Exploring understandings of sexual consent amongst Life Orientation student-teachers through intergroup dialogue

In this article, the author reports on how intergroup dialogue was used amongst Life Orientation (LO) student-teachers to deconstruct the heteropatriarchal notions of sexual consent, in the context of gender-based violence (GBV). Three sessions of intergroup dialogue were arranged between third-year student-teachers and female survivors of GBV from a local Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) in exploring the perceptions of sexual consent, to deepen their understanding regarding the concepts of shaming, blaming and silencing that perpetuate GBV in communities. Third-year LO student-teachers engaged in dialogue with four youth survivors of GBV from a local NPO who shared their experiences of GBV and sexual consent. The heteropatriarchal views to GBV held by student-teachers were disrupted through the dialogues between the two groups thus enabling a greater understanding of sexual consent and the role played by shaming, blaming and silencing of victims in perpetuating GBV. The findings highlighted that intergroup dialogue could be a useful tool in creating norm-critical and sex-positive schools and communities.

Neural rhythmic underpinnings of intergroup bias: implications for peace-building attitudes and dialogue

Intergroup bias is a ubiquitous socio-cognitive phenomenon that, while sustaining human dependence on group living, often leads to prejudice, inequity, and violence; yet, its neural underpinnings remain unclear. Framed within the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and targeting youth, this study utilized magnetoencephalography to describe intrinsic neural oscillatory processes that represent the intergroup bias and may link with engagement in peacemaking in order to shed further light on the neural mechanisms underpinning intergroup conflict. Across the oscillatory spectrum, from very low to very high frequency bands, the only rhythm found to underlie the intergroup bias was the alpha rhythm. Alpha rhythm was continuously activated across the task and integrated a rapid perceptual component in the occipital cortex with a top-down cognitive-control component in the medial cingulate cortex. These components were distinctly associated with the real-life intergroup dialogue style and expressed attitudes that promote active engagement in peacemaking. Our findings suggest that the cortical alpha rhythm plays a crucial role in sustaining intergroup bias and addresses its impact on concrete intergroup experiences. The results highlight the need to provide opportunities for active peace-building dialogue to youth reared amidst intractable conflicts.

Intergroup Dialogue Pedagogy, Processes, and Outcomes: The Moderating Role of Students’ Openness to Multiple Perspectives

Background Intergroup dialogue (IGD) is a prominent social justice pedagogy that engages diverse groups of students in sustained, facilitated dialogues on social issues. Decades of IGD research have informed the development of the critical–dialogic theoretical framework of intergroup dialogue, which describes how IGD engages students in communicative, cognitive, and affective processes that promote intergroup understanding, intergroup relationships, and intergroup collaboration and action. Scholars have recently highlighted the need to better understand the relationships between students’ developmental capacities, their corresponding attitudes and dispositions, and IGD processes and outcomes in order to discern how students at different levels of development respond to and experience IGD. Study Purpose Grounded in the theory of self-authorship, theories of epistemological development, and corresponding research suggesting that dispositions associated with students’ epistemological assumptions of knowledge and knowing can moderate students’ engagement and development in matters that are interpersonal and intrapersonal in nature, the purpose of this study was to analyze the relationships between students’ openness to multiple perspectives (a disposition associated with epistemological development) and the interpersonal and intrapersonal processes and outcomes associated with IGD. Research Design In this secondary data analysis of the multi-institutional, longitudinal dataset constructed as part of the multi-university intergroup dialogue research project, structural equation modeling was used to discern how the relationships between IGD's communicative, cognitive, and affective processes and outcomes vary for groups of students with different levels of openness to multiple perspectives. Results In line with previous research on college student development, the results of this study illuminate a moderating relationship between students’ openness to multiple perspectives and the intergroup processes and outcomes associated with IGD. The patterns of moderation observed suggests that IGD's communicative, cognitive, and affective processes and outcomes are most strongly (although not exclusively) associated with matters of pedagogy and cognition for students who are less open, and matters of communication and affect for students who are more open. Conclusions and Recommendations The results of this study suggest that as IGD facilitators are able to increase their understanding of epistemological development and related dispositions, pass on their understanding to their students via readings and activities, assess their students’ epistemological dispositions, and augment their preparation and facilitation accordingly, an IGD group's collective ability to increase intergroup understanding, relationships, collaboration, and action is enhanced. This can be accomplished as what is known about college students’ epistemological development and dispositions is more fully integrated into IGD curriculum, facilitation, and facilitator training.

Examining Intergroup Dialogue’s Potential to Promote Social Justice in Adult Education

Intergroup dialogue (IGD) is a program for facilitating conversations about social identity, institutionalized and systemic oppression, social conflict, and social justice. This article examines how IGD can contribute to adult education’s socially just goals by facilitating transformative learning. An initial review of the literature, followed by a discussion of IGD’s relationship to existing social justice pedagogy, highlights IGD’s transformative aspects in various learning settings within the adult education field. Finally, this article provides recommendations on how IGD can contribute to adult education practice and research while exploring implications and limitations.

Dialogue facilitation: learning to listen

What is it? When we think about dialogue in foreign language teaching then dyadic interactions, service encounters, or role plays that students might perform in a ‘communicative’ classroom come to mind. The kind of dialogue we are talking about here instead is a form of intergroup dialogue, that is dialogue as a method of communication that can be used to explore shared issues between groups from diverse backgrounds, dialogue that highlights the importance of people’s lived experiences. For language learners, this kind of dialogue is an opportunity to communicate about themselves and their local identities, interests, and values and learn about others’. Online dialogue can bring people together to address questions that transcend their own borders, to explore common subjects but from the starting point of their locality (Canagarajah, 2004). Intergroup dialogue is led by trained facilitators who are multi-partial leaders of a group process. Their role is to create a safe and effective learning environment and model tools for effective cross-cultural, intergroup dialogue. Facilitation tools include awareness-raising and addressing group dynamics, as well as using active listening skills such as summarising, mirroring, and reframing. Facilitators can bring critical thinking to a conversation by asking good questions, exploring terminology used, and addressing not only opinions but also actions and feelings.