Just how Effective is Sexually Stigmatized Communities at reducing heterosexism and homophobia?
Author -- Chuck Stewart, Ph.D.
Evidence of Effectiveness
The race riots of the 1930s lead to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and saw a gradual concern for making police, businesses, and schools less threatening to "minorities." As such, organizations sometimes implemented "sensitivity training" based upon the human relationship model to meet the need to reduce discrimination litigation. Education embraced a "multicultural" model of teaching that tried to teach tolerance for people of different backgrounds, abilities, and attributes. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, changes in laws concerning sexual harassment saw an explosion in businesses offering "diversity" training.
But, just how effective are these trainings?
Chuck Stewart was interested in that very question. In 1992, he was hired by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Police Advisory Task Force to write a curriculum to teach about sexual orientation at the Los Angeles Police Academy. He discovered that, although there were 3 or 4 curricula on the topic, they consisted of only a few pages that told what to cover. Being a teacher with many years of experience, he knew teachers needed much more. Thus, he created a two-volume, 175 page, teaching package that included handouts, overhead transparencies, and classroom activities. The curriculum was well received. But was it effective? He did not know.
During the research and writing of the curriculum, he discovered that there were no published reports on the effectiveness of training on sexual orientation and only a few on other diversity issues. Although he wrote the police teaching package using accepted educational methodology, he was uncertain about its effectiveness. That prompted him to obtain funding from the ONE Institute / International Gay and Lesbian Archives and the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) to conduct field research of cultural awareness trainings at many police academies and agencies in California.
For almost a year, Chuck Stewart traveled the state of California spending up to a week at specific sites conducting pre- and post-psychometric and content assessment of diversity training with an emphasis on sexual orientation. The instrumental data was triangulated with in-depth interviews and review of documents.
At the same time, he gathered information from many sources besides his curriculum and proceeded to create and teach a training program on sexual orientation at one of the police academies. There, he subjected the classes to the same detailed assessment and used the findings to further modify the program. Eventually, he was able to obtain a statistically significant shift in feelings toward greater acceptance of lesbians and gays; something no other instructor in the study using a structured program was able to achieve.
In 1995, Chuck Stewart compiled the data and analysis into a dissertation for the School of Education at the University of Southern California and was awarded a Ph.D. The dissertation, The efficacy of sexual orientation training in law enforcement agencies , can be obtained through your library or viewed at the website- http://members.aol.com/ckstewar/CStewart.html. The research and findings of the dissertation, along with additional supporting materials, were combined into Sexually Stigmatized Communities- Reducing Heterosexism and Homophobia: An Awareness Training Manual (SAGE Publications, 1999).
Research Findings
The dissertation research found that effective training on sexual orientation needs the following elements:
Training Preparations
Goals: Clear goals need to be developed by the organization to reinforce overall commitment to non-discrimination, self-awareness of potential conflict with organization policy, overcoming stereotypes through accurate information, effects of heterosexism and homophobia on the workplace, and strategies for overcoming heterosexism and homophobia along with identification of appropriate behaviors.
Instructors: A team of two or more instructors (including both females and males) need to be used who are respected personnel, subject matter experts, skilled at instructional methodologies, and gender-conforming.
Resource Materials: Classroom handouts need to include anti-discrimination policy of the organization, lists of local and national gay and lesbian centers, basic information on human sexuality aimed at dispelling the most common myths and stereotypes, and work scenarios where homosexuality has an important impact.
Student Preparation: Program administrators need to meet with students to emphasize the nature and importance of the training and to quell any fears they may have about confidentiality (that what is said in class will not be used against them), and so forth.
Length of Training and Size of Class: The minimum time for training should be 4 hours with a class size not exceeding 15 students per instructor ratio.
Training Program
The training program needs to adhere to the following structure:
Introduction and Goals:
(a) Program administrator introduces training and instructors.
(b) Instructors state goals.
(c) Instructors state ground rules for creating a safe environment conducive to sharing.
Self-Awareness: Allow for self-awareness about feelings, beliefs, and knowledge about homosexuals and homosexuality, and gain awareness about the level of homophobia within the classroom.
Sexual Orientation Research and Overcoming Stereotypes:
(a) Address myths and stereotypes that have emerged from the self-awareness activity with accurate information.
(b) Link homophobia with racism, sexism, and the processes of stigmatization.
Personalizing Gays and Lesbians: Ask respected gay and lesbian personnel to share their life stories, concentrating on their conflict with being homosexual in a heterosexist society and their decision to pursue their chosen career.
Just How Bad Is It for Gays and Lesbians in Our Heterosexist Society?
(a) "Gay agenda" is equal rights, not special rights.
(b) Societal Homophobia-Stereotype activities show how gays and lesbians are marginalized and controlled by societal forces.
(c) Internalized Homophobia-Various activities reveal how the impact of heterosexism on gays and lesbians takes a terrible emotional and psychological toll.
(d) Institutional Homophobia- Instructors survey the legal status of homosexuality plus workplace and societal restrictions faced by gays and lesbians.
Understanding Points-of-Contact: Instructors create specific applications of the material to interpersonal relations at work and interactions with customers.
Strategies for Overcoming Homophobia: Combine all the information to solve specific work-related scenarios.
Closure and Meeting Local Gay and Lesbian Police Organization Members: Summarize and bring to closure the training. Allow students to meet with representatives from local gay and lesbian organizations.
Evaluations: Obtain student evaluations of the training. These need to be in-depth written or interview responses that are more than simple "popularity" evaluations. Paper and pencil tests of knowledge, feelings and attitudes may be use and are indicative of future behaviors.
Administrative Support for Training Program
After the training, administration needs to conduct the following:
Administrative Follow-up: Without follow-up, this training will be denigrated and viewed as a separate issue unrelated to the work environment.
(a) Policy- Prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians and encourage gays and lesbians to be open.
(b) Administrative Changes- Do not tolerate anti-gay comments and actions. Be concerned if only a few members are open gays or lesbians, publicly recognize the achievements of gay and lesbian members, and review management policies that may be exclusionary.
(c) Selection Process- Remove discriminatory language from applications, and help weed out bigoted applicants.
(d) Training Program- During cultural awareness training, target examples of sexual stigmatization. Specify appropriate responses, include field simulations, and recognize that training involves the changing of values as well as behaviors.
(e) Employee Socialization- Modify "ideal" employee stereotypes and make the organization safe for gays and lesbians to be open.
What Is Not Effective?
Diversity training too often relies upon some of the following elements that are proven to be ineffective:
Name of Training- Do not name the program as "sensitivity" training. This is offensive. It implies that the attendees are insensitive and immediately makes them defensive.
Teaching Methodology- (a) Lecture. For more than 80 years, educational research has demonstrated that exclusive use of lecture is not effective. Even lecture that allows questions to be asked is not effective. Yet, this is still the primary form of educational methodology being used in diversity training; and particularly on the more controversial training on sexual orientation. Why? Because lecture is easy to prepare and limits potential conflict in the classroom. As such, popularity questionnaires at the end of these classes are often neutral or slightly positive. Administration points to these as evidence that the class was effective. In reality, training on sexual orientation is so controversial that popularity surveys of effective training (training that includes significant student participation-- see item (c)) should be polarized between those who thought it was great with those who thought the instructor was the devil. (b) Panel Presentation. Similar to lecture, panel presentations are people talking to students. However, if the panel is composed of persons students want to emulate, there will be some level of empathy formed. Yet, panel presentations are measured to be ineffective. Why are they used? It is even easier for instructors who are faced with teaching a class on something they have very little knowledge to call their local lesbian and gay community center and ask them to send a panel to fill two hours of class time. Also, too often panel members have personal agendas that easily offend, and thus turn-off, class members. (c) Passive. In general, any teaching methodology that place students into a passive role are not effective. Lecture, panel presentations, the use of videos or other audio-visual materials, can be used but sparingly. Individual and group activities that require students to participate should comprise 35% to 40% of class time. And most importantly, students need to use their knowledge to solve real problems related to their work or school situation.
Assessment- Assessments given to students at the end of class in which they are asked their opinion are known as "popularity" surveys. They are not effective at revealing teaching effectiveness. They only tell if the class was fun or non-offensive. They do not reveal if students learned anything or if sentiments or future behaviors were changed toward the goal of the training. Popularity surveys should be avoided since, unfortunately, administrators too often use them to continue with ineffective programs because they are non-controversial.
Program Implementation- It is ineffective for diversity training to be a one-time effort with no integration with the organization's culture.
Insist on using educational programs that are proven to be effective.