Lecture 1 Flashcards
Diversity: The What (van Ewijk, 2011)
“Modes of differentiation”:
• principles by which people, from context to context, situation to situation, mark themselves and each other as different (Vertovec, 2009)
Social categories approach
• Gender, skin colour or race, class, income, educational background, (dis)ability, age, religion, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status, and so forth.
Management approach
• Life style, perspectives, political opinion, union affiliation, thinking types, professional experience, personality types, functional background
The why: about the set of reasoning and set of motivations for a policy
Individual: equal opportunity approach-> justice and equality
• Moral arguments: group-focus denies agency of individuals and strengthens stereotypes and detrimental to individual freedom
• Practical arguments: group-boundaries do not exist, individuals have multiple identities, focus on groups blocks the creation of mutual understanding, advantages of a collective focus have not been tested properly in empirical research and diversificiation may in fact create institutional tensions rather than increase productivity -> against celebration of differences
Collective: differences as a set of assets that are valuable for an organisation and can be used
• Moral arguments: recognising groups is essential for individual freedom and ignoring groups means ignoring discrimination; an individual approach may not actually deliver change
• Practical arguments: groups are an inevitable aspect of modern social processes, group-focus is the only way for marginalized individuals to gain visibility and power and arguments from management theory; optimal use of skills, making products or services more attractive to diverse customers, accessing international markets, avoiding the costs of racial discrimination, and improving the image of the company in the eye of potential investors
The How? (Van Ewijk, 2010; Essed, 2002)
• Equal opportunities approach (social case)
–> aims for social equality and justice (motivation) by equal treatment in general and treatment adapted to differences to compensate for unequal outcomes of general policies (means)
• Managing diversity approach (business case)
–> aims for organisational benefits, such as creative and productive work environment (motivation) by valuing difference (means)
What is Essed’s criticism of diversity as a business strategy?
Answer of Essed:
- devoid of ethical or moral principles such as justice or social responsibility.
- When limitless ambition and competitive drive, values at the heart of market economies, are neither questioned nor contested, and when diversity is disconnected from issues of justice, fairness and humaneness, the question that worries me is: How respectful will diversity-driven organizations be in relation to a number of related values, including interhuman integrity, respect, environmental responsibility, or fair trade with developing countries
Tokenism
The policy or practice of making a perfunctory gesture toward the inclusion of members of minority groups to create a false appearance of inclusiveness
Cultural cloning (Essed, 2002)
- How to integrate and regulate “difference” in the existing cultures and structures without changing the nature of the work organizations?
- Cultural cloning is predicated on the taken-for-granted desirability of certain types, the often-unconscious tendency to comply with normative standards, and the subsequent rejection of those who are perceived as deviant.
Criticial of cultural cloning
Being include to what price?
- Critical of cultural cloning: structural inequalities not tackled
The 4D-model
Deficit
- development gaps between the dominant group—the norm group)—on the one hand, and on the other hand, norms and values among minority groups: levels of education, labor market skills, cultural capital.
Difference
- identifying cultural difference as a main factor to position newcomers. Cultural difference is seen as a potential source of conflict as well as a source of enrichment.
Discrimination
- identifies as a central problem the structural exclusion of those perceived as “different.” The exposure of systemic forms of exclusion defies the myths of merit and tolerance
Diversity
- represents a paradigm shift: from a focus on difference and patterns of exclusion to a focus on the complete and inclusive organization.
Conclusion
- When designing a policy, fundamental choices have to be made concerning the what, the why and the how of diversity
- These choices have their own set of unwanted outcomes, such as tokenism, stigmatization or cultural determinism
- In our analysis of diversity matters we can use the 4D model:
- deficit, difference, discrimination and diversity
- Cultural cloning can lead to inclusion without dismantling unequal and unjust structures within organizations, institutions or society
Article diversity and diversity policy: fundamental differences
-Diversity is a social construction
: it is dynamic and plural in nature and influenced by context
-Misunderstanding occurs when the conceptual difference between diversity and diversity policy is blurred
Difference between diversity and diversity policy
- Diversity is the condition of heterogeneity within a certain whole
- Diversity policy is the approach towards that condition that can generate specific goals or objectives
- unintended practical implications: need for justification and choice should be explicit
Gaps in research to different definitions of diversity
- only quantitative methods (terms such as ‘black’ had different meanings in contexts),
- mostly done in USA (gap in research in Europe),
- most done on analyses of private organisations (not generalizable),
- lack of research on definition of diversity (none identify what variance in this variable is important, relevant to explain)-> analytical framework
WHAT: modes of differentation; need for three choices
(1) selection certain modes of differentiation
(2) interpretation those modes of differentiation (connecting with individuals)
(3) categorizing those modes of differentiation by referring to the most basic difference in their nature
(1) selection certain modes of differentiation
(1) Mostly focussed on culture and/or ethnicity-> cultures pretend to be all-embracing so that cultural diversity encompasses every kind of diversity that people can exhibit in their lives unlike religion or taste-> is discarded because it carries connotations that may not be relevant or might not be specific enough to describe dynamics of diversity and markers-> ethnicity questionable because of limited role in political reality-> so other modes are gender, skin colour or race, class, income, education, (dis)ability, age, religion, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status etc. -> choices are made
(2) interpretation those modes of differentiation (connecting with individuals)
How to identify the chosen mode of differentiation should be interpreted-> what is understood under for instance ‘old’-> may be employed in different ways
