From Dialogue to Action: The Impact of Cross-Race Intergroup Dialogue on the Development of White College Students as Racial Allies

Institutions of postsecondary education are poised to leverage the presence of racial diversity to educate for social change. The purpose of this study was to examine how a race/ethnicity 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. 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, MANCOVA analyses were used to determine the differences in outcomes of confidence and frequency of taking actions between experimental dialogue participants and paired waitlist control groups. Covariates included pretest responses, repeated survey measures, and college involvement variables. Multivariate analyses revealed that dialogue participants reported higher levels of confidence and frequency of engagement, whereas univariate analyses revealed higher levels of frequency for engagement of dialogue participants when compared to waitlist control groups.