Are the Most Effective Diversity Programs Value Driven?
Although personal behavior is influenced by one’s internal value structure, values are not the basis for effective interactions between people of various and divergent viewpoints and characteristics. Many diversity programs are value driven, having the intent of changing people’s attitudes, beliefs, or feelings about other people. They tell participants how they “should” think or feel, which creates resistance. No matter how positively the message is delivered, “any attempt to change someone’s attitudes, beliefs, or values is exactly that, an attempt to change who they are” (Karp and Sammour 2000, p. 4). Another approach to dealing with the different attitudes that people have about diversity training and its effects is to start the program with a clear statement of values that includes explicit mention of participants’ rights to express how they see things and how they feel about comments that are being made, within the boundaries of good group dynamic principles. In this way, diversi
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