Enriching Classroom Learning About Diversity: Supports and Strategies from a Qualitative Study.

This paper provides a discussion of eight constructs students identified as supports to their classroom learning about diversity and strategies for incorporating them for classroom use. It draws on research focusing on how adults learn about diversity conducted with 25 Master of Social Work students at a Midwestern University who were engaged in a course about diversity. The need for the development of ongoing critical, dialectic awareness about social reality and the need for human dignity for all, is not limited solely to the students in the classroom. Faculty, too, are faced with the challenge of transformation in changing contemporary times. It would be unauthentic for faculty to ask students to embark on this learning journey, unless faculty, too, are willing to face the challenges and opportunities inherent in this process. This study presented the voices and experiences of adult learners as they learned to find and embrace commonality across differences. The words of the students are instructive if used to design powerful, pro-social learning experiences which will enable learners to address social inequities and vision a positive human future.