Diversity Agenda Research Articles

A Treatise on Diversity in a Dominant Culture University

The authors examine progress in strengthening the Diversity agenda in a school of education within a private Christian university. This agenda is informed by external academic accrediting organizations and principles of social justice congruent with the historical roots of the university. Special emphasis is placed on the unique challenges of confronting how privilege manifests itself in seemingly homogeneous environments. The ultimate goal of the authors is to promote moving beyond cosmetic compliance with accreditation obligations towards a metabolized second order change reflecting internal paradigm shifts in which social justice is a central motivating factor in one’s vocation.

Briefing: The Equality and Diversity Panel, Institution of Civil Engineers

This paper discusses the remit of the Institution of Civil Engineer's Equality and Diversity Panel and questions the need to engage with the diversity agenda. The answer is to ensure that we reflect society, that we understand each distinct environment we work in, that we provide the most suitable solution and attract the biggest pool of talented people to become engineers so we can continue to serve society. It is well documented that girls outperform boys at GCSE level in science, engineering, technical and mathematics subjects, with a decrease in attainment at both A′ level and degree level. This, together with an understanding of why those who are disabled or from black and ethnic minority backgrounds show low entry levels to civil engineering, requires further investigation. Historically, Britain's ethnic minority populations have favoured career paths outside of engineering, with significant numbers going into the medical profession; this gives a further line of investigation to follow. The paper further considers if actual construction creates barriers in addition to those that exist socially, and concludes that full engagement with diversity initiatives must be beneficial to both society and the civil engineering industry.

Teaching civic engagement: Evaluating an integrative service-learning program

The demands on successfully teaching intervention skills in macro (community) environments are numerous and extend beyond the confines of any one academic discipline. In particular, when considering community, the compounding of the multiple factors of social economics, diversity, social policy, history and political agendas requires an integrative approach. This mixed-methods retrospective article analyses the use of service-learning in an advanced Master of Social Work community practice course. Special attention is given to the construction of academic and community experience that facilitates learning integration and understanding of the ways in which factors compound on community wellbeing. Specifically this project involved students in efforts constructed to address violence directed by and against inner-city youth in a mid-sized northeastern city in the United States that is beset with gang violence and has led its state in per capita murders for four of the past five years. Recommendations and lessons learned presented in this article are directed at exploring a construction of service-learning that could address integrative learning in community intervention courses.
 
 Keywords: Service-learning, teaching, macro practice, violence

The Treatment and Use of Best Practices for Diversity in Position Announcements for New Presidents

This study investigated how well institutions were communicating their commitment to diversity within position announcements for presidential openings and whether or not this communication reflected best practices in forwarding the diversity agenda for institutions. The sample included 70 institutions that advertised for a new campus president in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Using documents pertaining to the search, we applied content analysis to position announcements and campus websites dealing with presidential searches and diversity. Evidence indicated that within our sample only 13 (19 %) of institutions stated directly that they were looking for a diverse applicant pool and that only 28 (40 %) of the announcements mentioned diversity.

Building capacity: leadership and HCAs/APs

Definitions of leadership are related in relation to present context and need for leaders in health and social care sectors. The article introduces the Factor 8 framework, which identifies the leadership characteristics of diverse leaders. The framework was developed by consultancy, Diversity Practice, and it is different from some other leadership frameworks. This framework considers bi-cultural competence and cultural capital and is a better fit with the current diversity agenda. Personal experiences were utilised to illustrate usage of the framework. Three different tools have been described to help HCA develop their capacity in leadership skills. The Ladder of Influence, devised by Maxwell, can help HCAs identify and understand where power to influence comes from. Stakeholder mapping can be used to identify where and at whom energies should be directed at for the most effective results and Life stories can help HCAs to have a clearer understanding of their heritage, values and passions thereby giving them leverage for developing leadership skills and qualities.

‘Alright in their own place’: Policing and the spatial regulation of Irish Travellers

Recent efforts to improve relations between ethnic minority communities and the police have generally revolved around a ‘diversity’ agenda, through strategies to enhance consultation, increase recruitment levels and so on. However, for communities characterized by nomadism, a different set of issues arises. For the police, nomadism undermines the information work which is at the heart of their governance mandate. This article considers relations between Irish Travellers and the police, and highlights police recourse to strategies of spatial regulation in dealing with Travellers. The scale of the evident mistrust and hostility is such that efforts to improve this relationship through the policing diversity agenda alone are likely to have little success unless they also address the acute marginalization of Travellers, and the provision of adequate accommodation in particular.

Planning for sustainable urban areas or everyday life and inclusion

This paper discusses the extent to which the diversity and equality agenda is being taken into account at street level as planners and urban designers seek to create sustainable settlements. The paper argues that many design policies inspired by the sustainability agenda do not take into account inclusive urban design considerations, and thus large sectors of the population are adversely affected. While attention is given to the needs of the disabled, particular emphasis is put in this paper upon the design needs of women and older people who together compose around a third of the population. The impact of compact layouts and higher densities in residential areas is first discussed, along with the problems created by increased car control, without commensurate transport policy alternatives, or adequate, safe pedestrian routeways. Second the problems of city centres are discussed where sustainability policy is also being targeted, but other priorities including the new urbanism, the 24-hour city, the evening economy and the city of culture jostle for pre-eminence. It is concluded that the lack of awareness of people's needs and inclusive design principles are reducing the chances of ordinary people accessing, comfortably moving around and enjoying the city. In order to bridge the gap between sustainability and inclusive design in planning, it is concluded that greater emphasis must be given to user needs and the constraints of everyday life.

Perhaps we need to retreat from the diversity agenda

Perhaps we need to retreat from the diversity agenda

Perceived organizational barriers to women's career advancement in Lebanon

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the research gap on Lebanese female managers and to examine female managers' perceptions of their organizations in relation to women's career progression.Design/methodology/approachThe research was quantitative in nature. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 450 female managers. Measures included personal and demographic characteristics, organizational culture, organizational practices, organizational networks, mentoring and role modeling, tokenism, and the usage ofwasta.FindingsDescriptive statistics and analysis of variance were used to explain the results. The results reveal that female managers perceive their career progression to be affected by organizational culture, practices, and networks, while mentoring and tokenism were shown to be less critical. In addition, the women in this sample perceivedwastato be a powerful determinant.Practical implicationsThe findings contribute to a wider appreciation of the implicit barriers to women's career development and retention, will help organizations engage with the diversity agenda in this region and provide a better understanding of how these companies and their members can make progress, will help inform managerial interventions to make managers better able to make the most of the issues faced, and will help organizations make a much more concerted effort to manage junior female managers through helping them accelerate in their progression and development.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the limited literature on women in management in Lebanon as well as the Middle Eastern region in general.

Diversity in Healthcare: Time to Get REAL!

Cross-cultural healthcare involves three key issues: racial and ethnic disparities in the quality of healthcare provided to minority patients; cross-cultural value differences between immigrant patients and Western medical providers; and providing language access and assistance to limited English proficient (LEP) and disabled persons. Addressing these key issues represents a compelling diversity agenda for a new generation of healthcare executives. This article describes each of these challenges and the cutting-edge strategies that leading healthcare organizations are using to address them.

The Future of Ethnicity Classifications

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, ‘diversity’ has emerged as a key value in its own right, celebrated through human rights and similar policies promoting identity and providing an additional focus to that of the more traditional equalities agenda and its concern with ‘statistical proportionality’. It has been conjectured that classifications rooted in diversity policy will either propel data collection practices into the use of finer-grained distinctions or that these measurement systems will collapse under their own weight. In Britain pressure to increase the number of categories in ethnicity classifications highlights the tension between the validity of granular categories and their utility (in terms of practicality of data collection). Similarly, the interest in identity evokes a trade-off between the selective attribution of such measures and the greater stability of operationally defined ethnicity. In meeting the challenge of the diversity agenda, a number of approaches—innovative for Britain—are now being debated to accommodate greater numbers of categories in census collections. These include multi-ticking across categories (thereby capturing multiplicity) and the shift from classifications framed by colour to those privileging ethnic background (but attended by category proliferation). Conceptually, the measurement of the multiple dimensions of ethnicity has found favour but not so far encompassing ethnic origin/ancestry collected in US and Canadian Censuses. While some have argued that ethnicity classifications are already unwieldy and that retrenchment is needed, validity—increasingly insisted upon by the collectivities themselves and other non-state organisations—is seen as winning out. The demands of inclusiveness and identity visibility indicate that classifications are headed in the direction of greater complexity.

Producing diversity in a new urbanism community: Policy and practice

Since the mid-1990s, Markham in Ontario has embedded new urbanism and smart growth principles in its plans. The policies presume that policies for place diversity – requiring a mix of housing types, uses and densities – will produce social diversity. This article examines planning policies and reviews interview data to understand the challenges in interpreting and implementing a diversity agenda in practice. Although respondents describe Markham as ethnically diverse, census data reveal new kinds of social homogeneity. Planning policies and regulations that call for diversity in housing types, land uses and densities may contribute to place vitality and economic health, but the Markham case suggests that they may not produce social equity. Planners' faith in place diversity as a means to social diversity faces significant challenges in practice.

Skirts, sarees and sarongs: the rhetoric and reality behind the celebration of diversity in organisational life

The article critically examines the ethos of the diversity movement in organisational life. The rationale for the diversity agenda is located within a particular turn taken by the philosophies of liberalism and multiculturalism. This results in the extreme idea that one ought not to criticise the ways and views of others – whatever they are. Instead, one ought to celebrate and accept them. Through an engagement with the literature, it is shown that in many cases, behind the egalitarian ethos espoused by the diversity agenda, one finds the ethics of the spreadsheet. It is argued that the point proudly proclaimed by the diversity movement, that it is apolitical, is what makes it ineffectual.

Advancing diversity agendas on campus: examining transactional and transformational presidential leadership styles

This study draws on the experiences and insights of current college and university presidents to understand whether transactional, transformational or a combination of these leadership strategies advances an institution‐wide diversity agenda. The qualitative elite interview study demonstrates that both styles of leadership appear important and that most presidents used both approaches to reach different audiences and with different effects, but both are necessary. Certain presidents may be more successful using transactional leadership, based on their race, while other presidents may have a personal preference for transactional or transformational leadership or be in a culture that suggests one over the other at a particular point in time.

Intersecting Inequalities: Reflecting on the Subjects and Objects of Equality

The creation of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) brings together equality strands that have previously been conceived in a discrete manner, politically, legally and institutionally. Its establishment raises the possibility that UK equality institutions might be better able to engage with issues of ‘intersectionality’. This article considers whether this potential is likely to be realised. It suggests that two distinct approaches are emerging in response to the challenge of multiple inequalities. One entails the EHRC retaining a separate strands approach to equality, with its notion of structural inequality and discrete, frequently competing, groups; a second entails the embrace of a diversity agenda in which we are all complex individuals seeking an equal opportunity to thrive in the market‐place. Given the potential limitations of these approaches ‐ the first may not be sufficiently flexible to allow for a joined‐up approach to multiple inequalities, while the second may subordinate equality considerations to those of greater economy productivity ‐ the article asks whether others way of negotiating the demands intersectionality might be open to the EHRC.

Social capitalism and educational policy: democracy, professionalism and social justice under New Labour

Here we examine New Labour’s education policy concerning social justice and the organisation of educational provision with reference to social capital as policy vocabulary. The central focus is on policy discourses and practices in relation to networking between schools and other partners. We identify three policy phases for reducing inequalities and social exclusion, while supporting human capital formation: (1) EAZs in the late 1990s; (2) refocusing on specialisation and beaconisation, 2000–2003; and (3) transformations signalled by the diversity and choice agenda of the White Paper 2005, academies and trusts. We detect a drift in policy targets and aspirations from the early idealised ‘new and exciting’ kinds of educational participation and democracy, returning to more traditional professionalist arrangements in specialisation/beaconisation, and currently moving in the direction of post‐democratic governance in the academies programme, while doing little to challenge processes of stratification of educational institutions or outcomes. We develop the argument concerning the ‘post‐democratic’ turn in education policy by exploring the possibilities and limitations of policy‐making which deploys social capital vocabulary and mechanisms, ending with the paradox of social capital as a theory of democracy articulating with ‘post‐democratic’ educational structures.

Learning from and with Students: College Presidents Creating Organizational Learning to Advance Diversity Agendas

This study focused on examining the roles that leaders, in particular college presidents, may play in creating organizational learning that helps move diversity agendas forward. This study highlights under-examined information sources (students own stories and experiences) for creating organizational learning that can advance a diversity agenda. The findings highlight an important role that is not described much in the literature—the way that leaders can role model the learning process by being open and visible in the ways that they learn from others on campus. The study also helps leaders to identify new systems that they should create to enhance organizational learning that capture student voices such as advisory boards, focus groups, and problem-solving teams.

Creating a web of support: an important leadership strategy for advancing campus diversity

Research demonstrates that leadership, particularly among presidents, is important for moving a diversity agenda forward and make appreciable progress on it. The research questions pursued here are: What is the role of the college president in advancing a diversity agenda? What strategies do presidents identify as important to facilitating a diversity agenda? There were three main findings: (1) strategies are deployed in a non-linear way best represented through a web metaphor, (2) six sets of actors that serve as key nodes on the web and specific strategies were crucial to enhancing and deepening the web-developing an internal network, hiring, mentoring, partnering with faculty on the curriculum, supporting student affairs staff, working directly with and learning from students, and establishing external networks; and, (3) strategies within the human resource frame are noted by presidents as particularly important to moving a diversity agenda forward.

Tools for a Time and Place: Phased Leadership Strategies to Institutionalize a Diversity Agenda

This study examines college presidents who have successfully institutionalized diversity measures on their campuses, focusing on their strategies. The study focus was: Do campuses at different stages of institutionalization in their diversity agendas use different strategies? If so, why? And how do different strategies help move the campus toward institutionalizing a diversity agenda? It identifies institutions at three different levels of institutionalization and describes their distinctive strategies for each phase. The article argues that college presidents need to acknowledge the importance of understanding the institutional phase before implementing any activities or plans.

The Role of Partnership in Shaping the Diversity Agenda

This study examines how external stakeholders, collaborators, and partners help shape the diversity agenda in post‐secondary education. Results from a comparative case study analysis of four professional schools (public health, business, social work and engineering) at a large American research university suggest that external social actors are influential in stimulating diversity‐related activity and determining how post‐secondary organizations address pressures, expectations, demands, requirements and incentives related to diversity.