Difficult Dialogues: Negotiating Faculty Responses to a Gender Bias Literacy Training Program

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Education
• Psychology

Background:

• Diversity training can elicit strong negative emotions like anger and defensiveness.
• These emotional responses complicate workshop facilitation and learning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To observe and analyze how experienced facilitators manage challenging dialogues during gender bias literacy workshops.
• To identify strategies that promote participant acceptance of sensitive information in diversity training.

Main Methods:

• Observational study of 3 facilitators conducting 41 gender bias workshops for 376 STEMM faculty.
• Content analysis and critical incident technique used to analyze recorded Q&A and non-verbal participant behavior.

Main Results:

• Presenters normalized implicit bias as ordinary and pervasive, protecting participant self-worth.
• Difficult dialogues were managed calmly, maintaining facilitator control without verbal sparring.
• An environment conducive to accepting threatening information was created.

Conclusions:

• Effective facilitation strategies can mitigate negative emotional responses in diversity training.
• Normalizing implicit bias and calm dialogue management are key to successful gender bias workshops.
• These methods enhance faculty receptiveness to critical diversity and inclusion concepts.