Intergroup dialogue (IGD), a structured and facilitated educational approach, engages students across differences to explore issues of social identities, social inequalities, and social change. Formalized in higher education settings in the United States over three decades ago, the IGD approach has evolved in its practice, theory, and research evidence. In this chapter, we review the empirical research from IGD and allied fields that deepens an understanding of the critical-dialogic communication process theory of intergroup dialogue and informs anti-racist practice in the current societal context. What is the critical-dialogic communication process theory? What is the empirical evidence supporting the theory? How do we continue to transform intergroup dialogue practice? We conclude the chapter with a discussion of different visions of a racially diverse and just society and the contributions IGD can make.

This study examines the impact of interracial/interethnic dialogue, a model of intergroup contact that highlights the salience of racial and ethnic group membership, to improve intergroup relations on college campuses. A field experiment involving 737 participants demonstrated that participants randomized to enrol in an intergroup dialogue course increased thinking about and understanding of race and racial/ethnic group membership more than the randomized control group participants who were wait-listed for the course. This effect of intergroup dialogue was found both at the end of course and a year later. Furthermore, such racial engagement was associated with greater (a) motivation to bridge intergroup differences, (b) structural understanding of racial and ethnic inequality, and (c) behavioural commitment to redress inequality 1 year later. The study highlights a colour-conscious, as opposed to colourblind, model for multicultural and social justice education and provides causal evidence for its effects.

This chapter focuses on intergroup dialogue (IGD), an educational approach that teaches about and for social justice. Intergroup dialogue addresses one of the central concerns in contemporary research on intergroup contact between groups with distinct social statuses: Do identity salience and positive relationships mobilize or sedate collective action on the part of disadvantaged or advantaged groups? We explicate how IGD addresses the concerns through its theoretical and practice model. IGD pedagogy—content, structured interaction, and facilitation—fosters critical-dialogic communication processes that in turn impact cognitive and affective psychological processes. These two kinds of processes then produce outcomes. Results from a longitudinal, multi-site field experiment of randomly assigned (dialogue and control) students (N = 1437) showed significant treatment effects for dialogue students and strong support for the theoretical model and the centrality of the communication processes. These results support our claim that critical-dialogic intergroup dialogue heightens, not mutes, commitment to action.