The Bridging Differences strategies set out in this website are key skills and strategies for overcoming divides. They are based on UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center’s Bridging Differences Playbook, which draws on cutting-edge research and insights from trailblazing “bridge building” programs across the world. In creating the strategies, Berkeley reviewed decades of scientific studies, interviewed dozens of leaders, and surveyed the landscape of relevant programs. From this work they collected enduring wisdom and best practices for bridging political, racial, religious, and other divides, and identified a set of key skills and strategies that reduce intergroup biases and support positive dialogue, relationships, and understanding between groups or individuals.
This website synthesizes these core skills and strategies. For each of the skills identified, we first briefly explain the main steps involved in how to practice it. Then we explain why and when this skill is useful and offer caveats to keep in mind when you try it out.
The skills are organized into two main categories:
- intrapersonal skills that you can try on your own, to build your capacity for more positive interactions with other people and across groups; and
- interpersonal skills to make those interactions go more smoothly.
Taken together, these skills do not constitute a formal curriculum or rigid list of requirements. Instead, they are offered as a set of flexible principles that you can adapt and apply in different settings, including at work, in the classroom, or in the community.
Not every skill is appropriate in every circumstance. Like players on a basketball court, sometimes you have to dribble, and other times you have to shoot. Taken together, these skills offer a strong foundation for bridging differences. And the more we practice these skills, the better we’ll get at bridging differences.
The work of bridging differences can feel difficult, and it’s not often clear where to start; that’s what this website is for. We hope it gives you the confidence and tools to take an important first step toward overcoming divisions and divides, whether that is within your family or in your classroom, workplace or community – or even across our nation.