Inter-religious dialogue in Malaysia : a study of the dialogue designs and their effects on level of understanding and prejudice

Abstract

Since its implementation decades ago, inter-religious dialogue in Malaysia has yet to reach its full potential. Discrepancies in the concept of the dialogue resulted in confusion with various groups voicing their objections. As such, to eliminate doubts and suspicions, a clearer concept and an effective dialogue process which associated with the design of dialogue is required. This study intends to explore the inter-religious dialogue designs currently employed by various organizations and assess their effectiveness for increasing understanding and reducing prejudice. Case study design was employed to examine the design of inter-religious dialogue and the two-group post-test only randomized experimental design was applied to analyse the level of understanding and prejudice. The qualitative finding revealed that there were four types of dialogue practiced by various organizations, and the most commonly used was critical-dialogic education. Contact theory and inter-group dialogue stages were not systematically applied. Consequently, quantitative results through the t-test proved that there was no significant difference in the level of prejudice and understanding between the control and experimental groups, while the correlation analysis result indicated that understanding and prejudice were significantly inter-correlated. Based on both qualitative and quantitative findings, this study proposes a model for inter-religious dialogue in Malaysia (i.e. the elite and grassroots model). Apart from that, efforts should also be directed at developing a more systematic inter-religious dialogue design in the future so as to guarantee its efficacy in achieving the desired goals.