Conversation and Conflict: Supporting Authentic Dialogue in the Classroom

Abstract

This paper presents an exploratory study of MSW students who self‐identified as having political/religious world views differing from what they perceived to be dominant at their school. A goal was to learn about conditions that fostered or inhibited authentic speech for those students. A secondary goal was to learn how students dealt with their political views differing from political positions taken by the profession. Eleven student volunteers participated in structured interviews. Qualitative analysis of these allowed the construction of themes concerning both how faculty may discourage and how faculty support expression of minority views.

Keywords:

• Dialogue
• authenticity
• “political correctness”
• self‐censoring
• intellectual development

Notes

1. The tables are available from the authors on request.