[00:22:16.500]And again, if you want to write anything
[00:22:17.890]about why you answered the way you did
[00:22:19.330]in the chat, that's fine.
[00:22:32.900]So a majority,
[00:22:38.150]we have respondents in each of these
[00:22:40.470]but equal status is a majority here.
[00:22:43.620]And I think that you see that in a lot of places.
[00:22:46.790]I think that sometimes the toughest thing
[00:22:48.880]because equal status is often reflecting
[00:22:54.030]of the large social environment we're in.
[00:22:58.350]Nathan mentioned that issues of status are prevalent
[00:23:01.520]in the academic faculty, students, and staff.
[00:23:06.180]I think that Timothy talks about administration
[00:23:09.110]and just the structural aspects of the institution.
[00:23:14.850]But then also considering the fact that institutions exist
[00:23:19.950]within a larger social cultural environment, right?
[00:23:23.060]So sometimes it's asking a lot
[00:23:24.560]how do we create equal status these places
[00:23:27.310]but I encourage you to really think about these
[00:23:29.540]because if you really don't have
[00:23:33.190]these facilitating conditions then you're not going to see
[00:23:37.370]the type of outcomes that you want to see.
[00:23:40.540]And again, we'll talk a little bit about this
[00:23:43.870]at the end of this session.
[00:23:51.450]Oh, I'm sorry.
[00:23:52.283]I think I forgot to share the results, but there they are.
[00:23:55.044](laughing)
[00:24:07.260]So if you think about this, I'm a visual person.
[00:24:10.090]That's why I have this model, right?
[00:24:11.710]You have these facilitating conditions,
[00:24:13.757]you have these positive attitude change
[00:24:15.680]emerging from interactions.
[00:24:17.400]So then you have to think about, okay
[00:24:19.620]I'm creating these programs.
[00:24:21.610]And some of you may be interested
[00:24:23.190]in creating a day long program.
[00:24:25.220]Some of you maybe this is a something
[00:24:27.427]that's going to go on for a semester
[00:24:29.990]in a residence hall or in a different unit.
[00:24:34.570]So you have to think about
[00:24:35.640]what are the purpose of the interactions
[00:24:37.310]whether it's a single interaction or single episode,
[00:24:41.460]or this is what we're doing this week
[00:24:42.750]or this what we're doing
[00:24:43.640]in the first part of this programming.
[00:24:46.440]There's a variety of different ways to do this.
[00:24:49.730]But if you synthesize this,
[00:24:52.600]I just want to give you a few different ways
[00:24:55.490]to think about the purpose of interactions.
[00:24:58.780]One is interactions that lead to increased knowledge
[00:25:02.660]of out-group histories and experiences.
[00:25:05.870]So if part of this is learning about out-groups
[00:25:09.150]as part of this,
[00:25:09.983]how can you have some interactions that do that?
[00:25:14.470]So sometimes these are the narratives.
[00:25:17.040]Sometimes these are stories.
[00:25:18.510]Sometimes these are just getting to know each other.
[00:25:23.300]These can be very formulaic, right?
[00:25:27.790]Or you can try to see if these are more organic.
[00:25:30.390]But how do you set these up? How do you do this?
[00:25:32.955]I've seen everything ranging from sports teams
[00:25:35.760]that come together for that intergroup cooperation.
[00:25:38.690]And then just afterwards something they do every week
[00:25:41.290]after they are in these recreational, intramural things,
[00:25:44.960]they talk a little bit about their experiences.
[00:25:47.190]So they have this cooperation that has nothing to do really,
[00:25:50.670]with talking about these histories and experiences.
[00:25:53.760]But then they introduce that later.
[00:25:56.810]Anxiety reduction.
[00:26:01.723]One thing we know that a lot of people avoid interactions
[00:26:06.610]with other social groups is not because always of bias
[00:26:09.970]and not because they don't want to.
[00:26:12.230]It's called intergroup anxiety.
[00:26:13.770]We don't know how to interact.
[00:26:16.810]We don't have the scripts for this.
[00:26:18.890]I know in my classroom, oftentimes I'll be teaching
[00:26:21.890]and everyone will be talking and everyone's engaged.
[00:26:24.120]And then we talk about something with race and ethnicity
[00:26:26.240]and everyone sometimes gets really quiet.
[00:26:29.300]And the reason is 'cause
[00:26:30.300]they don't want to say the wrong thing
[00:26:33.050]or they just haven't had experience
[00:26:35.240]interacting or talking about this.
[00:26:37.580]And so one thing you may want to do in interactions
[00:26:39.780]is figure out how can you reduce anxiety?
[00:26:42.080]How can you make this something that's more comfortable?
[00:26:44.640]Because we're not gonna reduce bias if we're uncomfortable.
[00:26:55.110]Enhanced empathy, right?
[00:26:57.380]How do you create this understanding
[00:26:59.680]and empathy towards other groups?
[00:27:05.160]Agency for marginalized groups.
[00:27:07.588]This is incredibly important because one critique
[00:27:13.240]of some of the
[00:27:22.142]historical work on intergroup contact, I'm sorry,
[00:27:23.870]is that it's focused too much on majority group members
[00:27:27.380]and changing their attitudes.
[00:27:28.720]So how do we create something where there's agency
[00:27:31.810]and there's voice, and there's something for groups
[00:27:34.790]that are historically marginalized?
[00:27:36.460]And so they're not just coming in here
[00:27:38.380]as a way to serve others that are reducing bias.
[00:27:41.360]They're getting something out of this.
[00:27:44.540]And finally friendship and community.
[00:27:46.640]And we're gonna return to friendship and community
[00:27:48.560]because this is a really important point
[00:27:51.667]when we talk about changing attitudes.
[00:27:54.400]So the point of this, this isn't exhaustive.
[00:27:57.720]But when you look at a variety of research on this
[00:27:59.860]and you look at how people are designing programs
[00:28:02.090]one thing you want to think about is,
[00:28:03.670]what is the purpose of your actions?
[00:28:05.410]What are you asking people to do?
[00:28:06.890]And making sure, just like we do in teaching,
[00:28:10.140]for those of you who teach, right?
[00:28:11.330]We have our course objectives
[00:28:12.560]and our activities to achieve this.
[00:28:14.750]What is the purpose of your interactions?
[00:28:17.380]How do they achieve your overall goal?
[00:28:20.860]And this is a way to start thinking about them.
[00:28:28.735]So on the Q&A, I know we'll have some time at the end,
[00:28:32.830]but I'll go ahead and address this one real quick.
[00:28:35.680]What role does conflict play in making intergroup changes?
[00:28:41.680]We don't want to avoid conflict
[00:28:43.180]and intergroup interactions, right?
[00:28:46.730]We don't want to say that we're not going to be honest
[00:28:49.990]with what is going on here.
[00:28:52.530]And so it's more a matter of how that plays into
[00:28:56.960]what you're trying to achieve.
[00:28:59.460]So if you are having conflict in this,
[00:29:03.750]is that more of a dialogue approach
[00:29:05.860]where you're trying to basically make people understand
[00:29:10.660]the different experiences and make sure
[00:29:13.580]that people sharing their different histories
[00:29:17.570]and sharing why people see the world in different ways.
[00:29:25.763]Are you doing that just as a conversation?
[00:29:27.330]Or are you doing that with a way
[00:29:28.750]that then you can actually change attitudes?
[00:29:31.560]And if you're doing it in a way
[00:29:32.910]that you're changing attitudes
[00:29:34.110]that's a different structure, that's a different approach.
[00:29:37.080]You still want to make sure
[00:29:39.333]that you bring in these conditions here.
[00:29:41.500]You still want to make sure
[00:29:42.490]that there's opportunities for cooperation.
[00:29:44.560]So it's not avoiding conflict.
[00:29:46.460]It's not taking this colorblind ideology
[00:29:48.730]which we'll talk about here in a moment.
[00:29:50.770]But it's making sure that when there is discussion
[00:29:54.370]about conflict or discussion about tensions,
[00:29:58.681]that it's still focused
[00:30:00.670]in these conditions to actually achieve these goals.
[00:30:08.540]So going back to the colorblind ideology
[00:30:10.770]and coming back to that term or that idea
[00:30:14.514]we talked before about three different types
[00:30:16.980]of changes or three different types
[00:30:19.100]of ways that we can change attitudes.
[00:30:22.850]Excuse me, just moving something.
[00:30:24.520]And remember we talked about, you can change the individual.
[00:30:26.890]You can change the social group
[00:30:28.740]and you can change the worldviews.
[00:30:31.180]A lot of people want to change the social group.
[00:30:33.740]They want to have perhaps, interracial interactions
[00:30:37.350]and small groups on a college campus.
[00:30:40.220]Can that change bias and stereotypes
[00:30:44.200]towards larger social groups?
[00:30:49.460]What comes into play here, and this is incredibly important,
[00:30:52.430]is something called group salience.
[00:30:54.330]What does that mean?
[00:30:56.220]It's basically saying, do you see individuals as typical
[00:30:59.460]and representative of their social groups?
[00:31:03.070]This is incredibly important because oftentimes
[00:31:06.030]what happens is people have these great interactions.
[00:31:09.610]Maybe you set something up at residence halls,
[00:31:12.360]you set something up in learning communities.
[00:31:15.350]You have these great interactions.
[00:31:17.080]You think, wow, this is going to change these biases.
[00:31:19.280]These are gonna change attitudes.
[00:31:21.200]And that's not what happens.
[00:31:23.880]Well, we know what happens is people,
[00:31:26.060]they don't see the individuals they're interacting with
[00:31:29.250]as typical and representative of their social groups.
[00:31:31.490]They see them as atypical.
[00:31:33.900]So I can still hold biases towards,
[00:31:36.600]let's say biases towards a religious group.
[00:31:39.870]And I have friends from this religious group
[00:31:41.840]because I don't see them as typical
[00:31:43.520]and representative of that group.
[00:31:45.230]And this is extremely important because if we don't see them
[00:31:48.630]as typical and representative their social groups
[00:31:50.670]what ends up happening is it doesn't really change attitudes
[00:31:53.220]towards the social groups.
[00:31:55.030]And in fact, it can backfire against this.
[00:31:58.740]People can say like, oh well so-and-so I interacted with,
[00:32:03.350]had this great experience with, but they're atypical.
[00:32:08.530]And so it just reifies these stereotypes and biases.
[00:32:11.410]So the question is how do we make sure
[00:32:14.130]that group identity is still salient,
[00:32:16.010]that we're not taking this colorblind ideology
[00:32:18.960]or dismissing group identity?
[00:32:21.010]We have to make sure
[00:32:22.620]that is still salient in these interactions.
[00:32:25.000]And unfortunately, so many times,
[00:32:26.360]whether it's community programming or college campuses
[00:32:28.860]there's been this idea to just see people as individuals.
[00:32:31.970]When we see them as individuals,
[00:32:33.210]we're both erasing their agency,
[00:32:35.870]we're both erasing them to bring their identities there.
[00:32:38.090]But also that does not typically do enough
[00:32:41.540]to change attitudes.
[00:32:44.910]But this is difficult
[00:32:45.920]because when you make identity salient,
[00:32:48.290]when you make these differences evident,
[00:32:50.390]when people are thinking about this,
[00:32:52.110]it makes people uncomfortable.
[00:32:54.170]And that's when that anxiety comes into play.
[00:32:56.350]So this is kind of the difficult challenge.
[00:33:00.400]This is where friendship and community comes into play.
[00:33:03.990]What most of the research has shown is
[00:33:05.710]that you can develop programs where they develop community
[00:33:09.040]they develop friendships.
[00:33:10.850]And then you introduce that idea
[00:33:14.230]about their group identities in differences
[00:33:17.530]because it's based in friendship or is based in community.
[00:33:21.680]What ends up happening is they both see
[00:33:24.240]that person knowing them it's a positive experience
[00:33:27.220]but they also see them
[00:33:28.350]as typical and representative their group.
[00:33:30.260]So coming back to the question
[00:33:31.830]I believe Charlene asked, if I got the name wrong
[00:33:33.980]I'm sorry, about conflict,
[00:33:38.530]is that you can introduce conflict
[00:33:40.070]after you develop that friendship and community.
[00:33:44.380]There's a great deal of research,
[00:33:45.860]if you're going to do programs on this
[00:33:47.120]I'd be happy to talk about it more.
[00:33:49.420]Just so much to do in the short time frame.
[00:33:57.907]Going back to this slide,
[00:33:59.650]this is basically the heart of intergroup contact research.
[00:34:05.930]That's basically saying, we want to think about
[00:34:08.610]the different positive attitudes change that we can have
[00:34:12.340]whether it's individuals, groups, changing worldviews.
[00:34:16.030]If we're going to develop programming for that,
[00:34:18.210]that's affective, we have to do our best
[00:34:21.430]to accomplish these facilitating conditions.
[00:34:24.190]So we have to think about our context.
[00:34:28.640]So whether it's the campus context
[00:34:30.710]the groups we're bringing together,
[00:34:32.150]the history of those groups, both on the college campus
[00:34:36.060]and in society in general, we have to think about
[00:34:39.365]the purpose of our interactions.
[00:34:43.510]So the main takeaway from this, and kind of going back
[00:34:46.670]from this quote is to be extremely purposeful
[00:34:52.710]and designing intergroup contact
[00:34:57.590]that is going to respect individuals
[00:34:59.610]make sure it's positive and supportive,
[00:35:01.210]and actually leads to something that's beneficial.
[00:35:04.950]And one of the critiques that people often say
[00:35:08.170]about college and university,
[00:35:10.290]is the idea that we can just bring people together
[00:35:12.270]without thinking about this and expect good things to happen
[00:35:15.930]and that we need to be more purposeful in this.
[00:35:18.810]So before we wrap up today, the final thing
[00:35:21.827]I want to talk about is this changing university landscape.
[00:35:26.600]We have a third poll here, and I'll read these out.
[00:35:31.510]You can answer these.
[00:35:32.360]So which of the following has not been shown
[00:35:34.010]to reduce negative attitudes towards outgroups?
[00:35:37.480]Face-to-face interactions,
[00:35:39.820]having friends that have positive interactions
[00:35:42.750]observing positive interactions
[00:35:44.450]between people from different social groups
[00:35:46.810]simply imagining positive interactions with individuals
[00:35:49.670]from different social groups,
[00:35:51.360]watching shows or videos of individuals
[00:35:53.420]from different social groups,
[00:35:55.580]playing video games as a person of a different social group
[00:35:58.990]or contact on social media, Facebook, Twitter.
[00:36:45.072]We'll just give it a few more seconds to finish this poll.
[00:37:09.190]So whenever I give this poll,
[00:37:12.970]I don't know if this is just because
[00:37:14.860]it's at the end of the presentation
[00:37:16.870]or it's because it's reflecting of what, oftentimes
[00:37:20.820]when I give this poll is there's less response to this
[00:37:25.430]because people don't know,
[00:37:26.920]or they think I'm trying to trick them because saying,
[00:37:30.440]well they all have shown to do this.
[00:37:32.800]And that's actually the case.
[00:37:33.960]This is one of those horrible instructor things
[00:37:38.130]where it's a trick question.
[00:37:39.220]All of these have been shown to actually improve attitudes.
[00:37:45.380]It's not surprising that contact on social media
[00:37:49.150]has been shown to be, like people thought that's not the one
[00:37:52.500]because we know that there's a lot of problems
[00:37:54.880]in polarization on social media
[00:37:56.980]but it can still actually work.
[00:37:58.870]There's a lot of research and models for this.
[00:38:05.140]The reason I bring this up is because there are benefits
[00:38:09.140]of contact beyond face-to-face interactions.
[00:38:11.870]So indirect contact, okay.
[00:38:14.990]Knowing that friends of you,
[00:38:17.610]like friends of friends are different group, okay?
[00:38:20.890]Whether it's ethnic racial, political, religion, gender
[00:38:23.570]sexual identity, all of that,
[00:38:27.080]indirect contact, so having friends of friends
[00:38:29.330]actually changes attitudes,
[00:38:32.260]vicarious contact, actually observing contact
[00:38:36.040]between different groups can change your biases.
[00:38:40.020]Imagined contact.
[00:38:42.260]You'd think that that wouldn't carry that much weight
[00:38:45.900]but we know when people imagine these interactions
[00:38:48.670]that are positive and interactions that affect everything
[00:38:51.500]actually changes attitudes.
[00:38:53.250]And there's a large meta analysis that talks about this.
[00:38:57.700]Mediated contact.
[00:38:58.820]So whether it's TV shows, video games,
[00:39:02.760]some of those pro social video games,
[00:39:04.480]one that comes to mind is "Against All Odds"
[00:39:07.910]where you play as a refugee
[00:39:09.330]and you go through the whole thing from fleeing a country
[00:39:13.330]and trying to make it in a new country.
[00:39:14.940]And all of this actually changes attitudes,
[00:39:17.300]and some social media.
[00:39:19.310]So you may be able to think of creative ways
[00:39:22.360]to create intergroup contact opportunities on campus
[00:39:26.220]or even making people think about their experiences,
[00:39:30.860]whether it's imagined and vicarious.
[00:39:32.860]And we don't think about it this way.
[00:39:34.300]We typically think about everything face to face.
[00:39:36.840]But if we think of these like tools in our arsenal
[00:39:39.930]to battle bias,
[00:39:41.949]let's think about some of these creative ways.
[00:39:44.050]And again, this is something that I'd be happy
[00:39:47.200]to talk to you more about or send you some other resources.
[00:39:52.130]So we mentioned that the goal was to provide you a framework
[00:39:55.460]and foundation for effective intergroup contact program.
[00:39:59.260]So if you're going to move forward with this
[00:40:01.690]what are the next steps?
[00:40:02.830]What do you do now?
[00:40:05.690]So the first step is you need to identify the groups
[00:40:08.107]and the attitude change goals.
[00:40:09.920]When I say identify the groups,
[00:40:12.620]that means everything about the complexities of that.
[00:40:15.780]What is the history on campus?
[00:40:17.290]What is the inequality or equality between them?
[00:40:20.500]What are your attitude change goals for each group?
[00:40:23.210]What do you need to consider when thinking
[00:40:26.670]about the biases that are evident in this group?
[00:40:29.990]And do you have the expertise to do this?
[00:40:31.750]Or do we need to look across the university
[00:40:33.930]for other experts to help you with this?
[00:40:38.180]Then considering your programming opportunities
[00:40:40.280]that reflect these facilitating conditions
[00:40:42.450]are you doing workshops?
[00:40:43.640]Are you doing a semester long program in a residence hall?
[00:40:48.960]Are you doing this as part of a larger event?
[00:40:53.140]But as you do this you need to make sure
[00:40:55.350]those facilitating conditions are met.
[00:40:58.360]You want to design these very purposeful interactions
[00:41:02.890]and make sure that you understand why
[00:41:06.180]you're having people do what they do
[00:41:08.110]because that is probably the biggest mistake that I made
[00:41:10.510]in the past that other people do
[00:41:13.410]is that we don't really think through
[00:41:15.340]what could possibly come out of these interactions.
[00:41:17.900]So what are our goals, and how we facilitate this?
[00:41:21.120]Decide how you will assess the outcomes.
[00:41:22.830]And the reason I italicized this,
[00:41:24.340]and someone asked this question before is,
[00:41:26.980]at the end of the day, we want to make sure
[00:41:28.390]that if our goal is a change in attitudes
[00:41:31.640]how are we assessing this?
[00:41:34.570]We didn't want this to turn into
[00:41:35.950]a survey methodology type presentation.
[00:41:41.630]But we have some incredible expertise on campus.
[00:41:45.150]I can help you with this.
[00:41:46.050]Other people can help you with this
[00:41:47.450]and about really design the outcomes
[00:41:49.470]and understanding, is this working?
[00:41:53.818]And so, take advantage of the expertise on campus.
[00:41:57.270]I am the chair of the Institutional Review Boards.
[00:41:59.520]I couldn't not say this if necessary,
[00:42:02.580]if you're going to do something
[00:42:03.690]where you want to publish this
[00:42:04.860]if you want to do something where you want to convey this
[00:42:10.000]to audiences beyond the university,
[00:42:12.070]make sure you get your human subject research approval.
[00:42:15.530]And again, seek out the expertise.
[00:42:19.410]This is something that I'm very passionate about.
[00:42:21.430]So whether it is intergroup contact or intergroup dialogue,
[00:42:26.330]either of those, please feel free to reach out to me,
[00:42:30.340]I would be happy to talk with you about this,
[00:42:32.680]answer some questions for you,
[00:42:34.460]build on some of what we've talked about today
[00:42:36.840]given it's more of the foundation and tip of the iceberg.
[00:42:40.120]And with that, I will open it up to questions.
[00:42:45.050]Thank you so much.
[00:42:49.730]Dr. Soliz, we have one question which reads
[00:42:52.597]"What methods should be used to increase knowledge
[00:42:56.310]of out-group histories and experiences?"
[00:43:00.290]So I would not say there's one method.
[00:43:03.700]I would say there's a variety of methods
[00:43:06.480]that you can choose.
[00:43:10.120]For instance, a lot of people will go the narrative route
[00:43:14.440]where people are engaged in stories, right?
[00:43:21.410]And stories bring us into people's experiences.
[00:43:26.360]We're kind of transported into those experiences.
[00:43:29.690]So oftentimes people will use stories a lot for that
[00:43:32.850]and not always a story of the history of a people
[00:43:36.540]but a story of an experience that represents you
[00:43:39.890]and your identity and something that you want to convey.
[00:43:43.390]In places where there's a lot of tension between groups
[00:43:47.670]that have a different idea of
[00:43:53.160]what histories are, what happened in a certain situation
[00:43:56.770]or something like that.
[00:43:59.730]They'll do the share stories approach
[00:44:04.000]where people write their own narratives
[00:44:06.100]and then come together to write these stories together
[00:44:09.340]so here's all the narratives of what happened.
[00:44:12.300]So stories there's sometimes called fishbowl techniques
[00:44:17.510]where people will
[00:44:22.576]have to focus.
[00:44:23.610]And it's very purposeful, focused on them
[00:44:25.780]talking about their experience
[00:44:27.130]or answering very specific questions.
[00:44:32.100]Sometimes people will design it
[00:44:35.330]where individuals go into different groups.
[00:44:37.960]So it's this within group discussion.
[00:44:40.320]So let's say you have different religious groups.
[00:44:42.480]Maybe you have one religious group all talking
[00:44:44.920]about their experiences together
[00:44:46.320]another religious group talking about it.
[00:44:47.830]Then they come together and talk about it.
[00:44:50.390]There's not one right way.
[00:44:54.050]There's a variety of models out there.
[00:44:56.540]And this is where I'd be happy to help
[00:44:58.560]or point people to different resources
[00:45:03.190]where you can get ideas about what might work for you.
[00:45:27.980]I appreciate everyone joining us today.
[00:45:31.410]I know it's an incredibly busy time of the year.
[00:45:34.520]You have my contact information there
[00:45:36.210]so please feel free to reach out
[00:45:37.660]if you have any questions on this.
[00:45:41.648]I just want to talk about some of the next steps
[00:45:46.610]for diversity at UNL.
[00:45:49.430]So the next webinar will be on whiteness
[00:45:51.550]on April 12th, from 12:00 to 1:00.
[00:45:55.030]Make sure that you sign up for the newsletter,
[00:45:58.630]Share any of your actions on the hashtag #MyHuskerAction.
[00:46:02.150]Make sure you follow the Office of Diversity and Inclusion
[00:46:05.020]on Twitter and Facebook.
[00:46:06.280]And Jesse has just put up the link
[00:46:09.450]to register for the next webinar.
[00:46:16.400]Thank you everybody.

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Intergroup Contact in the College and University

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