From dialogue to action: The development of White racial allies

Abstract

The Supreme Court rulings of Gratz, et al. v. Bollinger, et al. and Grutter, et al. v. Bollinger, et al. (2003) legally affirmed the relationship between positive student learning outcomes and the presence of racial diversity on college and university campuses (Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002). Institutions of post- secondary education are poised to leverage the presence of racial diversity to engage and educate for social change. The purpose of this study is to examine how a race/ethnicity themed intergroup dialogue facilitates the development of confidence and frequency of White college students' engagement in actions that are congruent with the development of White racial allies. Variables measuring confidence and frequency of action engagement included: (a) self-directed, (b) other-directed, and (c) intergroup collaborative actions. Participants were part of the Multiversity Intergroup Dialogue Research (MIGR) project that included nine college and universities. Using an experimental design with stratified random assignment, three MANCOVA analyses were used to determine the differences in dependent variables between experimental dialogue and waitlist control groups. Covariates included pretest responses repeated survey measures and college involvement variables. All three analyses yielded multivariate group differences. Univariate ANOVA analyses revealed group differences for only the frequency subscales.