Intergroup Dialogue Pedagogy, Processes, and Outcomes: The Moderating Role of Epistemological Development

Abstract

With intergroup conflict on the rise in the U.S., we are reminded of the critical role higher education can play in preparing individuals for life in an increasingly diverse, complex, and polarized society. Developed in the late 1980s, the University of Michigan’s unique approach to intergroup dialogue (IGD) brings together students from different identity groups who share a history of strained relationships and have lacked opportunities to speak to each other in meaningful ways. Since its inception, this particular approach to IGD has been studied extensively, focusing primarily on processes associated with interpersonal relationships and intrapersonal identity. Less attention has been given to students’ fundamental assumptions of knowledge, knowing, and other aspects of their epistemological development. Guided by the theory of self-authorship, along with multiple theories of epistemological development, this study focuses on the relationship between students’ epistemological development and the key pedagogical features, communication processes, psychological processes, and intended outcomes scholars and practitioners have identified over the last three decades of IGD research, theory building, and practice. The complex relationships among these pedagogical features, processes, and outcomes are captured in the critical-dialogic theoretical framework of intergroup dialogue, which also guides this study. To explore the possible moderating role of epistemological development in these relationships, I conducted t-tests and used two structural equation modeling techniques (path analysis and multiple group analysis) to analyze a sample of 720 IGD students who participated in the Multi-University Intergroup Dialogue Research Project (MIGR). I used a composite score of student responses to five measures of “openness to multiple perspectives” as a proxy measure of students’ epistemological development. The results of my analyses indicate that the relationships between IGD’s pedagogical features, communication processes, psychological processes, and intended outcomes (intergroup understanding, empathy, collaboration, and action) are moderated in multiple ways based on students’ level of openness to multiple perspectives. Increases in IGD’s various processes and outcomes were most directly (though not exclusively) associated with pedagogy and cognition for students who were less open to multiple perspectives and with communication and emotion for students who were more open to multiple perspectives. The results of this study illustrate how the critical-dialogic theoretical framework of intergroup dialogue operates differently for students based on a particular epistemological disposition. This refined understanding of how the IGD experience varies based on students’ openness to multiple perspectives has implications for IGD curriculum, facilitation, and facilitator training. Future research could analyze whether other dimensions of development (e.g., interpersonal, intrapersonal) also moderate the processes and outcomes associated with IGD. The results of this study also have implications for student development theory. Previous research has produced mixed evidence as to whether one’s intrapersonal and interpersonal development is moderated by one’s epistemological development. Given that IGD’s various processes and outcomes, which are primarily interpersonal and intrapersonal in nature, were moderated by epistemological dispositions, the results of this study offer support for the moderating role of epistemological development.