The Power of Dialogue: Consequences of Intergroup Dialogue and their Implications for Agency and Alliance Building

Abstract

Phenomenological investigation of a community intergroup dialogue program reveals that participation in the program promoted complex thinking about diversity, feelings of self-efficacy, and changes in communicative action. Agency in the interest of social change, however, depended on both access to resources such as cultural capital, and incentives to recognize a need for change. The results suggest that dialogue has important potential for intercultural understanding, alliance building, and social change, but also that the indeterminacy implied in open systems prohibits assurance that change will be in the direction intended by program organizers.

Keywords:

• Agency
• Structure
• Dialogue
• Alliances
• Intergroup
• Social change

Sara DeTurk would like to thank Jackie Martinez, Benjamin Broome, the City of Tempe Diversity Office, and the anonymous co-researchers for their guidance, assistance, and participation in this project.

Notes

1. I use the term ‘co-researcher’ (rather than ‘participant,’ for example) for two reasons: first, to differentiate my interviewees from other participants of the dialogue program, and second, to acknowledge the responsibility they carried in advancing both our interview dialogues and the interpretations of them.

2. This group included Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, and other European-Americans; I use the terms ‘Anglo-Americans’ to differentiate them from Mexican-Americans.

3. This group included Catholics, Protestants, and nondenominational Christians (regardless of whether or not they were religiously observant); I use the term ‘Christian’ to differentiate them from Muslims.

4. Thanks are due to Jackie Martinez for suggesting this term.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sara DeTurk

Sara DeTurk is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication