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Our current political climate includes a great deal of divisive and heated discourse that affects everyone. Should course topics or issues or even comments or questions from class members lead to “hot moments” that jeopardize learning, it is important to be prepared to constructively facilitate instruction. This guide and collection of resources aim to support ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú instructors in our current political climate so that they can effectively manage class environments to be productive learning spaces for all. While the guide refers to strategies for hot topics in the classroom, these strategies may also be useful to those facilitating workshops and discussions in other learning, development, and advising spaces with students. 

A collaborative initiative sponsored by the Center for Teaching Excellence, the Office of the Provost, and the Office of Transformational and Inclusive Excellence. 

To learn more about this initiative, visit Teaching in the Current Political Climate.

This activity allows students to reflect, write down, and share their hopes and concerns around engaging in constructive dialogue about issues of importance. .

This activity helps build group trust by creating a student-guided opportunity to learn new things about peers while practicing question-asking skills.

This resource provides a list, with descriptions, of the different approaches teachers can use to bring structure to student sharing.

This activity challenges students to practice listening to understand – not simply to respond— and allows them to share without fear of interruption.

Dialogue isn't just about the topic but rather about group dynamics. This exercise will help students reflect on the conversation to identify ways to improve.

Trust-building is an important foundation before engaging in deeper discussion topics. This icebreaker activity will help students feel more connected.

This activity aids in establishing explicit standards describing what students can expect to experience in a classroom and how they're expected to participate.

Students will practice listening and questioning before responding by sharing a political stance they hold while their partner asks questions to understand.  

Students often focus on what they agree on rather than differences. This activity gives students the opportunity to use differences for learning and growth.

This is an exercise to identify the values and moral foundations that underlie the political beliefs that students hold.  

Learn from higher ed stakeholders working in various campus settings to gain insight into what dialogue skill-building can look like in different environments.

This webinar discusses the ideological tension between free speech and inclusion and why a both/and framing can help higher ed institutions move forward. 

This webinar provides higher ed staff ways to reframe campus conflict as normal and valuable for learning and growth.

Video resources for higher education faculty and staff looking to implement Perspectives in their course or programming. 

In this webinar recording, hear from three experts about how their programs engage students in challenging conversations across campuses.

Learn how to apply systems thinking to balance free speech and inclusion and analyze the state of your campus.

Learn strategies to mitigate conflict, maintain community, and turn the election into an opportunity for students to engage across lines of difference.

We conducted research with 21 college presidents, administrators, faculty, and staff about their 2024 election goals for their campus communities. This was in addition to an extensive secondary review of lessons learned from past elections. By collating the experiences of subject matter experts and university educators in a range of roles– faculty; staff; offices of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); civic engagement centers; and university presidents–we hope to share knowledge about what works to contain campus conflict and transform discourse.

Solving the most pressing problems of our time requires broad collaboration across political party lines. Yet, the United States is experiencing record levels of affective polarization (distrust of the opposing political party). In response to these trends, we developed and tested an asynchronous online educational program rooted in psychological principles called Perspectives. In Study 1, using a large longitudinal dataset (total N = 35,209), we examined Perspectives users’ scores on affective polarization and intellectual humility at pre- and post-intervention. Studies 2 and 3 were longitudinal randomized controlled trials with government finance officers (N = 341) and college students (N = 775), respectively, and examined the effects of Perspectives on affective polarization, intellectual humility, and conflict resolution skills. Across these studies, we found that Perspectives users experienced small to medium-sized decreases in affective polarization and small to medium-sized increases in intellectual humility. In Study 3, we found that Perspectives led to small yet significant improvements in conflict resolution skills. These findings suggest promise for a brief and scalable intervention to improve affective polarization, intellectual humility, and conflict management.

We conducted a qualitative research project to explore the dynamics of cultural conflicts in K-12 public schools and their impact on teachers. Our main objective was to understand how teachers experience political polarization in their day-to-day work. We aimed to answer the following research questions:

• When and how do teachers encounter political polarization in their daily work?
• What are the effects of polarization on teacher burnout and teaching quality?

In response to rising polarization, a number of grassroots organizations have formed to bridge the growing political divide. Individuals dedicated to this cause have been called “bridge-builders,” and they aim to facilitate dialogue across lines of difference. As the field has grown, however, several concerns have been raised about whether bridge-building is a viable solution in the context of systemic inequities. These concerns, questions, and criticisms of bridge-building point to the tension—perceived or real—between efforts to repair intergroup relationships and efforts to correct inequitable structures. In this report, we grapple with the critiques of bridge-building, with the hope that it will spur sustained discussion within and across the bridge-building and social justice communities.

In our free Back-to-School Playbook, we provide you with actionable steps on how to use constructive dialogue to create learning environments that support nuanced thinking, inclusion, conflict resolution, and openness to diverse perspectives. You can access our free playbook below by entering your email address.

It is the responsibility of our educational institutions to prepare the next generation for democratic citizenship. However, it has become increasingly difficult for college students to engage in dialogue about important social issues. To address this challenge, the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI) developed a free online learning program, called Perspectives. Perspectives teaches psychological concepts to foster openness to diverse perspectives and equip students with the mindset and skill set to engage in dialogue across differences. To evaluate the effectiveness of Perspectives, CDI conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of 775 college students across 10 courses at three U.S. colleges and universities. 

Political polarization is the leading social rift of our time, leading to decreasing trust and political gridlock in government. Budgeting is inherently political because it involves “who gets what." This paper reviews psychological research on Moral Foundations Theory and applies the findings to government finance. Moral Foundations Theory states that there are six basic foundations to people’s worldviews: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. However, individuals draw on them in different ways and to different degrees to form specific moral worldviews. Based on these research insights, the paper describes three techniques for communicating and collaborating across differences: moral reframing, separating goals from strategies, and integrative thinking. Finally, the report summarizes findings from a randomized controlled trial of the Perspectives learning program with government finance officers.

Visit Bridging Political Divides in Local Government to learn more.

Intellectual humility is an underused concept in leadership and management. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated the role of humility in leadership and human resource management practices in terms of building an engaging, diverse, and inclusive workplace. One reason for the low engagement level among U.S. employees based on a recent Gallup annual survey is the perceived lack of intellectual humility among leaders and managers alike, which subsequently inhibits the initiation and utilization of shared leadership in teams. In addition, disengaged employees were found to be less likely to display honesty and humility in their interactions with others, suggesting a workplace culture of destructive disagreement and distrust. This chapter provides an evidence-based discussion about the need for leaders to adopt and foster intellectual humility to effectively manage their work groups to improve talent retention, employee engagement, and building an organizational culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belongingness.

In this study, Open Mind – an interactive learning platform – was introduced as a pedagogical tool in developing students’ intellectual humility using a sample of 35 upper level undergraduate business students enrolled in a business ethics course in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.. Students completed the 5-step Open Mind learning assignment as a measure of intellectual humility during the first four weeks of class. Class lectures were concurrently given while students completed the Open Mind exercise. Students were subsequently required to debate a controversial topic during the remaining 11 weeks of the class. Various grading rubrics as well as skill assessment matrix are provided to assist faculty in adopting this learning platform in their classrooms. Initial evidence showed that Open Mind was efficacious in fostering student intellectual humility. Implications for teaching business ethics using Open Mind to cultivate intellectual humility are discussed.

Our hyper-polarized national climate has led many college and university leaders to experience an undercurrent of conflict on campuses, making it increasingly challenging to advance the mission of higher education. In partnership with , we conducted a research project to identify common sources of conflict and provide recommendations for moving forward.

Throughout fall 2022, we completed and analyzed 22 interviews with campus stakeholders at colleges and universities across the United States, including students, faculty, staff, and administrators. We then held an in-person convening of the interviewees and other stakeholders so that they could exchange ideas, explore questions, and share stories of success and lessons learned regarding addressing tensions on campus. This report summarizes our findings and offers practical recommendations that campus leaders can begin implementing today.

Conflict is a ubiquitous, but potentially destructive, feature of social life. In the current research, we argue that intellectual humility—the awareness of one’s intellectual fallibility—plays an important role in promoting constructive responses to conflict. In Studies 1a and 1b, we focus on ideological intergroup conflict and provide a large-scale replication of intellectual humility as a mitigator of affective polarization. In Studies 2a and 2b, we examine the role of intellectual humility in interpersonal conflicts with friends, family members, and work colleagues. Across all studies (N = 23,869), we find that intellectual humility predicts constructive conflict responses.