Category: Expanding the Canon

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Expanding the canon

The article I chose is called “Gifted Ethnic Minority Students and Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis”. It is a study conducted to explore the prevalence of minority students in gifted programs and the lack of equal representation and valuable learning. Gifted minority students are often overlooked for excelerated  programs and teachers have trouble identifying students that qualify for the programs. In an effort to not single out each student or provide different variations of the curriculum they propose a teaching method that is adequate for all students.  When minority students are placed in predominately white areas they are less likely to succeed and are behind when they enter college courses. This study proposes conducting a meta analysis that will test the effectiveness of the gifted programs and the students activeness/ ability. Their academic achievement after participating in the programs is recorded and compared to those not given the same opportunities and are behind in their studies. The study was created and  carried out by 3 PhD professors who study identity and inclusion within minority students.

https://journals-sagepub-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/doi/full/10.1177/0016986216674556?utm_source=summon&utm_medium=discovery-provider

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Article Summary

An ebook I found on EBSCO, titled “Religion and the Workplace: Pluralism, Spirituality, and Leadership” by Douglas A. Hicks is composed of 3 parts totaling 9 chapters, so I decided to focus my reading on Part II called “Mapping religion and the workplace.” Chapters 5 and 6 explore topics like how advocates of secular workplace views try to block all religious speech or actions from entering the office, but then it goes on to discuss the interpretations of the First Amendment and accepting any religion in the workplace. It is said that in a free market economy, companies do not hold monopolistic power over their employees. In fact, it is difficult for many employees to completely leave their religious and spiritual beliefs behind in the office, and workplaces that accomodate this statement are able to address the needs of their employees more efficiently and and humanely. Additionally, public life impacts the workplace as the article explains. Religion plays many roles in American society, and many employees who are Christians have admitted that they receive or have received preferential treatment at work and in society. These current discussions of spirituality tend to marginalize those who are atheists or adherents of many religious backgrounds, causing those who feel pressured by society to divorce their religious / spiritual commitments from all aspects of their public lives.

Link:

http://libezproxy.syr.edu.libezproxy2.syr.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=120536&site=ehost-live&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_162

Citation:

Hicks, D. A. (2003). Religion and the Workplace : Pluralism, Spirituality, Leadership. Cambridge University Press.

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Expanding the Canon

The article I choose is “Disability and employment – overview and highlights” “from the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology” by Katharina Vornholt, Patrizia Villotti, Beate Muschalla, Jana Bauer, Adrienne Colella, Fred Zijlstra, Gemma Van Ruitenbeek, Sjir Uitdewilligen & Marc Corbière. From the authors, many specialize in Social Psychology along with other focuses. This article discusses disability in regards to employment to conclude from research, what disability is, how it is seen in the workplace, and how the inclusion of disability is being promoted in different countries. The text outlines the research on disability and employment, beginning with the complexity of defining disability. They then include the legislation behind the integration of people with disabilities into the workplace followed by the barriers of hiring and maintaining workers with disabilities. In conclusion, they bring light to the fact that around the world there still contuse to be a low percentage of disabled workers, even with legislation and programs made to encourage them to be hired. The researchers acknowledge that disability emerges from the interaction of person and environment, and as a result encourage that more research about defining disability and accommodating for those with disabilities needs to be done, for an increase in inclusion.

https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2017.1387536

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Expanding the Canon Summary

Historically, people within the LGBT community have faced drastic prejudice and discrimination in the workplace.  While it has gotten better over the years, it has not changed  however in collegiate and pro sports. Using the Syracuse Library, I have found an article entitled “Between Homohysteria and Inclusivity: Tolerance Towards Sexual Diversity in Sport,” talking about diversity in sports and specifically sexual diversity. It was published in 2018 by Joaquin Piedra, Rafael Garcia-Parez and Alexander G. Channon. The article states how sports have always been an area of male dominance where gender and sexual diversity has been obscured. Leaving it harder for women and people in the LGBT community harder to get into the field and ultimately play play at the pro level. Many individuals have been told at a young age that sports wasn’t for them due to them being LGBT. Studies have shown a wide range of types of discrimination with people not fitting these stereotypes and forced to be silent under the weight of heteronormativity and straight up discrimination. However, research has shown that that some women who “came out” on team showed manifold positive effects on not only the team, but the individuals as well.  Homohysteria helps to explain how gendered patterns of behavior, both within and outside of sport settings, play out in relation to shifting levels of homophobia. The article goes further in explaining what this means and how they studied it. how they studied this, and the rustles it had.

Link: https://link-springer-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/article/10.1007/s12119-017-9434-x

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article summary, Isaac Haseltine 6/1

The article titled “Racial Diversity: There’s More Work to be Done in the Workplace” highlights the disadvantages that continue to diminish minority groups morale in the workplace, and categorizes the individual issues and their potential resolutions. Terri Williams is an African-American freelance journalist, in the article she shares her stance against the typical homogeneous organizational culture that is disabling many businesses across the globe.  Her approach towards unconscious bias and microaggressions could certainly have a positive effect, and she addresses issues that go unspoken quite frequently. Tokenizing people of color as a PR move to seem like a more diverse organization can torment a person with the stress that is placed on a person, only because they differ racially, ethnically or sexually. The quotes Williams uses help solidify the idea that more diversity will always lead to a more perceptive and positive workplace, and boosting the morale of the minority groups in business culture will help the entire companies growth and outlook.

https://execed.economist.com/blog/industry-trends/racial-diversity-theres-more-work-be-done-workplace

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Article Summary for week of 6/1

The article titled “Employee Assistance Program Services for Alcohol and Other Drug Problems: Implications for Increased Identification and Engagement in Treatment” written by Jodi M Jacobson and Paul Sacco follows the study they conducted regarding the use of EAP in the workplace and the further effects that it had on the company and individual. In order to gather data, the researchers drew from the pool of individuals associated with NESARC from different backgrounds in all 50 states. To narrow their data, the researchers then separated participants into those who had access to EAP’s in their workplace and those who looked elsewhere for help. The researchers concluded that those who had used EAP’s in their workplace were less likely to foster feelings of negativity in the workplace for fear of being stigmatized compared to those who did not have access to an EAP. The influence of EAP’s on the vulnerable portion of the workforce reflected individuals who felt more comfortable reaching out for help, and did not feel they were outcasts. Individuals who suffer from an AOD addiction struggle to reach out and receive the help they need. However with the help of Employee Assistance Programs, those who are struggling have improved performance in the workplace.

Link for article: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=cc7cfb82-1e46-41b4-9c47-96bcce92c19f%40sessionmgr4007

 

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Exploring The Impact of Diversity in Professional Soccer- A Summary

Written by Keith Ingersoll, Edmund Malesky and Sebastian M. Saiegh, and published in the Journal of Sports Analytics, “Heterogeneity and team performance: Evaluating the effect of cultural diversity in the world’s top soccer league” is an academic study focused specifically on the impact cultural diversity has on the success of European soccer clubs. The authors focus on the clubs who competed in Europe’s top competition, the UEFA Champions League, during a ten year stretch from 2003-2013.

Ingersoll, Malesky and Saiegh collected data on 168 players across 41 clubs. Each of those clubs were given a cultural diversity rating based on a calculation referred to by the authors as “linguistic distance”. This, they explain, is to account for teams comprised with players who may be from different countries, but where the same language is spoken. (For example, South American players who play for Spanish clubs.)

Keeping in mind to address potential impacts to the results of the study, such as the financial resources of each club, Ingersoll, Malesky and Saiegh use the linguistic distance measurement, along with such readily available statistics such as goal difference, to determine the success rate of each club over each season of the annual tournament. Using data science, they find, much as I had very unscientifically, that the clubs with the greater cultural diversity rating did in fact have greater success on the pitch.

Heterogeneity and team performance

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Week of 6/1 – Expanding the Canon, Summary

The standards way of thinking about diversity has it that ethnic, gender, and race are the predominant merits companies need to associate at the workplace.  Where they often fall short of, however, is in fully realizing the effect language diversity plays in conversation. From the “Journal of Applied Behavioral Science,” researchers Regina Kim, Loriann Roberson, Marcello Russo, and Paolo Briganti stress why global leaders and managers should embrace multilinguist communication more in our increasingly globalized workplace. Their article “Language Diversity, Non-native Accents, and Their Consequences at the Workplace” contends that varying levels of a speakers fluency and the perceived difficulty of an employees’ competence, regardless of their actual competence,  creates subtle forms of discriminations, the underevaluation of foreign employees, and fewer opportunities for careers.

Since language and communication ultimately pervade every facet of organization life, challenges between different linguistic backgrounds are inevitable.  As a response the authors extend recommendations and intervention strategies based on conducted interviews and surveys. Their research illuminates lesser-known areas of language diversity approaching the actual experiences of nonnative speakers rather than how prior research merely evaluated subjects in the past. In doing so they make clear why organizations should reconcile these issues prior in order to create a more productive and inclusive work environment.

Link: https://journals-sagepub-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/doi/full/10.1177/0021886318800997?utm_source=summon&utm_medium=discovery-provider

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Summary of Diversity article

The Journal article/study titled “Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Classroom: Does It Promote Student Learning?” in The Journal of Higher Education from September-October 2001 conducted a study of 1,258 students spread out throughout seven four year colleges. The students were in the field of engineering, and were mostly white males.

Students completed a series of questionnaires upon completion of the course which shed light on their experiences- how they retained information, what their diversity experience was like, how well their problem solving skills grew, etc. The answers were on a basic 1-4 scale.

The numbers in this study show that while having a less homogenous, more diverse population in the classroom may have had a positive impact on class performance, it wasn’t enough to be considered statistically significant. Even more, there was virtually no difference in class performance in the classrooms where there was no diversity at all.

A valid reason for this is that the seven colleges represented in this study are not representative of higher education as a whole, and even more importantly, the field of engineering consists of students who already are performing at a high level academically and have high problem solving skills, and are mostly (73%) male who are non minority. Taking this into account, it’s very likely that the data is skewed. The authors of this study themselves even urge not to take this as gospel, and that more studies would be needed in order to come to a more concrete conclusion.

 

(I have attached the pdf version of this article below)

2672879

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Summary, Week of 6/1 Dominique

The article that I chose focuses on neurodiversity in the classroom. The author’s of this article use their experiences as students, educators, etc. in order to inform the reader. The article begins by explaining the importance of understanding that neurodiversity has many benefits, then lists ways that teachers can help students achieve their goals in the classroom. Although this article highlights so many important ideas for teachers who have students with autism, ADHD, and Dyslexia, in my view, one of the most important ideas that everyone should understand is that people who have disabilities do not need to be “fixed” or “cured”. However, teachers can do things that can help their students be successful. This includes presuming competence, which means setting high standards for all students, no matter what abilities they may or may not have. Another important thing that teachers can do is let students be themselves, and allow them to explore to find their strengths. This helps students to be less frustrated in the classroom. Teachers must be able to accommodate students who need certain things in order to be successful. Overall, the purpose of this article is to assist teachers in valuing their student’s differences, and allowing for diversity in the classroom. Students should always feel welcomed in the classroom, and it is the teacher’s responsibility to help make the classroom a safe space for everyone. 

 

https://www-jstor-org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/stable/pdf/26388229.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A6ff9e5192877af6900911459ca04e5c9