Dialogue Across Difference: Practice, Theory, and Research on Intergroup Dialogue

10. Intergroup Dialogue: A Response to the Challenges of Demography, Democracy, and Dispersion

chAPTER 10 Intergroup Dialogue: A Response to the Challenges of Demography, Democracy, and Dispersion In chapter 1, we argued that intergroup dialogue (IGD) is an increasingly important form of communication because the United States as a whole and higher education institutions in particular must deal with three major challenges: a demographic challenge arising from demographic shifts producing a much more ethnically and racially diverse United States that will be majority nonwhite by 2050 and earlier among youth, a democracy challenge arising from increasing inequality that raises questions for the vitality of a democracy, and a dispersion challenge arising from shifts in the global position of the United States as other countries assume critical roles on the world stage. In this chapter, we take up each of these challenges as they specifically involve higher education. We argue that demographic trends among young people will mean that higher education institutions will have much larger proportions of nonwhite students. Rather than assuming that interaction and mutual learning across demographic groups will automatically increase, INTERGROUP DIALOGUE 329 we contend that intergroup dialogue will continue to be needed, perhaps even more than now, because students will find it easier to insulate themselves in the larger communities of students from their same backgrounds. We also argue that intergroup dialogue addresses the democratic challenge of assuring that members of all groups have a stake in sustaining and invigorating democratic processes. Intergroup dialogue does this by educating students about inequalities and about the need for and capacity of groups differing in power and privilege to collaborate with each other. Finally, we argue that the importance of dialogue, consultation, and cooperation has grown as many more countries have increased economic and political influence in the world. The challenge of dispersion demands a more cosmopolitan education for young people in the United States (Appiah 2006b; Nussbaum 1996, 2007). Intergroup dialogue fosters competencies that future leaders will need in interacting across nationalities in diplomacy, multinational corporations, and both governmental and nongovernmental organizations. In discussing the relevance of intergroup dialogue for how higher education addresses these challenges, we also describe examples that have been developed since the conclusion of this study at some of the nine participating institutions and at other institutions where the Multi-University Intergroup Dialogue Research (MIGR) collaborators have consulted. We offer them as illustrative of possible programs institutions might implement in the future, not necessarily recommended ones because none of them have yet been evaluated as rigorously as the dialogues presented in this book. ThE DEMoGRAPhIc chAllENGE: INcREAsING DIvERsITy IN hIGhER EDucATIoN INsTITuTIoNs The capacity and importance of people of different racial-ethnic backgrounds to dialogue with each other will increase in importance as the nation’s colleges and universities themselves become more racially and ethnically diverse. Several demographic trends foretell more diverse higher education institutions in the United States. For one, the recent overall increase in student enrollment in higher education institutions, which, according to the Pew Research Center (Fry 2010), was 6 percent just between the fall of 2007 and 2008, was driven primarily by an increase in racial and ethnic minority enrollment . Almost three-quarters of that year’s increase came from racialethnic minority students: Hispanic1 students leading the growth at 15 percent , black students at 8 percent, Asian background students at 6 percent, 330 DIALOGUE ACROSS DIFFERENCE and white students at 3 percent. For another, a report from the Pew Hispanic Center shows a second single-year surge of Hispanic enrollment in higher education institutions between 2009 and 2010 (Fry 2011). In that year, Hispanic enrollment increased by 349,000, African American by 88,000, and Asian Americans by 43,000, but white enrollment dropped by 320,000. These increases reflect overall changes in proportions of high school graduates from various ethnic-racial backgrounds. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (2008) estimates that the nation’s public schools are expected to produce 54 percent more Hispanic high school graduates , 32 percent more Asian/Pacific Islander graduates, 3 percent more African American graduates, 7 percent more American Indian and Alaska Native graduates but 11 percent fewer non-Hispanic white graduates between 2004 and 2014. The increasingly nonwhite pipeline from high school graduation to higher education means that higher education will rapidly become more diversified racially and ethnically. The dramatic increases expected in ethnic-racial minority enrollment in higher education are apt to continue for three reasons. In the first place, racial and...