The Voices Project

Voices Project Immigration Documentary at Movies 14

We regret to inform you that The Voices Project: Immigration Documentary screening at R/C Wilkes-Barre Movies 14 scheduled for Feb. 4 at 7pm has been unfortunately cancelled due to illness. Updated information will be provided once it has been rescheduled.

The Voices Project: Immigration Documentary

Please note that this film is recommended for mature audiences and has themes of trauma.

The Voices Project: Immigration
Documentary

"The Voices Project: Immigration" documentary originally aired on WVIA-TV on Thursday, Nov. 17 at 9 p.m. and on Saturday, Nov. 19 at 10 p.m.

The film chronicles a classroom and advocacy project designed to promote understanding and reduce the stigma of race and immigrants. Featuring Misericordia University students and faculty, the documentary chronicles a classroom and advocacy project designed to promote understanding and reduce the stigma of race and immigrants.

"The Voices Project: Immigration" was a year-long visual and storytelling project conducted at Misericordia University by Alicia Nordstrom, Ph.D., professor and chairperson of the psychology department and her students. Over 60 students at Misericordia University interviewed first and second-generation immigrants, refugees, and DACA recipients.

Interview on ArtScene with Erika Funke regarding "The Voices Project: Immigration" Documentary

Hear Alicia Nordstrom, Ph.D., creator and producer of The Voices Project, Lalaine Little, Ph.D., Pauly Friedman Art Gallery Director and Fine Arts instructor at Misericordia, and Kevin Amaya, Misericordia Government, Law and National Security major from West Scranton, speak about their immigration stories that are featured on the original documentary film, "The Voices Project: Immigration".

Voices Project Immigration Interview on WVIA ArtScene Erika Funke

What is The Voices Project and how did it get started?

The Voices Project began as a method for students to examine the question: what is it like to be "different"? In Fall of 2009, Psychology instructor Dr. Alicia Nordstrom developed an experiential, service-learning diversity assignment for her Intro to Psychology course that was intended to enhance students' critical thinking and cultural competency, reduce stereotypes and prejudice towards victimized and misunderstood groups, and increase empathy and perspective taking. This assignment - called The Voices Project (TVP) - was designed with the understanding that students often have negative attitudes toward people from unfamiliar groups.

Check out Alicia Nordstrom's TEDxLancaster talk on "The Fallacy of Normal and Beauty of Difference" (September, 2017) to learn more:

Innovative Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Programs Across the World - 1st Edition

by Alicia Nordstrom (Editor), Wind Goodfriend (Editor)

Offering practical stigma and discrimination reduction programs in a range of domains including mental health, disability, ethnicity, and sexuality, this book is the answer to "What can we do?" to improve interpersonal relationships by reducing societal stigma towards social groups that are prime targets of prejudice.

Click here to learn more and to purchase through Amazon

The Voices Project: The Four Chapters

Immigration

Take an 80-minute trip around five continents as eight storytellers each share their immigration experiences.

Learn more

Disability

Explore society’s attitudes towards individuals considered “different.”

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Mental Health

Find out what you don't know about mental health. The stigma ends now.

Learn more

Diversity

Understand negative attitudes toward people from unfamiliar groups

Learn more

Resources

Assignment Directions	Reflection Journals
Chapter 1 Diversity	TVP Chapters 1 & 2
Chapter 2 Disability	US/UK Voices Project
US/UK Voices Project

Preparing for Interviews	Memoir Grading Rubric
Interviewing Adolescents & Adults	TVP Grading Rubric Chapters 1 & 2

Scripts
Chapter 1 Diversity
Chapter 2 Disability
Chapter 3 Mental Health

SURVEYS FOR SPECIFIC SOCIAL GROUPS

Group/ Variable	Name of Measure	Subscales	Citation
Asians/Asian Americans	Attitudes towards Asians	None	Dinh, K. T., Weinstein, T. L., Nemon, M., & Rondeau, S. (2008). The effects of contact with Asians and Asian Americans on White American college students: Attitudes, awareness of racial discrimination, and psychological adjustment. American Journal of Community Psychology, 42(2), 298-308. doi: 10.1007/s10464-008-9202-z
Blacks	Modern Racism Scale	None	McConahay, J. B. (1986). Modern racism, ambivalence, and the Modern Racism Scale. In J. F. Dovidio, & S. L. Gaertner (Eds.), Prejudice, discrimination, and racism (pp. 91-125). San Diego, CA, US: Academic Press.
Whites' Racial Consciousness	Oklahoma Racial Attitudes Scale- Revised	- Conflictive racial justice -Reactive racial justice	Vandiver, B. J., & Leach, M. M. (2005). Oklahoma Racial Attitudes Scale-Revised. Unpublished scale. Wolff, K. E., & Munley, P. H. (2012). Exploring the relationships between White racial consciousness, feminist identity development and family environment for White undergraduate women. College Student Journal, 46(2), 283–307.
Muslims	Islamo- phobia Scale	-Affective-behavioral -Cognitive	Lee, S. A., Gibbons, J. A., Thompson, J. M., & Timani, H.S. (2009). The Islamophobia Scale: Instrument development and initial validation. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 19, 92-105.
Wealth/Poverty	Beliefs about the Causes of Wealth and Poverty	- Poverty: individualism -Poverty: situationalism -Wealth: individualism -Wealth: situationalism	Smith, K. B., & Stone, L. H. (1989). Rags, riches, and bootstraps: Beliefs about the causes of wealth and poverty. The Sociological Quarterly, 30(1), 93-107.
Antifat	Antifat Attitudes Question- naire	- Dislike toward overweight people -Concerns about weight -Beliefs about willpower and controllability of weight	Crandall, C. S. (1994). Prejudice against fat people: Ideology and self-interest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(5), 882-894. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.66.5.882
Ageism/Elderly	Fraboni Scale of Ageism-Revised	- Stereotypes -Separation -Affective Attitudes	Rupp, D. E., Vodanovich, S. J., & Crede, M. (2005). The multidimensional nature of ageism: Construct validity and group differences. Journal of Social Psychology, 145(3), 335-362. doi: 10.3200/SOCP.145.3.335-362
People with AIDS	Generic AIDS Attitudes Scale	- Empathy -Avoidance	Froman, R. D., & Owen, S. V. (2001). Measuring attitudes towards Persons with AIDS: The AAS-G as an alternate form of the AAS. Scholarly Inquiry for Nursing Practice: An International Journal, 15(2), 161-174.
Sexism	Ambivalent Sexism Inventory	- Benevolent sexism -Hostile sexism	Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(3), 491-512. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.70.3.491
Gays/Lesbians	Homo- negativity Scale	- Gays -Lesbians	Morrison, T. G., Parriag, A. V., & Morrison, M. A. (1999). The psychometric properties of the Homonegativity Scale. Journal of Homosexuality, 37(4), 111-126. doi: 10.1300/J082v37n04_07

Other Schools

The project is intended to be shared by other instructors, community members, diversity educators, and/or social justice proponents to help others gain new perspectives of groups that are stigmatized or misunderstood.

A list of academic publications can be found on the Research tab.

Elizabeth Weiss, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
The Ohio State University Newark

"I incorporated the Voices Project into my Stereotyping and Prejudice class. This class is an upper-level psychology elective, taken mainly by psychology majors. Before we met as a class, I asked students to complete a brief survey regarding groups of difference. I had them indicate which groups they were most and least comfortable with/knowledgeable about. Then, at the beginning of the course, I assigned each student three groups of difference and they chose one to work on. Throughout the semester, they studied qualitative research, made contacts with community groups to find interviewees, drafted interview questions, and actually conducted interviews. It was a lot of work for them and for me, but we all had such a wonderful time with this project. Several students mentioned that it was the single best learning experience they had as a college student. It was certainly one of the most gratifying experiences I have had as a teacher!"

Enhancing Students' Cultural Competence through Interviews with Muslim and non-Muslim British Students

Principal Investigators:

Alicia Nordstrom, Ph.D., Misericordia University

Valerie Todd, Ph.D., Blackburn University (Lancashire, England)

In 2013 and 2014, The Voices Project went international as students from Misericordia University and Blackburn College in Lancashire, England used The Voices Project framework to interview each other. One Misericordia student from an upper-level psychology course was paired with two students from Blackburn College (one Muslim and one non-Muslim student) and the pairs interviewed each other using email, Facebook, and/or Skype. The British students wrote memoirs of the lives of the American students and the American students wrote essays comparing the life experiences of the British students with their own. These stories are being compiled into an iBook for dissemination.

Awards

The Voices Project (TVP) has received several awards by teaching, community and social justice societies:

Research

Comparing the Impact of Three Diversity Assignments on Students' Attitudes towards Groups of Difference

Principal Investigator: Alicia Nordstrom, Ph.D.

The Voices Project is a social justice and advocacy project but also has a research portion to examine whether the stories collected and shared empirically reduce stigma of different social groups.

To date, research results show that The Voices Project reduces racism and mental health stigma in students who participated in the project. in addition, mental health stigma reduced in people who watched The Voices Project: Mental Health theatrical production or documentary, showing that just hearing the stories can have a positive impact on attitudes towards people with mental health conditions.

For more information, here are some of the publications and conference presentations that have come out of this research:

Peer-Reviewed Publications:

Nordstrom, A. H., & Goodfriend, W. (in press). Innovative stigma and discrimination reduction programs. Oxfordshire, England: Routledge.

Caleb, A. M., & Nordstrom, A. H. (in press). Empathy and authenticity in education: Team teaching “The Voices Project: Mental Health”. In C. Campion & A. Angello (Eds.), The Synergistic Classroom. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Nordstrom, A. H. (2017). One course is not enough: Integrating sociocultural learning across the psychology curriculum. In R. L. Miller & T. Collette (Eds.) Teaching Tips: A Compendium of Conference Presentations on Teaching, 2015-16. Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology web site: http://teachpsych.org/resources/Documents/ebooks/teachingtips.pdf

Nordstrom, A. H. (2015). The Voices Project: Reducing White students' racism in Introduction to Psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 1-8. DOI: 10.1177/0098628314562524

Conference Presentations:

Nordstrom, A. H. (2020, February). The Voices Project: Reducing Mental Health Stigma in College Students. Presentation at the SoTL Commons Conference, Savannah, GA.

Nordstrom, A. H. (2019, March). The Voices Project: Using theater to reduce stigma of mental health. In W. Goodfriend (Chair), Innovative Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Interventions for Gender, Race, and Mental Health. Symposium conducted at the International Convention of Psychological Science, Paris, France.

International Convention of Psychological Science in Paris in March, 2020

Nordstrom, A. H. (2017, August). The Voices Project: Using psychobiography to reduce stereotypes and prejudice in college students. In J. Lodi-Smith (Chair), Psychobiography. Symposium conducted at the 125^th Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.

Nordstrom, A. H. (2016, October). The Voices Project: Breaking down stereotypes one story at a time. Invited presentation at the National Intercollegiate Recreational Sports Association Region I Conference, Lancaster, PA.

Nordstrom, A. H. (2016, March). One course is not enough: Integrating sociocultural learning across the Psychology curriculum. Invited presentation at the Southeastern Conference on the Teaching of Psychology, Atlanta, GA.

Nordstrom, A. H. (2015, October). Infusing sociocultural learning in psychology classes. Invited presentation at the Northeastern Conference on the Teaching of Psychology, Fitchburg, MA.

Nordstrom, A. H. (2015, October). The Voices Project. In A. H. Nordstrom (Chair), Addressing barriers to reducing racism through narrative and popular culture. Symposium conducted at the Diversity Challenge: Race, Culture, and Social Justice conference, Boston, MA.

Nordstrom, A. H., (2015, January).Infusing sociocultural learning in psychology classes.Presentation at the 37thAnnual National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology, St. Petersburg, FL.
Nordstrom, A. H. (2013, October). Reducing racism in college students: Using SoTL to evaluate the impact of a peacebuilding pedagogy. Presented at the 2013 International Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL), Raleigh, North Carolina.
Nordstrom, A. H. (2013, July). Stereotypes and prejudice in college students: Identifiable patterns and classroom interventions. Presented at the 4th International Conference on the Teaching of Psychology, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Nordstrom, A. H. (2012, August). The Voices Project: Enhancing students' cultural competence in Intro to Psychology. Poster presented at the 120th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Orlando, FL.
Nordstrom, A. H. (2011, October). The Voices Project: Using an experiential diversity assignment to reduce stereotypes and prejudice in Intro to Psychology. Presentation at the Best Practice in Teaching Introduction to Psychology conference of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, Atlanta, GA.