Lorraine Margot Gutierrez

12. Education, Participation, and Capacity Building in Community Organizing with Women of Color was published in Community Organizing and Community Building for Health and Welfare on page 215.

Sexual-minority college students continue to experience heterosexism in the form of heterosexist and biased language from peers. Religion has been identified as a predictor of sexual prejudice among college students. Yet there is limited research on the intersection of race, religion, and heterosexism, and on interventions designed to address this prejudice. This study examined the effectiveness of multicultural education courses at a large public university on reducing heterosexism in Christian students. Analysis of pre- and post- data using repeated measures ANCOVA indicated African American Christian students had significantly higher heterosexism scores than White Christian students, and African American Christian students had a significant decrease in heterosexism as compared to White Christian students after taking a service learning course. These results have implications for future research and education on prejudice reduction.

This cross-sectional, repeated measures, quasi-experimental study evaluates changes in college students’ commitment toward, and confidence in, political participation, civic engagement, and multicultural activism. Our sample (n = 653) consisted of college students in a Midwestern university who participated in one of three social justice education course types (service learning, intergroup dialogue, or lecture-based diversity classes) or in an “introduction to psychology” course (the non-intervention group). After completion of a social justice education course, students reported an increase in political participation and multicultural activism, whereas students enrolled in the non-intervention group reported no changes in these measures. Service learning course participants started and ended their course with the highest reported levels of political participation, civic engagement, and multicultural activism but did not demonstrate an increase in any of the three outcomes. Intergroup dialogue participants demonstrated increases in all three outcomes, while participants of lecture-based classes focusing on social justice issues demonstrated increases in political participation and multicultural activism, but not civic engagement. Our findings suggest that participation in social justice education courses is associated with increases in political participation and multicultural activism.