Knowledge Enhancement and Understanding of Diversity

2014

Incarnate Word 2014 This research examines corporate diversity programs and initiatives from the perspective of the self-described diverse employee because they are intended to be the recipient of the benefits of diversity programs and initiatives. The research question is: In what ways have self-described diverse employees found that the diversity programs in their workplaces helped or hindered others in relating to them in ways that recognize their knowledge, skills, and abilities and allow them to be treated with respect and civility. To obtain information about the research question, a qualitative study using basic interpretive methodology was used which included face to face personal interviews with individuals who volunteered to share their perceptions of how they have been treated in the workplace because of their differences perceived by others. The ten interviewees were identified using convenience and then snowball sampling which was initiated through social media. The data collected was analyzed utilizing message units which had a rich point. The major finding is that the respondents do not identify themselves as diverse based on Equal Employment Opportunity Commission definitions. While others used external factors to define the participants, the diverse employee felt like the other based on culture in the workplace, energy versus apathy, politics in the workplace, and a hiring manager granting an opportunity. These themes are not the predominant way that companies view diversity in their organization; however, this research suggests that they should consider changing their processes. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………………..ix LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………….x CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION TO DIVERSITY .

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. —William Bruce Cameron (1963) The strength of a college lies in its capacity to nurture ideas and individuals. Central to this strength is the concept of diversity. Creativity, innovation, and learning stagnate without true diversity of perspectives, born from a multiplicity of individuals' identities (Miller & Katz, 2002). This chapter is about using campus diversity data to inform student affairs work. For the purposes of this chapter, diversity is defined on two levels. The first is compositional—the degree to which the community being refer-enced is representative, in all of its characteristics, of the larger population. The second is the degree to which members of that community experience a culture of inclusion and engagement within that community, such that each member feels a sense of belonging and respect. This definition, therefore, combines numerical representation with organizational culture. The guidance provided in this chapter is intended to complement earlier syntheses of research on improving the campus climate, most notably Griffin' s (2017) discussion on campus climate and diversity, and Pope and Mueller' s (2017) discussion of multicultural competence and change on college campuses. These writers have outlined the definitions, models, and key outcomes for campuses, and have identified how campuses could assess progress on those outcomes. This chapter focuses on three topics to help you use those data to inform your practice: (1) identifying the scope of your inquiry; (2) using data to improve program design, and therefore (3) program impact and student outcomes, particularly for diverse student communities.

Journal of College Student Development, 2003

To Improve the Academy

This article was origifllllly prepared for and presented as the keynote address for the 1993 POD conference. As an assessment of where we are and need to go intellectually in efforts to incorporate diversity into the liberal arts curriculum, it argues for the recognition of the multiple, connected stories in our fllltional story, in order to allow for a transformation in our teaching, our curricula, and in the structure of colleges and universities that moves us to an individualism defined and supported by collective, shared memory, thereby promoting the generative learning necessary to the evolution of a just, plural society.

Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies

This book has been written to enable the students to develop a mental and cognitive diversity consciousness in order to help them become successful in their personal and professional lives and to increase their sensitivity on diversity. Therefore, the target audience of the book is students. The author offers perspectives through the interviews he had with students, examples from previous studies and analyses on real-life events to achieve his goal. The book is presented in the scope of multicultural education, and more specifically, under the title of diversity consciousness. A product of an empirical study, the book touches on notions such as racial and ethnical relations, cultural diversity, multiculturalism, social media, communication, leadership, social work, empathy, social equality, social justice, democracy, assimilation, pluralism, teacher training courses, professional development, conflict, cooperation, problems in workplace, group dynamics and personal development. The author includes many concepts related to diversity with examples and definitions. Since the book targets students, it's written in a non-academic, plain and comprehensible language. The author occasionally adopts a descriptive and analytic approach to the subject of diversity consciousness. The book comprises seven chapters, namely: Diversity: An Overview, Diversity Skills and Success, Personal and Social Barriers to Success, Developing Diversity Consciousness, Communication in a Diverse World, Teamwork and, Conclusion. In the chapters that are directly related to diversity consciousness, the author treats the subjects on diversity consciousness in a detailed manner. Also, each chapter starts with the objectives of the chapter, contains questions encouraging the reader to think and ends with studies on the subject. Additionally explanatory tables and illustrations and entertaining photographs shared in the book are to be remarked. Culture is a phenomenon contributing to the richness of the world's societies (Bucher 2000). Thanks to multicultural education, it has been appreciated that cultures are richness and culture started to receive the attention it deserves (Aydın, 2013). Written from the point of view that cultures are richness, the book encourages people from different cultures to be proud of their culture and thus increases their self-confidence. Bucher (2000) asserts in his book that students with increased selfconfidence shall be more successful academically. Similarly, Banks (2008) is of the opinion that, in an unprejudiced educational system, self-confidence and empathy shall develop and thereby academic success shall improve. For this reason, the book has an important position among other research books written on the subject of multicultural education. Studies similar to this one made in the U.S. need to be done in Turkey too. In the chapter "Diversity: An Overview", the author defines diversity as all manners in which people are different from one another and consciousness as the ensemble of our mental activities and cognitions. He points out the common misunderstandings with the question "What diversity consciousness isn't". He answers this question with statements like "It's not a phenomenon that is only important for some people", "It's not ignoring differences", "It's not treating everyone in the same way", "It's not only being prudent" and "It's not a passing fad". After these discussions, the author addresses the concepts of assimilation and pluralism. The author states that assimilation promotes a structure where people lose their own cultural characteristics and blend in with the culture they live with whereas pluralism promotes a structure where cultural differences are accepted and preserved. This chapter, which includes occasional perspectives from students, is best summarized with the comment "Being different is not a burden, but a blessing" made by one student. The chapter "Diversity Skills and Success" starts with a general definition of success as the objectives of the individual. It's followed by the sociocultural theory. According to this theory, people around us influence us in positive or negative ways and they play an important role in shaping our personalities. Some behaviors, characters, information and other personal qualities can only be understood by taking social interactions in consideration. Another point the chapter stresses is the notion of communication. Communication, team spirit and self-evaluation are the key components of diversity consciousness. Diversity consciousness is actually being aware of differences. Our diversity

Advances in Developing Human Resources, 2010

The article argues that many forms of diversity instruction, be it in the classroom or a conference room, have promoted an appreciation of differences without simultaneously promoting inclusion. Therefore, we advocate that diversity instruction should take a strategic approach to cultivating an appreciation of inclusion as well as diversity through considering the structure of the instruction, the authors of the work chosen, as well as who delivers the instruction. In essence, we present an alternative diversity teaching strategy that incorporates a value for inclusion.

2020

Preparing teachers and leaders to become culturally competent has become a global concern and a priority. To date, there has been little research conducted among school leaders regarding how new diversity knowledge is transferred to schools. Therefore, the purpose of the present qualitative study is to explore the extent to which future educational leaders enrolled in a graduate course regarding diversity are able to transfer the newly acquired knowledge to their professional lives and to understand what hinders and enhances their transfer of knowledge. Using the multidimensional model of learning transfer as a theoretical framework and analyzing the findings, I suggest that participants of this present study were able to use new diversity knowledge in their personal and professional lives. Further analysis identified enhancers and inhibitors to the transfer of such diversity knowledge. Based on the present study’s findings, I provide recommendations for practice and research relate...

Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2020

The past thirty years have seen many advances in our understanding of issues that impede diversity, as well as interventions that can remove or mitigate those impediments. The advances are generally presented in psychology journals and are under-consumed by computing educators, leading to the need for diversity training tailored to said educators. We have hundreds of hours of experience providing diversity training to computing educators, and have learned many lessons about how training should and should not be delivered to engage participants in understanding diversity-impeding forces and implementing interventions to improve the attraction and retention of diverse students. This paper is a collection of those lessons learned. We focus on concrete approaches to presenting material rather than on training organization or content, including a dozen speci c practices that have proven particularly e ective or ine ective in reaching diverse audiences. Examples include how how to avoid o ending participants, how to help experts not lose their audience, how to pace and organize material for maximum impact, how we tie many topics into a single cognitive framework, and how we've learned to handle participant-raised objections. We also include commentary as to why we believe they did or did not work. We also describe possible future research to validate and expand on our observations and a few open questions for diversity training. CCS CONCEPTS • Social and professional topics → User characteristics; Computing education programs; • Applied computing → Education.

2010

JOM