미래 가족학 전문가를 위한 다양성 교육: Hollinger의 모델에 근거한 상호작용적, 반영적 교수법에 관한 제언

Diversity Education for Future Family Science Professionals: Interactive and Reflective Teaching Implications based on Hollinger's Model

Article information

Hum. Ecol. Res. 2014;52(2):111-125
Publication date (electronic) : 2014 April 30
doi : https://doi.org/10.6115/fer.2014.52.2.111
1Department of Family and Child Studies, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA
2Jumpstart Greater Newark, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA
이소영,1
1몽클레어 주립대학 아동가족학과
2몽클레어 주립대학 뉴악지역 점프스타트 프로그램
Corresponding Author: Soyoung Lee  Department of Family and Child Studies, Montclair State University, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA  Tel: +1-973-655-3452 Fax: +1-973-655-6795 E-mail: leeso@mail.montclair.edu
A portion of the results of this study were presented as part of the poster presentation, Promoting Cultural Competence through Diversity Education , at the 2011 International Joint Conference on Families as Social Capital in Seoul, Korea on May 20-21, 2011.
Received 2013 July 10; Revised 2013 September 27; Accepted 2013 October 10.

Trans Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine how an undergraduate family diversity course supported students to enhance undergraduate students’ understanding of diversity issues and cultural competence that are necessary to work with diverse families and children as future family science professionals. We collected qualitative research data from 108 students who were enrolled in five sections of an undergraduate-level diversity course, Working with Diverse Families and Children, using nine open-ended questions. In the current study, we specifically focused on four questions in relevant to what undergraduate students learned and what they desired to learn more about diversity issues in families grounded in Hollinger’s developmental model of ethical reflection. Using inductive and deductive iterative processes and triangulation, we conducted thematic analysis. Overall, our findings showed that undergraduate students understood the core concepts of diversity and cultural competence. However, they understood these issues at different stages of Hollinger’s model of ethical reflection after taking the course. Most undergraduate students accomplished their cognitive and empathetic understanding of diversity and were primarily in Stages 1 and 2. We suggest interactive and reflective teaching strategies that may be effective for undergraduate students to challenge their own biases, practice ethical decision, and prepare for social actions as family science professionals.

Introduction

Cultural diversity is and continues to be an important issue in the United States due to the high and growing number of families and children from different backgrounds, including ethnicities, socioeconomic status, family structures, religion and language [17]. In this multicultural environment, family science professionals are required to possess knowledge and skills catered to diverse populations [46]. As a result, family science education ultimately aims to cover multicultural competence, teaching both knowledge about various cultures and skills required to work with such populations [20, 46].

There is increasing recognition of the importance of teaching diversity in higher education [20], yet teaching cultural diversity is a challenging task [39]. The American Psychological Association [4] described diversity instruction as crucial to college students’ development of multicultural leadership and effectiveness in a global society. Many departments in the fields of family science have also made a great deal of contributions to curriculum development enhancing students’ understanding of and appreciation for diversity in the context of families and communities [22]. While the number of cultural diversity courses offered in colleges and universities continues to grow [33], little empirical research exists on the effects of multicultural education on students’ academic and professional development [46]. In addition, there are very few pedagogical and practical agreements on how and what to teach in diversity courses. The content and structure of a diversity course mainly depends on an instructor’s comfort and competence level of dealing with diversity issues [20, 44]. Prior to that, although there is concurrence that diversity is no longer just about ethnicity and gender [29], there is no consistent definition of diversity in family sciences. The lack of guidance and complexity of family diversity issues often make it difficult for family scientists, especially graduate students or new professionals, to incorporate diversity into teaching in contextually and structurally systematic ways [26].

Therefore, the purpose of this study is first to examine how experiences in an undergraduate family diversity course affect students’ recognition of diversity issues and readiness to become culturally competent family science professionals within a multicultural community setting. In particular, understanding how students understand diversity and cultural competence in working with diverse families is especially important for those in the fields of family science due to its characteristic as an applied science. Therefore, this study specifically focused what students learn about diversity in families, what they desire to learn more about diversity in families, and how competent they feel to work with culturally diverse families. In addition, this study is to examine the developmental stages of diversity learning that students are going through. In order to achieve this goal, grounded in Hollinger’s developmental model for ethical reflection [22], findings in this study will be used to diagnose the current developmental stages of diversity learning experiences among undergraduate students. We will provide the overview of Hollingers’ model of ethical reflection in the following section. Finally, based on our findings, we will introduce interactive and engaging resources that may help students’ transitions from Stages 1 through 3 in Hollinger’s model as our implications for diversity teaching. To achieve these research purposes, we intend to answer the following research questions in the current study:

1. How do students define diversity?

2. How do students define cultural competence?

3. What do students learn about diversity and cultural competence through an undergraduate-level diversity course?

4. What do students want to learn further about diversity and cultural competence through an undergraduatelevel diversity course?

5. Based on Hollinger’s model, what developmental stages of diversity learning do students experience?

Theoretical Backgrounds: Hollinger’s Developmental Model for Diversity Learning Experiences

1. Definitions of Cultural Competence

Cultural competence refers to individuals’ awareness of various cultures including similarities and differences between and among cultures, and understanding how those similarities and differences affect different aspects of individuals’ lives and family life [9]. It also refers to the academic, interpersonal, and professional skills that allow individuals to apply their understanding of cultural diversity within, between, and among groups to practices [3]. That is, cultural competence refers “the ability to think, feel, and act in ways that acknowledge, respect, and build on ethnic, socio-cultural, and linguistic diversity” (p. 50) [30]. In a larger context, cultural competence refers to a “set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations” (p. 13) [16]. In summary, cultural competence is individuals’ ability to engage in social actions to support diverse families and create social environments at various levels that maximize the positive development of diverse families and children effectively [42].

2. Hollinger’s Developmental Model for Ethical Reflection

In order to cultivate the appreciation of culturally diverse families and the reflective and analytical skills in dealing with complex family issues in diverse contexts, Hollinger [22] suggested the developmental model for ethical reflection. This model consists of four developmental stages of a culturallysensitive, ethical decision making process. First, Recognizing and Claiming One’s Own Ethnocentrism (Stage 1) refers to a stage where family science professionals are able to recognize others’ ethnocentric attitudes and behaviors in diverse social contexts as well as reflect on their own ethnocentric attitudes and behaviors. In her model, Hollinger defined ethnocentrism as “the tendency to evaluate and judge other cultures with the standards of one’s own” (p. 246) [22]. By being conscious about personally and socially constructed ethnocentrism, family science professionals are able to refrain from judgment of other cultures with their limited understanding at the next stage of the ethical reflection model, Adopting the Position of Cultural Relativism (Stage 2). At this stage, family science professionals are capable of comprehending the complexity of diverse family relations and practices across cultures with culturally relativistic and holistic perspectives toward other cultures. At the third stage of this model, Ethical Reflection and Engagement (Stage 3), family science professionals are able to appreciate and make moral judgment on family practices within diverse cultures while avoiding the status of “moral paralysis” (p. 185) [5 as cited in 22]. In order to ethically and professionally assess global family practices, family science professionals may utilize consequentialist, deontological, and care ethics as their ethical framework. In this stage, we must actively make “selective adoptions” (p. 19) [37 as cited in 22] in order to decide meaningful and valuable practice to support diversity as responsible family science professionals in a multicultural society. Based on ethical decision making, at the final stage, Social Action (Stage 4), family science professionals finally actively engage in social change that promotes the wellbeing of diverse families and their members. In this process, family science professionals must be conscientious about how to collaborate with multiple community institutions in order to provide necessary support for diverse families to meet their needs at a local level and initiate social changes at the levels of law or family policy [22].

In summary, Hollinger’s model emphasizes an actiondriven component of cultural competence at a larger social context while working for diverse families and children. Application of Hollinger’s model will help better understand students’ levels of understanding diversity and provide pedagogical guidance to support their learning in diversity in a systematic way. Therefore, grounded in this model, we will analyze college students’ developmental stages of diversity learning experiences and introduce interactive and engaging diversity teaching resources that may help students’ transitions to higher stages.

Methods

1. Data Collection and Recruitment

Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval was obtained for this study. Participants were recruited from five sections of an undergraduate-level diversity course, Working With Diverse Families and Children, in a New Jersey public university on the last day of the classes between April 26 and 30, 2010. Designed for future family science professionals (e.g., pre-6th grade teachers and human service practitioners), the goal of this course is for students to explore effective ways of working within diverse family and community contexts (e.g., social class, gender, sexual orientation, and history, and intersections of each) throughout the 16 week period. To prevent any conflicts of interest (e.g., had no control over students’ grades) instructors were required to leave the classrooms. After the information session, questionnaires and informed consent forms were given to students who were willing to participate in the study. Those who did not participate engaged in other activities (e.g., read silently or leave the classroom). Out of 150 students enrolled in these five sections, a total of 108 students participated in this study.

Questionnaires consisted of 9 open-ended questions on college students’ own definitions of diversity and cultural competence as well as reflections of their learning experiences in the diversity course. These questions were designed by the first author of this study. In the current study, we analyzed the following four questions in order to answer our specific research questions discussed above: “What is your own definition of diversity?,” “What is your own definition of cultural competence?,” “Three things that I have learned and promoted my cultural competence in working with diverse families and children from (the course) are ... ,” and “Three things that I wish that I would have learned more to work with diverse families and children in (the course) are... .” Participants wrote their responses directly on their questionnaire form. Each questionnaire took on average 20-30 minutes to complete, and participants received no incentives for their participation in the study. Open-ended questionnaire responses were compiled and typed verbatim.

2. Sample Characteristics

Participants consisted of 108 undergraduate students. 96 were females (89%), 11 were males (10%), and one did not identify gender; all of whom were family and child studies majors. Participants self-identified as Caucasian (n=79, 73.1%), Hispanic (n=15, 13.9%), African American (n=9, 8.3%), Asian American (n=4, 3.7%), and Native American (n=1, .9%). Most participants were between the ages of 19 and 23 (M=21.2 years old). A majority of our participants were second-year (n=33, 30.8%) or third-year (n=48, 44.9%) college students, followed by fourth-year (n=13, 12.1%), fifth-year or more (n=11, 10.3%) and first-year (n=2, 1.9%) college students. One student did not reveal her or his academic year.

3. Qualitative Data Analysis

Consistent with thematic analysis, we analyzed all openended responses following procedures outlined by Aronson [6]. We utilized both deductive and inductive methods to identify key patterns in what students had learned through diversity education and where they were in Hollinger’s developmental model for ethical reflection. Deductively, we first developed initial codes and themes corresponding to the current literatures of diversity education and Hollinger’s developmental model. For example, we used and defined extant terms such as ‘cultural competence,’ ‘diversity,’ and ‘the four developmental stages of ethical reflection.’ This process initiated an open coding scheme that was later adapted to include new codes that were inductively derived from the data. Data analysis was an iterative process [15], with each author coding and recoding the data independently. The coding team then met to compare codes. Any discrepancies were discussed as a group until consensus was reached. Finally, we utilized triangulation using multiple sources (e.g., investigators, literature reviews, and theories) as a data validation strategy [15, 35] throughout the process of data analysis. While reporting the identified qualitative themes in our study, we used numbers and percentages in our sample description and results to help identify themes and patterns emerging within our data [40]. This technique is fairly common and has been utilized in many recent qualitative studies. The practice of using numbers in qualitative research improves the reporting of qualitative data by making statements such as “some,” “most,” and “several” more precise [32].

Results

Overall, our results suggest that while students in our sample had similar definitions of diversity and cultural competence, they understood these issues at various levels after taking the course. First, we describe common themes derived from students’ responses about their learning in the diversity course. Then we further explore these themes using Hollinger’s developmental model for ethical reflection in order to understand students’ developmental progress in diversity learning.

1. Current Learning of Diversity and Cultural Competence

Upon completion of the diversity course, most students reported having a more refined understanding of diversity and the ability to develop their own cultural competence.

1) Defining diversity

Diversity is “differences.” Most students defined diversity as differences (n=75, 75%). As one student wrote,“Diversity is the differences we all have. What makes us unique from one another.” In their definitions, students clearly showed that diversity indicated differences between groups at various levels. For example, while a few students simply defined “diversity=differences” without any elaboration (n=16, 16%), most students seemed to grasp the concept of diversity as being multifaceted (n=59, 59%). Specifically, these students defined diversity with a long list of demographic factors, cultural backgrounds, and life experiences. For example, students shared comments like “diversity is different kinds of people of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religious or cultural differences” and “diversity encompasses not only people of different ethnicities but people that also share different experiences.” Differences in cultural backgrounds, race, ethnicity, and religion were most commonly mentioned as an important part of diversity. Students also identified diversity as differences in language, nationalities, gender/ sex, age, family structure, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, disabilities/abilities, beliefs, values, opinions, preferences, personalities, traditions, norms, sizes, locations, and activities (e.g., sports). On the other hand, several students defined diversity as a combination of these demographic and cultural categories (n=9, 9%) and a thing that made individuals “unique” (n=5, 5%) rather than explicitly commenting on differences. Finally, a small number of students defined diversity as actions to recognize these differences among by saying acceptance, awareness, appreciation, being open-minded, and socialization (n=7, 7%). Table 1 presents the detailed information about these themes.

Defining Diversity (N=108)

Diversity is “beyond culture.” As shown in Table 3, by taking the course, a majority of students learned that diversity went “beyond culture” and included many forms (n=73). For example, students reported that the course enabled them to learn more about particular topics pertaining to diversity including facts about diverse families, diverse family structures, disabilities and exceptionalities, cultural aspects of diverse families, currently prevalent diversity issues in the neighboring communities, and demographic factors in relavant to families. While discussing these topics, some students also linked these topics with stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination by mentioning issues of ageism, classism, racism, sexism, and ableism. For example, students stated that “there is more institutional racism, sexism, policies, etc. than I knew about” and “racism plays a great deal in everyone’s lives today.” Relatedly, a number of students also emphasized the concept of acknowledging differences but promoting equality. For example, one student shared that “it doesn’t matter what you look like, everyone can have something in common.” Other students believed that “people and children are different, but we are all equal.” “No family should be treated differently.”

What Students Learned (N=108)

2) Defining cultural competence

Table 2 presents that most students described cultural competence as a perceptual skill to acknowledge and interact with different cultures (n=57, 80.3%). For example, Perceptually, students noted cultural competence as “being aware of,” “knowing,” “understanding,” and “accepting” cultural diversity and differences. As one student wrote, cultural competence is “to have knowledge of and the ability to appreciate various cultures different from your own.” Similarly, to another student, cultural competence was “being able to respect other people, languages, environments, or ideas in a professional way.” Cultural competence was also meant to “respect,” “embrace,” “acknowledging,” and “be sensitive to” diversity.

Defining Cultural Competence (N=108)

Based on the literature, cultural competence refers to individuals’ knowledge, skills, congruent attitudes, and behavioral commitment to efficiently deal with diversity [3, 9, 16, 30]. However, only a handful of students in our sample (n=4, 5.6%) had defined cultural competence beyond a perceptual skill of appreciating cultural differences. Instead, these students described cultural competence as a physical skill that prompted social action for position changes. For example, as one student commented, cultural competence meant “being able to put biases away and think of ways to effectively communicate and learn and understand people’s cultural differences.” Likewise, another student identified cultural competence as the ability to be “socially aware and active in society.” These responses illustrate that overall, 56.5% of students in our sample (61 out of 108 students) had a basic understanding of cultural competence.

3) Developing cultural competence

Students acknowledged various ways in which they have developed their cultural competence throughout the semester. Indeed, their responses suggest that they generally held positive attitudes toward working with diverse families and children (Table 3). Examples include having learned to “embrace and accept cultural diversities,” “respect” others, “not to judge and jump to conclusions,” “be open-minded,” and “not to assume. They also emphasized the importance of “understanding life from a perspective of someone different than me” and being “aware of others’ traditions and beliefs in order to not offend anyone.” Subsequently, several students stated that while they felt more comfortable with diversity, “patience” and “flexibility” were crucial in working with diverse families and children.

Several students reported that the class had helped them gain tools to “work effectively to meet their diverse families’ and children’s needs” and learn “how to interact and socialize better with different diverse people.” Responses included ideas of how they may create more inclusive environments for all forms of diverse families as future family science professionals. For example, one student shared how she would address parental figures as “caregivers or family members instead of parents or mom and dad.” Finally, several students commented on how they had become aware of various resources to help them become more culturally competent. For example, they commented on their ability to effectively “use resources if caught off guard by a question regarding diverse families.”

2. Looking Ahead: What Students Wanted to Learn Further

Having taken the diversity course, many students expressed an interest in further refining their understanding of the following issues in diversity and cultural competence (n=41) (Table 4). Being future family science professionals, students wanted to learn more about diversity in “family life” and were eager to gain “in depth understanding of different family lifestyles” and “how they live day to day.” Statements like these suggest that these students were gaining sensitivity toward differences [18] while demonstrating an anchored understanding of diversity [7]. Additionally, students wanted more information about various “cultural norms and values” within and outside the US. In particular, these students noted how they wished to learn more about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) families, disability issues, stereotypes, and other demographic and culturally-based definitions of diversity issues. These students also expressed their interest in learning about diverse issues within the contexts of family and community beyond an individual scope. For example, these students wanted to know “how a school can be more supportive of families from different cultures,” or “how different families of different backgrounds can be brought closer together.”

What Students Wanted to Learn Further (n=108)

Other students in our sample were interested in learning about specific “how-to” strategies in working with diverse populations (n=21). Various scenarios were presented. For example, students wanted to know ways on how to “deal with parents of diverse families,” “approach people with disability comfortably,” “deal with a child that is being abused,” or “get through to my future students whose second language is English.” Several students acknowledged that efforts to create a more inclusive environment may be met with resistance. Thus, they also wanted to learn about “ways to deal with people that don’t accept diversity to be taught.”

Finally, students also appeared ready and committed to social action to meet the needs of families and children in real community settings (n=12). As one student stated, “I would love to actually go out into different types of communities and experience cultural diversity.”

3. Developmental Stages of Ethical Reflection: Transitioning from Stages 1-2 to 3-4

Students’ reflections on their learning of diversity and cultural competence in this study indicated that they were in various developmental stages of ethical reflection [22]. Most students demonstrated the accomplishment of Stages 1 (i.e., Recognizing and Claiming One’s Own Ethnocentrism) and 2 (i.e., Adopting the Position of Cultural Relativism). In Stage 1, these students recognized the existence of “institutional biases” as well as personal “prejudices” and biases. They explicitly emphasized the importance of non-judgmental attitudes and open-mindedness to learn about diversity.

Upon recognizing their own personal and social biases, these students appeared to be motivated to gather more information about various issues of diversity. For example, many expressed their desire to learn more about different cultures by exploring the experiences of diverse families and their members. These responses indicate an empathetic understanding that is highlighted in Stage 2 of Hollinger’s model. Students also demonstrated “cultural relativism” (p. 251) [22] by seeking and considering the perspectives of others on various issues of diversity. Comments made on the roles of schools and communities in supporting families and children also suggest that a few students have begun to develop a holistic understanding of diversity on a larger scale. Indeed, these students recognized diversity as multifaceted and contextualized.

The finding that students wanted to learn concrete strategies on how to deal with specific issues of diversity indicates that these students were motivated to be more culturally competent, but were not quite ready to make ethical decisions on diversity in professional settings. For example, while several students acknowledged the importance of inclusion, they were unaware of effective ways to execute inclusive practices as future family science professionals. Others wanted more hands-on learning opportunities in various community settings to gain a better understanding of how to work with diverse families and children. Indeed, these comments suggest that students sought safe learning environments to practice ethical decision making processes to selectively choose appropriate practices and engage in collaborative and inclusive social actions that advocate diversity in their local communities. In other words, they expressed their needs to have opportunities to experience Stages 3 (i.e., Ethical Reflection and Engagement) and 4 (i.e., Social Action) of Hollinger’s developmental model [22].

Conclusions and Implications

In conclusion, our results suggest that while students had similar definitions of diversity and cultural competence, they appeared to be at different stages of Hollinger’s model of ethical reflection. Most students accomplished their cognitive and empathetic understanding of diversity and were primarily in Stages 1 and 2. Specifically, these students seemed to understand the concept of diversity and topics in diversity when it comes to families and children. However, most lacked the opportunity to engage in professional reflection on diversity within real life community settings, thus, they were unable to transition into Stages 3 or 4 of Hollinger’s model. These results guide us to suggest the following implications for teaching diversity to meet the developmental needs of students while enhancing their learning of diversity in the field of family science.

1. Practical Implications for Teaching Diversity

Our findings reflect a great need for practical teaching strategies that encourage students’ leap to the advanced levels of ethical reflection from Stages 1 and 2 to Stages 3 and 4 of Hollinger’s model. These findings also emphasize the importance of creating effective and safe learning environments for students to learn, develop, and practice concrete skills to work with diverse families.

One of the struggles in higher education is the difference in students’ learning styles and professors’ teaching approaches. Therefore, in order to teach diversity more effectively, it is important for educators to contemplate the ways to integrate students’ learning styles into diversity teaching [19]. Millennial generation students often have a strong connection to technology, expect things to move at the same breakneck speed of e-mails and texting, and yield immediate satisfaction from their work [1]. They are noted for being more open-minded to diversity issues than their predecessors, are more excited about being involved in community activities, and see themselves as being part of a global community [19, 24, 34]. Having a preference for learning by discovery and an orientation for achievement [34], one way to engage millennial students is to include more hands-on classroom activities that allow for deeper exploration of topics and collaboration among peers.

The findings of this study and our understanding of the current student generation suggest ways to enhance our approaches to teach diversity. Below are examples that may help students actively engage in diversity learning experiences at each stage of Hollinger’s model, particularly up to Stage 3. Through this suggested curriculum, we aim to increase students’ motivation to actively participate in social actions (Stage 4) that address various diversity issues in professional settings. Our findings may also be applicable to students in South Korea, a national that is becoming increasingly diverse. For example, since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, South Korea has experienced significant decreases in overall fertility and marriage rates and dramatic increases in divorce rates, life expectancy and the number of multicultural families [14]. Despite these changes, the social systems and cultural environments of South Korea are not yet fully prepared to deal with family diversity issues yet [43]. Therefore, the following implications for teaching diversity will also be helpful to prepare students to become culturally competent future family science professionals in South Korea.

1) Stage 1: recognizing and claiming one’s own ethnocentrism

At this first stage of ethical reflection, we intend to deliver educational activities that prepare students to open up to the forthcoming advanced levels of diversity learning by recognizing their own knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and behaviors toward unexpected situations [22]. We emphasize students’ reflective learning, or the process of “internally examining and exploring an issue of concern... which creates and clarifies meaning in terms of self, ... resulting in a changed conceptual perspective,” (p. 99) [11] at this stage. Reflective learning is an effective strategy to develop clinical and emotional competence among preprofessionals [23]. Thus, assignments, activities, and discussions are structured to help students increase their awareness of perceptions, reactions and assumptions that may limit their thinking and ability to work effectively with diverse families and children.

One challenge of facilitating reflective learning around issues of diversity in the classroom is to create a safe space in which students can feel comfortable sharing their thoughts around controversial topics [8, 21]. Well-planned introductory activities in diversity teaching at this stage help instructors learn about their students and create a safe learning environment for them to discuss sensitive issues and prevent any adversarial situations. One recommendation for creating a comfortable environment is to provide opportunities for students to set classroom etiquette rules together through discussions [12] rather than presenting the rules made by the instructors only. This can start the process of ownership in the classroom and aid in building an open atmosphere for discussions down the road.

Ice breakers relevant to topics at each class are also a helpful for students to recognize who is in the room with them and the differences and commonalities they possess [21]. After ice breakers, students will feel more comfortable sharing about the topics and actively engage in learning during the class based on reflection on these activities [21]. These are especially important to encourage students’ learning at Stages 1 and 2 in Hollinger’s model and safely move through Stages 3 and 4. One example that instructors may utilize at this introductory level of diversity teaching is The Silent Interview, which is an assumptions activity , based around the idea where students form assumptions (and later, challenge these preconceived ideas) about an unfamiliar persons (see details at http://www.xavier.edu/epu/Classroom1.cfm).

As instructors, we notice that students often claim that they are not biased at the beginning of teaching diversity. To bring light to this bias, we suggest using something similar to the Liver Transplant activity (pp. 43-44) [27]. This exercise uses an example of a limited opportunity for liver transplant to save the life of one chosen person among those who have equal prognosis for medical success but different family and social backgrounds. As a group, students must come to a unanimous decision as to who receives the transplant. This activity safely opens a conversation about personal values and issues of personal bias in the professional decision making process.

2) Stage 2: adopting the position of cultural relativism

At the second stage, we focus on students’ learning about cultural relativism. At this stage, students start understanding other cultures without judgment based on their own biases, but with intercultural knowledge and holistic perspectives toward cultures [22]. At this stage, students are encouraged to think about things that they never really thought about before and to look diversity issues from various angles. Students are also encouraged to discover new things and understand these unfamiliar phenomena through others’ perspectives.

One example that facilitates this type of academic training is to take students on Virtual Field Trips, where they explore various websites and online media sources that focus on unique aspects of diversity (e.g., Muslim families and lesbian families). Guided by several thought questions, students then write brief reflections on an online class discussion board. Through this activity, students are given the opportunity to gather the facts and challenge their assumptions about various issues faced by different groups. Indeed, exposure to different lifestyles and perspectives through popular media has been attributed to promote diversity learning among future family science professionals [31]. In the Virtual Field Trips, students are also encouraged to consider appropriate professional decisions when working with these diverse populations.

In addition, well-designed educational simulations or role plays can be an effective tool for teaching [18, 41]. With constructive probing, reflection and guidance, students can efficiently experience various phenomena in a safely controlled environment and try different approaches to deal with the given situation as part of active learning [2, 13]. Teaching diversity has been very challenging due to its risk to explore‘ touchy feely’ issues [8, 21]. By utilizing educational simulation, instructors effectively guide students to explore these challenging diversity issues and prepare students to make ethical decisions while working with diverse families and children.

One activity we recommend, to help student gain understanding of how communication rules differ across cultures, involves an intercultural simulation called ‘The Land of SMU.’ Throughout the simulation, a group of students participates as ‘cultural anthropologists’ who tries to learn about a recently discovered culture called the‘ SMU.’ SMUians have very different rules for communication and are represented by another group of students. This activity is debriefed by discussing observations of various reactions, difficulties in communication, and strategies for handling similar real-life situations (for details, contact http://www.montclair.edu/academy/servicelearning/). Similar suggested activities include the The Game of Life (for details, also contact http://www.montclair.edu/academy/servicelearning/) and Poverty Simulation (for details, check the Missouri Association for Community Action website at http://www.communityaction.org/Poverty%20Simulation.aspx).

3) Stage 3: ethical reflection and engagement

At the third stage, we intend to focus on students’ practical application of course materials to real-life settings. At this stage, students must engage in professional ethical reflection on various practices that influence diverse families and children. Hollinger [22] especially emphasizes the importance of avoiding “moral paralysis” (p. 185) [5 as cited 22] and making conscientious “selective adoption” (p. 19) [37 as cited 22] to worthwhile practices. The main purpose of teaching diversity at this stage is to provide students a structured, safe learning environment to experience real-life challenges in working with diverse families and children in various community settings, and practice in making professional and ethical decisions. At this stage, we encourage students to utilize their reflective learning experiences and knowledge of diverse families and children that they have gained at the first and the second phases of ethical reflection. In this process, students must recognize different needs among those who they intend to serve and be able and willing to tailor their practices to best meet these needs.

The first suggestion to achieve these teaching goals is Service-Learning. Service-learning courses pair community involvement and academic work to enrich both communities and students’ understanding of civic engagement and social responsibility [38]. The benefits of service-learning have been widely recognized by many family science teachers [10, 25]. In particular, service-learning serves as an effective and constructive tool for teaching diversity in the family science realm, as students simultaneously learn about multicultural issues, practice those skills and knowledge through the community service component, and are encouraged to reflect on their learning experiences in and outside the classroom [28]. Toews and Cerny [45] also surmised that servicelearning had many benefits including personal benefits and social benefits. They found that students in enrolled and engaged in service learning courses became more accepting of others. That is, service-learning can be one of the most effective teaching tools that supports students’ comprehensive diversity learning experiences from Stages 1 to 3 simultaneously.

Seeking grants is often a necessity for schools, community agencies, and government programs to survive, especially in these harsh economic climates. Students can apply their creativity to this project by designing and proposing unique services and programs for individuals and families across different settings. This project can be useful for students to understand the ways schools, community agencies and other governmental programs operate in the real world. By creating a budget, presenting their grant proposal to a mock grant funding committee, and evaluating other presenters’ proposals, students are able to make professional and ethical decisions on proposed programs, set up decision criteria based on their values and social priorities, and practice professional communication skills (for details, see Wark [47]).

Utilizing Family Life Education can be another teaching strategy that facilitates the third stage learning of diversity. Family life education course assignments, activities, and discussions systematically help students apply the knowledge in family sciences to develop and evaluate a family life education program to address the needs of diverse community members [18, 36]. Furthermore, this teaching strategy can be easily combined with the two teaching strategies mentioned above for a maximum diversity learning effect. For example, some details of how to facilitate family life education with service-learning and the benefits and challenges of this approach, see Lee [28].

2. Limitations and Implications for Future Research

Even though our study findings provided greater insights on the developmental stages of students’ diversity learning experiences, further research on diversity teaching and learning in family science is essential. More specifically, in order to enhance our understanding of the process of teaching and learning diversity in higher education and provide an effective teaching curriculum, multifaceted approaches to gather the data are necessary. In our study, for example, we only focused on students’ learning experiences. For future research, in addition to students’ reflection, it is necessary to investigate instructors’ reflection on their teaching philosophy, classroom evaluation strategies, course contents, and interactions with students [33] at each developmental of ethical reflection [22]. Assessing diversity classroom experiences from two different perspectives simultaneously will be beneficial to broaden our understanding of complicated aspects of teaching and learning diversity in higher education.

It is also important to find effective ways to document students’ transitions across Hollinger’s developmental stages of ethical reflection over time. In the current study, we only assessed students’ learning experiences retroactively at the end of the semester. For future research, it is necessary to embed systematic formative and summative evaluation procedures in the curriculum. In particular, utilizing preand post-tests and mixed methods design will provide more insightful information about students’ development in diversity learning. Comparing differences in the developmental stages based on gender, ethnicity, age, and previous diversity course experiences will also be meaningful. This systematic evaluation approach will assist faculty and administrators to gather the necessary data to improve diversity course offerings and better serve students’ needs in learning diversity. Finally, to design effective evaluation research, it will also be required to develop standardized assessment tools for diversity learning outcomes and teaching efficiency at each stage of Hollinger’s model. Utilizing various methods, such as interview protocols, rubrics, and observation lists will be beneficial [33].

Notes

The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.

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Article information Continued

Table 1.

Defining Diversity (N=108)

Themes Frequency
Multifaceted differences in diversity (n=59, 59%)
 Different life experiences Types of people in general (e.g., personality, preference, sizes etc.) 7
Life style/experiences/options & choices in general 6
Where you live 3
What makes you unique 2
Family types/structures 2
 Different cultural backgrounds Culture in general 29
Belief/values/views/opinions/thoughts 7
Traditions/customs/norms 4
Languages 4
Sports 1
 Different demographic factors Race/skin color 24
Ethnicity 20
Religion 10
Background in general 8
Gender/sex 7
Age 5
Nationality 5
Sexualities/sexual orientation 5
Disability/ability 3
Socioeconomic status 2
Grades 1
Diversity=differences (n=16, 16%)
Mix of various demographic and cultural factors (n=9, 9%)
Taking actions (n=7, 7%)
 Acceptance, awareness and appreciation 3
 Being open-minded 2
 Human response to the many different backgrounds, abilities, and genetics that exist 1
 Socialization 1
Diversity=uniqueness (n=5, 5%)
Other ideas (n=4, 4%)
Subtotal (n=100)a)
a)

No responses (n=8).

Table 2.

Defining Cultural Competence (N=108)

Themes Frequency
Perceptual skills (n=57, 80.3%)
 Understand 29
 Be aware of 14
 Accept 12
 Know 10
 Respect 3
 Embrace 2
 Acknowledge 2
 Appreciate 1
 Identify 1
 Do not mind 1
 Be sensitive 1
 Be open-minded 1
Social action skills (n=4, 5.6%)
 Be able to put biases away and think of ways to effectively communicate and learn and understand people's cultural differences 1
 Be able to have a word in a community 1
 Socially (be) aware and active in society 1
 Interact with people of different cultures 1
Did not know or misunderstood the concept (n=10, 14.1%)
Subtotal (n=71)a)
a)

No responses (n=37).

Table 3.

What Students Learned (N=108)

Themes Frequency
Topics in relevant to diversity (n=73)a)
 Different types of diversity Disabilities, exceptionalities, and children with difficulties 13
Facts about diverse families (e.g., family theories, definitions of families, textbook info, daily struggles, needs and wants etc.) 12
Family structures and types (e.g., single parents, blended families, adoption, divorce, LGBTQ families etc.) 12
Diversity issues in the neighboring communities (e.g., languages, school violence, parental involvement, advocacy groups etc.) 11
Cultural characteristics (e.g., customs, ethnic minorities, values and beliefs, religion, nationalities, etc.) 9
Education in urban settings (e.g., learning styles, teaching resources, personalities etc.) 9
Socioeconomic status (education, (low) income, job, resources, etc.) 7
Race 5
Family environments (e.g., family life styles/home environments/family backgrounds etc.) 5
Gender and sex 3
Aging 2
 Stereotypes and prejudices Social biases, stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination, and privileges 18
Various “~ism”s (e.g., racism, classism, ageism, sexism etc.) 9
Inclusion 5
 Equality within diversity All families are different. 23
Different cultures have different expectations and ways of doing things. 11
People and children are different, but we are all equal. No family should be treated differently. 11
Everyone has/needs something in common. 8
Diversity is a positive thing. Everyone has differences that make them special. 5
Even though everyone is different they still have a place in the community. 4
Attitudes toward diversity (n=36)
 Be open-minded 10
 Do not judge 10
 Be understanding 10
 Accept 9
 Be aware of 8
 Be patient 4
 Be flexible 4
 Respect 3
 Do not assume 2
 Others 4
How to work with diverse families and children (n=15)
 How to work with diverse families and children in a school setting 17
 How to communicate with diverse families and children 15
 How to effectively, ethically, and professionally work for diverse families and children 8
 How to interact with diverse families and children 3
 How to reflect on diversity issues 3
Subtotal (n=124)a)

LGBTQ: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.

a)

Each respondent listed up to three things that they learned in class. As a result, the subtotal is greater than n=93, excluding those who did not reply at all (n=15), and the percentage was not able to be calculated based on the total number of respondents.

Table 4.

What Students Wanted to Learn Further (n=108)

Themes Frequency
Topics in relevant to diversity (n=41)
 Different cultural norms and values 14
 Diversity in family life 14
 LGBTQ families and sexuality 11
 Disabilities and inclusion 8
 Further information about diversity and cultural competence in general 7
 Stereotypes 4
 Others (e.g., race, violence, religion, languages, family structures, diversity at school and community settings, etc.) 11
“How-to”s (n=21)
 Be open-minded, flexible, positively self-reflective 4
 Communicate with diverse families and children 8
 Support families and children in needs 3
 Deal with diversity in general 6
disabilities & inclusion 5
diversity in school settings 3
English as second language/languages 2
coping strategies 2
Socio-economic status 1
divorce 1
family violence 1
Further educational opportunities (n=12)
 Practice at real settings 9
 Diversified educational activities 5
I've learned everything that I wanted. (n=6)
Subtotal (n=80)a)

LGBTQ: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.

a)

Each respondent listed up to three things that they wanted to learn further in class. As a result, the subtotal is greater than n=66, excluding those who did not reply at all (n=42), and the percentage was not able to be calculated based on the total number of respondents.