The Value of Dialogue Groups for Teaching Race and Ethnicity

Teaching sociological perspectives on race and ethnicity is challenging due to the predominance of color-blind ideology in our supposed postracial society. Students enter the classroom hesitant to discuss race or acknowledge ongoing racism. To better educate students and bridge the racial distance between them, we developed small-group, team-facilitated dialogues as a core course component. We explore results of pre- and postsurveys from students in two sections of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity taught by the first author, which featured dialogues, and one similarly structured offering from a different instructor without dialogues. In comparison to the class offering without dialogues, students who completed the dialogues showed greater mastery of core sociological concepts related to race and an increased commitment to supporting and promoting racial and ethnic equality.