Nineteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

The development of intercultural competence, defined as the ability to work with people from different cultures, is critical to bridge across difference. In the setting of a public university in California, U.S. a team of professionals coalesced to begin to change the organizational culture of a 100 year old youth program that had not adapted well to the demographic change in Californian communities, where 53% of youth are Latino. The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI©) was used to define baseline data and progress. The team prototyped two educational interventions to sustain the dialogue on topics of diversity, privilege, inclusion, belonging and intercultural relations with 100 personnel. Both interventions included individual coaching using the IDI and a 2-day conference to learn how to apply these concepts to practice. In Cohort 1, participants engaged in six-monthly communities of practice where discussion topics were generated by participants and grounded in intercultural relations by a facilitator. Cohort 2 learned content via recorded webinars followed by structured facilitated conversations in learning circles. Pre-post IDI evaluations of Cohort # 1 revealed that in average participants improved their intercultural competence by one orientation along the continuum. The evaluation of Cohort 2 will be concluded in April 2019. In this presentation, participants will learn the content of these interventions, and why one was most effective and why. These interventions, along with other initiatives, resulted in a 34% increase in Latino youth enrollment in the program between July 2014 and June 2017.