The Oswego Dialogue Project Five-Year Plan offers dialogue opportunities, dialogue facilitation training, and supports a growing learning community of dialogue practitioners. Led by the Triandiflou Institute for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Transformative Practice in collaboration with the El Hindi Center for Dialogue and Action at Interfaith Works, these efforts will allow the campus to grow in skill and practice in intergroup dialogue practices as a means to inform inclusive pedagogy and create brave spaces for dialogue across differences and on divisive topics, develop empathy and build a sense of belonging.
Five-Year Plan actions include:
- Training 50 dialogue facilitators to actively engage in a learning community of practice
- Convene up to 60 dialogues over 5 years
- Using dialogue to support the work of an inclusive community
What is Intergroup Dialogue?
Intergroup Dialogue is a form of communication that encourages people who have different lived experiences to build mutually-beneficial relationships through mindful conversations. This practice uses dialogic principles to focus on topics of social issues of unequally distributed power, privilege and resources, and it encourages collaborative action for change. Unlike debate and discussion, dialogue does not seek to defeat others or gain answers through conversation, instead, have a mindful conversation and respect the perspectives that come from individuals with different identities.
How is Intergroup Dialogue Related to Restorative Practice?
Restorative practices offer a broader umbrella of guiding principles that recognize relationships as central to learning, growth, and a healthy university or organizational climate. Restorative practices aim to provide proactive strategies to build a sense of community, encourage relationship building, and decrease confrontations.
Restorative practice and dialogue are not the same thing, though one can inform the other in building an inclusive community that prioritizes belonging and social justice. One can engage in restorative practice without using Intergroup Dialogue, but Intergroup Dialogue cannot be facilitated without restorative practice.
Curricular Connections
Intercultural competence is a consistent learning outcome across our academic programs. Studies assessing the outcomes of intergroup dialogue in academic settings consistently support the practice as a means to develop intergroup awareness and understanding, intergroup relationships, and intergroup collaboration and engagement as well as developing students’ capacities for social justice behavior.