SD Explained
Misunderstandings occur between strangers on a regular basis. In order to avoid such happenings, individuals need to listen to one another’s perspectives, learn where others come from, and grow beyond their comfort zones. Most importantly, individuals need to take time to understand. But in today’s fast-paced society, high school and college students get caught up in their academic lives and naturally gravitate towards people who share common interests, and before they know it, it’s time to graduate.
Sustained Dialogue (SD) is a tool that helps students make time to understand the different perspectives of individuals they otherwise would not meet. Engaging in such important conversations will not only enable them to interact comfortably with all kinds of people, but also help build
relationships across community divides. SD equips students with communication skills necessary for increasingly diverse academic, social, and work environments.
SD is a natural
5-stage process that works. It is one based on developing a relationship first before solving a misunderstanding or conflict. Dr. Harold Saunders, former US diplomat and Assistant Secretary of State, observed this natural process and put it into writing. In 1993, he was one of 7 citizens that gathered to talk about how to bring peace from the civil war in the former Soviet republic Tajikistan. He said, “They could barely look at each other. Their comrades had been killing each other.” But they met over 35 times and were able to work out a plan for peace.
On college and high school campuses, students meet regularly in small groups over the course of an academic year. This makes SD unique from one-day forums that give only enough time for individuals to express their problems and concerns, when what they really need is to continue the dialogue and get to the root of the issue and come to an understanding before taking action to solve it.
“In both [our] groups, there were breakthrough days where people shared their most personal feelings about racism. People were moved to understanding and empathy and we moved forward together. This was only possible because the same group of people met repeatedly.”
- David Tukey, co-founder at Princeton University ’02
What does an SD Program Look Like?
- Two-hour dialogue meetings
- Dialogues are held twice a month
- Each SD group consists of 8-12 participants, reflective of community diversity
- Two students, trained by SDCN, moderate each groups' dialgoue meetings
- Dialogues focus on probing a particular subject that divides the community (such as race relations) and work towards a collective action project designed to address these problems
Click here to read the story of one SD group's path to action.
The Sustained Dialogue Theory of Change
How do we believe Sustained Dialogue can change a community through a group of individuals? Most simply, we believe change happens in the following manner:
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(For more information on the Sustained Dialogue Theory of Change, simply click the image!)
