Immersive Virtual Experiences for Fostering Structural Competence Among White Students and Non-Black Students of Color

Background and Purpose: The utility of immersive virtual reality (IVR) as a pedagogical tool for increasing racial empathy and decreasing implicit bias has been thoroughly examined. However, the utility of IVR—particularly those leveraging embodied-perspective taking—toward increasing structural competence has yet to be examined. White and non-Black people of color vary in their adoption of ideologies and cognitive frames impeding meaningful engagement in systemic-level analyses of racism. This exploratory study examines how IVR impacts white students’ and non-Black students of colors’ ability to engage structural level-understandings of racism over time.

Methods: The present study leverages data and subsamples (N=75) from a larger methodological study aimed at examining IVR effects on race-related ideologies, cognitions, and emotions. Previous analyses sought to explicitly describe the effects of IVR on white and non-Black students of color. Building on this foundational research, this exploratory study seeks to explicitly compare changes in self-report surveys, designed to measure dimensions of empathy, system justification, color blindness, and intergroup anxiety toward African Americans, between white students and non-Black students of color at three time points: prior to participating in the IVR (T1, baseline), immediately after participating in the IVR (T2), and 14-weeks after participating in the IVR and completing an introductory graduate-level course engaging similar themes (T3).

Results: White students reported significant decreases in system justification and color blindness of racial privilege, and significant increases in the fantasy scale, empathetic concern, and personal distress dimensions of empathy immediately after participating in IVR (T2). They also reported a significant decrease in colorblindness of institutional discrimination between T2 and T3. Notably, white students maintained significant changes in systems justification, color blindness of racial privilege, institutional discrimination, and blatant racial issues over time—T1 to T3. Non-Black students of color reported significant decreases in system justification immediately after participating in the IVR (T2). There was no significant change (increase or decrease) in system justification following the mandatory course for non-Black students of color. Further, non-Black students of color reported significant decreases in color blindness of racial privilege immediately after participating in the IVR (T2).

Conclusions and Implications: The ability to identify and examine one’s own social location in relation to systems of domination is a central educational competency underlying structural-level assessments of racism. The present study expands the primary focus of IVR research to dually highlight its utility toward addressing the educational needs of learners situated in various social positionalities. These findings indicate the potential of IVR for improving white and non-Black students of colors’ ability to critically engage system-level understandings of racism. Specifically, findings related to system justification beliefs suggest IVR may contribute to decreased investments in collective ideologies that assert egalitarianism, justify social systems, and de-emphasize the role of racial hierarchies in the production and maintenance of social inequities. Further, these results indicate that IVR may support white and non-Black students of colors’ ability to evaluate their own social location in relationship to people of color with whom they do not share common positionalities or racialized experiences.