Page 418 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

Another area for further study resulting from the limits of the demographic of people

attending the dialogue like Asians and Hispanics would have perhaps made the study more

revealing and complex. Since the first two CC events in Albany, New York were in African

American neighborhoods having more young adult and African American male voices in the data

and subsequent analysis and findings would have rounded out the study. Analyzing the tensions

and disagreements of individuals under the age of 30 (Millennial and Generation X individuals)

while including more African American men would add further understanding about how

Community Conversations inclusive of these groups experience the Metasphere of civic dialogue

engagement on the topics of implicit bias, race and racism, the resulting reflections, and how these

groups react to and address disagreement, tension and conflict.

Grand Conclusion

The goal of the dissertation research centered on generating new insights and

understanding about the ways in which Community Conversations functioned and offered

participant expression in an aware experience relating concerns, insights and managing identities.

Examining the concept of Metasphere creation allowed for a four-dimensional lens for the research

contexts and study how tensions and disagreements are handled and processed in civic dialogue

settings. Civic engagement literature offered theories about confrontation and opposition in

dialogue groups however, insights into quantum problem solving processes and practice, the

inevitable occurrence of confrontation and disagreement among dialogue attendees and

participants was not extensively found to be addressed in the literature.

A comprehensive review of the literature pertaining to community dialogues on bias, race

and social issues focused intergroup gatherings on these topics and while they describe the

conversations that occur they miss contextualizing details and ignore concept, contemplation and

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