Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[permission to reproduce granted if
authorship is acknowledged]
An
increasing number of school boards are incorporating diversity training as part
of their professional development programs for teaching, administrative and
support staff. While motivations differ among boards, the general hope is that
diversity training will have a positive impact. I share that hope.
Knowing
something of the literature and practice in the field, I suggest that boards
have realistic expectations about what diversity training (also called race-relations
training, anti-racism training, etc.) can accomplish.
In
the early 1990s, a colleague and I undertook a meta-analysis[1]
of what we described at the time as “attempts to prepare teachers for managing
inter-cultural and inter-racial contact in their classrooms and for creating
the conditions under which students can learn to work and live together
harmoniously and productively.”[2]
We
were able to locate and systematically review 19 studies that contained 43 effect
sizes.[3]
The average effect was a +.20 standard deviation improvement of among those who
had diversity training versus those who did not. To put that small effect into
perspective, about 57% of the teachers receiving training exhibited less
measurable prejudice than the teachers in the control groups who did not have diversity
training. The chance that a teacher picked at random from the training group
would exhibit less prejudice than one in the control groups who did not have diversity
training was about 55% - just a bit better than 50/50.
We
compared studies that used an anti-racism approach with those that used a
social-psychological or cultural information approach. Training that focused on
anti-racism produced superior outcomes. There was a 57.6% chance that a person
picked at random from the anti-racism treatment group would exhibit less
prejudice than a teacher picked at random from the group that had no
anti-racism training. In contrast, the chance was only 52.5% that a teacher
picked at random from the training using a cultural information approach
exhibited less prejudice in comparison to a person picked at random from the group
having no training.
My
colleague, Josette McGregor, conducted a study of the impact of anti-racist
teaching and role-playing approaches to reduce prejudice in students. She
found that both approaches were about equally effective, each producing an
effect size of approximately +.45 standard deviation. In other words, there was
a 62.5% chance that a student picked at random from training that used either a
role-playing or and anti-racist teaching approach would exhibit less prejudice
than a student picked at random from a control group that did not have either
kind training.[4]
A
2016 meta-analysis of 40 years of diversity training research produced similar
findings. The overall effect size was +.38 of a standard deviation, meaning
that about 65% of those diversity trained exhibited better outcomes than those
who are in the control group without such training. Or, to put it another way,
there was a 60% chance that a randomly chosen person from the diversity training
group exhibited more positive outcomes than someone picked at random from the control
group without diversity training. The best outcomes achieved for cognitive
learning were maintained over time. Attitudinal learning effects attenuated
over time.[5]
Diversity
training produces small effects. The literature devoted to the topic provides
information about practices that are effective and ones that are not.[6]
Such training has a greater positive impact: on younger rather than older
people; in situations where women predominate among those trained; and where
training occurs over a longer period (but not too long); etc.
Diversity
training is not a panacea. The impact of diversity training will be modest.
This suggests that such training must be part of a larger effort that includes
policies and practices aimed at eliminating systemic racism.
This
summary is no substitute for a careful review of the literature, especially the
meta-analytic literature that looks across studies for effective and
ineffective practices and conditions. School boards undertaking diversity training
for staff or students should ensure that the training is evaluated closely so
that adjustments can be made that will produce maximum positive outcomes.
[1]
Meta analysis involves looking across studies that address the same question to
determine what the overall pattern of data looks like.
[2]
J. McGregor & C. Ungerleider (1993) Multicultural and racism awareness
programs for teachers: A meta-analysis
of the research. In K. McLeod (Ed) Multicultural education: The state of the art - report 1. pp.
59-63
[3]
An effect size is a statistic that compares the difference in mean outcomes
(effects) between two conditions, programs, or approaches.
[4]
McGregor, J. (1993) Effectiveness of Role Playing and Antiracist Teaching in
Reducing Student Prejudice, Journal of Educational Research, 86(4), 215-226.
[5]
Bezrukova, K., Spell, C.S., Perry, J.L., and K.A. Jehn, (2016) A
Meta-Analytical Integration of Over 40 Years of Research on Diversity Training
Evaluation, Psychological Bulletin, 142(11) 1227-1274.
[6]
See, for example: FitzGerald, C., Martin, A., Berner, D. et al. (2019)
Interventions designed to reduce implicit prejudices and implicit stereotypes
in real world contexts: a systematic review. BMC Psychol 7(29). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-019-0299-7