Dilemmas Of Diversity Research Articles

Ethical dilemmas and professional judgment as a pathway to inclusion and equity in mathematics teaching

This study focuses on ethical dilemmas that arise in moments of inclusion and equity in mathematics teaching and how they might be tackled through teachers’ professional judgment. Skovsmose’s inclusive landscapes of investigation approach was used to design the study and to collect teachers’ joint reflections on moments of inclusion and equity in their teaching. Ethical dilemmas and professional judgment were the analytical foci for a qualitative thematic content analysis. Three explorative workshops were held with two teams of teachers from two schools in Sweden. The analysis identified three themes of ethical dilemma, and ways in which these were responded to by teachers’ professional judgment: (1) dilemmas of diversity and acting justly; (2) dilemmas of resources and allocating them fairly; (3) dilemmas of values and recognising diversity. We conclude that mathematics teachers’ professional judgments involve showing bravery, going outside of the norm, negotiating values and duties, listening to the students, and throughout this, engaging in collegial learning in the best interests of the learner.

Diversity dilemmas: uncovering gender and nationality biases in graduate admissions across top North American computer science programs

Although different organizations have defined policies towards diversity in academia, many argue that minorities are still disadvantaged in university admissions due to biases. Extensive research has been conducted on detecting partiality patterns in the academic community. However, in the last few decades, limited research has focused on assessing gender and nationality biases in graduate admission results of universities. In this study, we collected a novel and comprehensive dataset containing information on approximately 14,000 graduate students majoring in computer science (CS) at the top 25 North American universities. We used statistical hypothesis tests to determine whether there is a preference for students’ gender and nationality in the admission processes. In addition to partiality patterns, we discuss the relationship between gender/nationality diversity and the scientific achievements of research teams. Consistent with previous studies, our findings show that there is no gender bias in the admission of graduate students to research groups, but we observed bias based on students’ nationality.

Diversity Dilemmas: Examining the Antecedents and Aftermath of Pro-DEI Behaviors

Diversity Dilemmas: Examining the Antecedents and Aftermath of Pro-DEI Behaviors

The dominance-diversity dilemma in animal conservation biology.

The alteration of environmental conditions has two major outcomes on the demographics of living organisms: population decline of the common species and extinction of the rarest ones. Halting the decline of abundant species as well as the erosion of biodiversity require solutions that may be mismatched, despite being rooted in similar causes. In this study, we demonstrate how rank abundance distribution (RAD) models are mathematical representations of a dominance-diversity dilemma. Across 4,375 animal communities from a range of taxonomic groups, we found that a reversed RAD model correctly predicts species richness, based solely on the relative dominance of the most abundant species in a community and the total number of individuals. Overall, predictions from this RAD model explained 69% of the variance in species richness, compared to 20% explained by simply regressing species richness on the relative dominance of the most abundant species. Using the reversed RAD model, we illustrate how species richness is co-limited by the total abundance of a community and the relative dominance of the most common species. Our results highlight an intrinsic trade-off between species richness and dominance that is present in the structure of RAD models and real-world animal community data. This dominance-diversity dilemma suggests that withdrawing individuals from abundant populations might contribute to the conservation of species richness. However, we posit that the positive effect of harvesting on biodiversity is often offset by exploitation practices with negative collateral consequences, such as habitat destruction or species bycatches.

Accounting for diversity while assessing sustainability: insights from the Walloon bovine sectors

Livestock production is confronted with significant challenges across all dimensions of sustainability. There is an urgent need to identify sustainable livestock systems that are environmentally friendly, economically viable for farmers, and socially acceptable. To this end, diversity assessments and data-driven indicator-based sustainability assessments can be helpful tools. These two mutually reinforcing approaches each have their own dilemmas and strengths; however, their combination is not straightforward. In this paper, we propose a method that simultaneously assesses the diversity and sustainability of production systems within one agricultural sector, without compromising either aspect, while overcoming the dilemmas of diversity and sustainability assessments. We test our method on the Walloon dairy and beef sectors (Belgium) and base our assessment on data from the European Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). We apply relevant classification criteria to the sample farms to group them into production systems. The core data was complemented with calculated environmental indicators to perform a comprehensive sustainability assessment, including structural, socio-economic, and environmental indicators. Our results confirm the importance of complementing sustainability assessments with diversity assessments. Our case study results show that a diversity of livestock systems coexist and that it is possible to overcome trade-offs between economic and environmental performances. Extensive grass-based systems present the best combination of economic and environmental results, which highlights the importance of preserving grassland resources at the regional level. The proposed method proves effective to improve the relevance of FADN data and supports the ongoing call to transform the FADN into a more comprehensive database that satisfactorily covers all dimensions of sustainability.

Challenges and Solutions for Establishing Robust Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts in US Academic Radiation Oncology Departments

Challenges and Solutions for Establishing Robust Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts in US Academic Radiation Oncology Departments

Creating the conditions for collective curiosity and containment: insights from developing and delivering reflective groups with social work supervisors

ABSTRACT In this article, we share our reflections and insights from developing and facilitating small group reflective practice spaces over the last 3 years as part of a government-funded professional development programme for statutory children and families social work supervisors and their managers. Based on formal programme feedback and communication with facilitators and participants, there is clear evidence that participants have valued the space to reflect with peers on the diverse dilemmas they face in their role. We begin by setting the context for including small group spaces in the programme, and outline the theoretical and research frameworks underpinning our approach. Drawing from the sources of evidence outlined above, we explore three key thematic reflections: creating conditions for successful reflective groups; understanding roles and functions within the groups and reflecting on group processes. We conclude the paper by highlighting our learning from both in-person and virtual modes of delivery.

Why do nursing staff need a cultural knowledge?

Summary. Cultural knowledge forms the basis of cultural competence and intercultural competence of nursing staff. It is especially important in the face of cultural diversity and individuals from a culturally diverse world.
 The aim of the study – to present nursing staff's understanding of the term: cultural knowledge and to identify the meanings given to cultural knowledge in the context of cultural and intercultural competence in the professional practice of nursing staff.
 Materials and Methods. The research sample was selected purposively. It consisted of nursing personnel (students of the nursing faculty, second-degree studies at Collegium Mazovia Innovative University in Siedlce, Poland). The research falls within the interpretative paradigm. The research methods used were: desk research and qualitative case study. 8 individual online, asynchronous interviews were conducted. A qualitative "meaning-oriented" analysis with coding and interpretation of meanings was used.
 Results. The nursing staff defines the concept of cultural knowledge as: knowledge cultural and religious differences, enabling holistic care of patients; knowledge of the surrounding world, enabling appropriate behaviour towards people from culturally diverse world and tolerance; knowledge of customs, habits of various social groups (nationalities, religions); ability to adapt and function effectively in a culturally diverse environment; development of cultural sensitivity; respect for people; lack of prejudice and stereotypes concerning people from culturally diverse world; spiritual and material achievements of a society. Cultural knowledge, treated as the basis of cultural and intercultural competence, enables: to provide holistic, culturally diverse patient care; respect, tact, openness, appropriate behaviour towards patients from a culturally diverse world (diverse attitudes towards health and illness). It is knowledge that enables the development of empathy, learning, and a broader perspective on people from culturally diverse backgrounds; it eliminates stereotypes and reduces communication barriers; it avoids misunderstandings; it is an intrinsic value and contributes to the awareness of diverse value systems; it enables the understanding of people from culturally diverse backgrounds, reducing uncertainty, frustration, and ethical dilemmas of culturally diverse care.
 Conclusions. The presented cases have an autotelic character (cognitive and practical aspect and practical aspects), but they also show a broader context of cultural competence and intercultural competence of nursing staff in culturally diverse care.

Enabling Sustainable Organizational Change: A Case of Cognitive Diversity in the Automotive Industry

In diverse societies such as South Africa, organizations continue to face inclusion challenges when implementing change. This study proposes a different method and new dimension of diversity management within the cognitive diversity construct, namely human niche theory, to tackle the diversity dilemma of exclusivity. The research question asked whether human niche theory, as a defined concept within cognitive diversity, could be utilized by managers to enable inclusion and promote sustainable organizational change implementation. Conceptually, this paper relates human niche theory to seven themes in the change process, namely, communication, training, motivation, resources, control, monitoring, and feedback. An exploratory single case study in a multicultural South African automotive organization that implemented a company-wide technology change project was used as a unit of analysis. The single case study revealed a new understanding of change implementation processes using the human niche theoretical framework related to radical technological change implementation. Data collection included in-depth interviews, focus group sessions, solicited company data, field notes, and observations. Content and comparative data analysis were used to present findings. This research showed that managers’ awareness of human niche theory in terms of cognitive diversity could assist in managing diversity, enabling inclusion, and change effectiveness in the organization, while minimizing emotional exclusion.

Race and AI: the Diversity Dilemma

This commentary is a response to ‘More than Skin Deep’ by Shelley M. Park (Park, More than skin deep: A response to “The Whiteness of AI”, Philosophy & Technology, 2021), and a development of our own 2020 paper ‘The Whiteness of AI’. We aim to explain how representations of AI can be varied in one sense, whilst not being diverse. We argue that Whiteness’s claim to universal humanity permits a broad range of roles to White humans and White-presenting machines, whilst assigning a much narrower range of stereotypical roles to people of colour. Because the attributes of AI in the popular imagination, such as intelligence, power and passing as human, are associated by the White racial frame with Whiteness, AI is cast predominantly as White. Following Sparrow (Science, Technology, & Human Values 45:538–560, 2020), we suggest this presents a dilemma for those creating or representing AI. We discuss three possible solutions: avoiding anthropomorphisation, explicitly critiquing racial role-typing, and representing powerful AI as non-White.

Review: Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics, by Christopher D. DeSante and Candis Watts Smith

Review: <i>Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics</i>, by Christopher D. DeSante and Candis Watts Smith

‘Backstabbed by a Friend and Saved by an Enemy’: Narratives of War: The Gulf War in Saudi Oral Histories

The Gulf War (1990–1991) had a transformative effect on Saudi Arabia and its society. The war brought major ideological changes and allowed its citizens for the first time to voice critique and concern about economic and social problems. Many studies have highlighted the diverse reactions and dilemmas of Saudi people from the crumbling notion of Arab unity to the emergence of the United States to stop the looming invasion of the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Although there is a plethora of studies about the Gulf War, none of them has investigated how ordinary Saudi citizens experienced the war with all its implications. The paper describes what narratives were used by interviewees in oral history interviews when talking about the war and its effect on their lives, families, and worldview.

Culturally aware mentorship: Lasting impacts of a novel intervention on academic administrators and faculty.

National efforts to address the diversity dilemma in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) often emphasize increasing numbers of historically underrepresented (HU) students and faculty, but fall short in instituting concrete changes for inclusion and belonging. Therefore, increasing the pool of senior faculty who wish to become guides and advocates for emerging scientists from HU populations is an essential step toward creating new pathways for their career advancement. As a step toward achieving this goal, we created a novel eight-hour intervention on Culturally Aware Mentoring (CAM), a program of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) targeted to faculty and administrators. A previous report of surveys at the end of the CAM sessions revealed substantial awareness and knowledge gains, with participants expressing intentions to use and implement new skills they had learned. In this paper, we provide the results of our thematic analysis of qualitative interviews with academic administrators and faculty, 18–24 months after participation in CAM. Interviews were designed to determine: 1) What changes in self-perceptions and interactions occurred as a result of participation in CAM? 2) What specific components of CAM are associated with changes in individual beliefs and practices? 3) How did participants actively make changes after the CAM workshop? 4) What barriers or challenges do participants encounter after the CAM intervention? The results demonstrate the lasting influences of CAM on participants’ awareness of cultural differences, their assumptions about and approaches toward interactions with colleagues and students, and their efforts to change their behaviors to promote inclusive practices in their mentoring and teaching of HU students in STEM. Our findings provide evidence that CAM can be incorporated into existing mentor training programs designed to improve the confidence and capacity of senior research faculty mentors to make culturally-informed, scholar-centered decisions to more deliberately recognize and respond to cultural differences within their mentoring and collegial relationships.

Critical imaginaries of empathy in teaching and learning about diversity in teacher education

ABSTRACT ‘Difficult’ or potentially discomforting diversity topics and critical, unsettling pedagogies often induce resistances or charges of ‘irrelevance’ in teacher education contexts. In teaching with these topics and pedagogies, there is often a significant emphasis on fostering and utilising the process of empathy in productive ways to change attitudes and reduce social injustices. Drawing on a selection of illustrative accounts from three qualitative studies in schools in Ireland, interwoven with media commentary and some personal catalytic reflections, this paper explores (a) how an emphasis on empathy is not without its limits and restrictive effects in teacher education and (b) the generative possibilities yielded by situating empathy within a queer pedagogy of emotion. This paper’s close attention to and illustration of the limits of empathy within the context of teaching about gender and sexuality diversity opens a new consideration of empathy within a queer pedagogy of emotion and considers the broader potential of this for teaching about diversity in teacher education. Ultimately, this paper advances an argument for a constant watchfulness about how we are responding to diversity dilemmas in teacher education on the premise that such attention can yield new pedagogical imaginaries and possibilities.

Do You Really Want a Diverse Program?

Despite multiple calls for diversifying academia in general, and Library and Information Science programs (LIS) specifically, the number of faculty of color working in higher education remains low. This work presents the points of view and suggestions of a faculty member concerning the diversity dilemma in LIS. The work relies on personal narratives in order to present the experiences and point of view of a member of the LIS community who constantly navigates the spaces of academia while negotiating the many aspects of their experience through the intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender. The main objective of the work is to present areas for consideration to those who are interested in bringing change and supporting faculty of color.

Controversial diversity: diversity discourses and dilemmas among Swedish police recruits

ABSTRACT Diversity strategies to increase social inclusion in organisations have been a major concern in various institutions during recent decades. This article examines Swedish police recruits’ talk about diversity. The study is based on data from ethnographic fieldwork at the Swedish National Police Academy and focus group interviews of police recruits. Twenty-seven recruits were interviewed in their final year at the police academy, which included a period of probationary service at a police station. Using a discourse analysis, the article explores how the Swedish police's official policies for diversity and social equality are recognised, but also called into question, by Swedish police recruits. One dominating discourse of difference and two controversial discourses on diversity are outlined, showing that recruits frequently draw upon multiple discourses to legitimise their claims for and against diversity. A conceptual framework is developed for understanding the discourses and dilemmas of diversity within the police, with examples provided of how social order is reproduced among recruits.

A big-data oriented recommendation method based on multi-objective optimization

Due to its successful application in recommender systems, collaborative filtering (CF) has become a hot research topic in data mining. For traditional CF-based recommender systems, the accuracy of recommendation results can be guaranteed while the diversity will be lost. An ideal recommender system should be built with both accurate and diverse performance. Faced with accuracy–diversity dilemma, we propose a novel recommendation method based on MapReduce framework. In MapReduce framework, a block computational technique is used to shorten the operational time. And an improved collaborative filtering model is refined with a novel similarity computational process which considers many factors. By translating the procedure of generating personalized recommendation results into a multi-objective optimization problem, the multiple conflicts between accuracy and diversity are well handled. The experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods.

Development of Social Capital in the Situation of Migration Intensification

An intensification of migration is currently being observed in Poland, which is posing a challenge for the society. This situation creates diverse dilemmas, including the crucial problem of the state of the social capital and public trust. The society is seeking ways to overcome the economic, political, psychological barriers to the development of social capital in the presence of immigrants. These searches are leading to a deeper analysis of national identity, the foundations of creating and reviving the sense of “we-community”. The development of the cross-cultural communication process, communication between representatives of different cultures and carriers of different national identities is objectively complex. Therefore, it needs a transition from considering problems at the level of everyday practices to communing at the level of basic humanistic values, to explain that they are common and to create on this basis a basic community of everyday practices organized on the principles of partnership. Describing the statistical image of immigration of Ukrainians to Poland, we also demonstrate the features of this process which are not fully reflected in public statistics. For we analyse the process of development of governing practices that regulate migration from above, as well as bottom-up processes. There are several factors emphasized, namely the development of social initiatives, civic activities for optimizing the functioning of cultural diversity within the society, organizing the system of cooperation practices of its “new” and “old” members for the development of society as a whole, and the social capital growth - at the level of the country, region, and an organization.

La justicia transicional: la llave hacia una salida negociada al conflicto armado en Colombia

La necesidad de reconstruir sociedades afectadas por las cruentas realidades de la guerra ha hecho que el concepto de Justicia transicional se constituya precisamente como un referente absolutamente central e ineludible. Tal esfuerzo procura facilitar la transición de escenarios bélicos a contextos de paz, de restablecimiento democrático y de respeto por los derechos humanos. En la actualidad, Colombia ha desarrollado novedosos mecanismos de Justicia transicional que han logrado consolidarse como instrumentos necesarios para la construcción de paz en el país, y sin los cuales no se podría pensar en una salida concertada al conflicto armado interno. Los objetivos fundamentales del presente artículo son resaltar la pertinencia de acudir a mecanismos de negociación para finalizar el conflicto armado colombiano, presentar una delimitación conceptual de la Justicia transicional, determinar si existe o no un modelo único de Justicia transicional cuyo éxito esté garantizado y, finalmente, presentar un análisis crítico acerca de los diversos dilemas entre perdón y castigo que derivan de ella.

Solving the stability–accuracy–diversity dilemma of recommender systems

Recommender systems are of great significance in predicting the potential interesting items based on the target user’s historical selections. However, the recommendation list for a specific user has been found changing vastly when the system changes, due to the unstable quantification of item similarities, which is defined as the recommendation stability problem. To improve the similarity stability and recommendation stability is crucial for the user experience enhancement and the better understanding of user interests. While the stability as well as accuracy of recommendation could be guaranteed by recommending only popular items, studies have been addressing the necessity of diversity which requires the system to recommend unpopular items. By ranking the similarities in terms of stability and considering only the most stable ones, we present a top-n-stability method based on the Heat Conduction algorithm (denoted as TNS-HC henceforth) for solving the stability–accuracy–diversity dilemma. Experiments on four benchmark data sets indicate that the TNS-HC algorithm could significantly improve the recommendation stability and accuracy simultaneously and still retain the high-diversity nature of the Heat Conduction algorithm. Furthermore, we compare the performance of the TNS-HC algorithm with a number of benchmark recommendation algorithms. The result suggests that the TNS-HC algorithm is more efficient in solving the stability–accuracy–diversity triple dilemma of recommender systems.