Vicarious education, dialogue education and self-efficacy among Indian female students in a diversity management course

Abstract

Teaching, learning and assessment methods for teaching students about diversity should be transformative and achieve lasting changes in students’ attitudes and behaviours towards diverse individuals. Therefore, dialogue education in the teaching and learning of an undergraduate course in diversity management at a higher education institution was considered as an alternative to existing practices. This article reports on a mixed method study that was conducted to gather data from students over a period of three years. The results of the study indicated that the majority of students did well with the dialogue approach to education except for a small underrepresented group of Indian females: they experienced low levels of self-efficacy in class discussions and presentations, thereby preventing them from benefitting from the educational opportunity offered.