ABSTRACT
Objectifying or grounding beliefs in stereotypes rather than interacting with actual individuals keeps human beings from relating to one another on a personal level. Self-knowledge is crucial for understanding self as subject and involves both self reflection on past remembrances and critical questioning of those experiences in the present. Regardless of the degree of grounded self for individual participants, Opening Doors (OD) enabled a process of continuous critical self-reflection throughout the eight-week period. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, critical self-reflection is the way in which a self communicates in order to establish an identity. OD participants possessed various degrees of grounding in knowledge of self as subject. Some came to OD with a fully developed sense of grounded knowledge and exhibited a secure sense of self based on knowledge of self as subject that enabled a sense of ethnic pride and self-respect.
