Austin and Pisano’s book on the importance of the employment and potentials of neurodiverse individuals opened another door to the diversity issue that goes beyond gender and race. In the very beginning of the book, the authors used the example of a man who is part of the autism spectrum, with extraordinary skills in the IT department, yet he suffers from lack of employment for a long time due to his behavior not accepted in the communication-normative environment of large corporations. Austin and Pisano also showed how larger tech companies such as Microsoft have already begun neurodiversity hires with great success, and that what they bring to the workplace includes sets of skills that the “neuro-normal” person do not have.
Category: Discussions/Homework
Discussion Questions Week 3
Response #1
I will definitely want to look into the lack of diversity in the history department as well as history curriculum. History classes in general are very Eurocentric and while the US is a global player, the historical content on African and Asian history is significantly lacking. The sources that I will pick are journal articles, mainly dealing with education and previous examples of diversity in history. Since the topic is so specific, I will mainly search for articles written by historians. For the tools that I will use, I think that I will try to go for the SU student library.
Response #2
Kaplan and Donovan’s views are that the intention of diversity hire matters, while Austin and Pisano’s writings emphasizes the action itself. Personally, I find that one cannot escape from the other. I believe that the act itself does not come into fruition until the will to act upon it is there. If your intention is to merely look better in terms of equality hire due to pressure or you only hire a very specific minority group because of your assumptions, then the whole idea of diversity hire is not in the right place.
5 Rhetorical Moves
- The first paragraph of the article is a personal anecdote about Webb’s life experience at the airport, and already there is a clear narrative. Bogost wishes to use these experience stories to explain his point about diversity in tech, and this is the best way to have the reader sympathize with an issue. In the second paragraph, the reader finds out about Webb’s background, and more information is provided. This serves to give credibility to the identity of the subject in the writing.
- The second is the rhetorical question asked by Charles Isbell, “Are we interested in diversity, or are we interested in integration?”. Readers are forced to reconsider their assumptions about the basic necessity of inclusion or whether there is more to the reasons for having a wider range of talent as well as ethnicities that can benefit the market.
- Another rhetorical move would be idiom, where Kamau Bobb talks about how in Silicon Valley, the primary concern for diversity is so that it fits within the current system and not to upset it, and that if there are any bonuses for social and moral responsibility, that would just be gravy. If only the last part is mentioned, the reader would not understand the wider context.
- Metaphor is used when Webb stated her concern with the idea that every kid has to learn to code, using the term of nuts and bolts to describe the actions of basic coding. The reason for that use is to demonstrate the poor quality with the problem of too many young coders.
- The final rhetorical move that I chose is the oxymoron. Bogost wrote about how the tech industry is improving with its diversity, but that overall it is still terrible. That gives the reader the sense of progress that the tech industry still needs to make even with that small glimmer of hope.
Discussion Questions Week of 8/16
“LGBT Workers and the Minimum Wage” is a one-pager that looks into the disparities Queer workers in America face and how raising the minimum wage will help alleviate them. The Leadership Conference Education Fund, National Center for Transgender Equality, and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund all contributed in the creation of this text. Because of this, there is a great variety of relevant statistics throughout. There is also a good connection between these facts and idea of raising the minimum wage on a federal level. The authors also include support in the form of benefits that spread beyond the LGBTQ community which help their text appeal to a wider audience.
The use of the image and quote from Bayard Rustin in the upper right hand help to break up the writing and shift the readers focus away from the main text. I believe this is a good decision because it keeps the readers attention through the use of a visual aspect. However, I also believe that the size of the image is disproportionate to the page being that they included the sources into the one page format. For my one-pager I will also include an image or two but I will include them in the middle of the page and center the text around it in order to have more space for my own writing.
https://www.thetaskforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/LGBT-Workers-and-the-Minimum-Wage-2014.pdf
Discussion 7/5
Response #1
I found Caitlin’s focusing on gender diversity in the police force to be intriguing. In the article, several female interviewees from the Canadian police department were asked about their experiences with discrimination, and various factors were noted which made them feel that way (such as the treatment pre- and post-pregnancy, examinations that give advantages to males, and etc.) For years, the female makeup of the Canadian police force stabilized at 13% and does not correlate to the sex ratio in Canada (from figures 1 and 2). In the TED video that came along, a woman that rose in ranks from officer to police chief pointed out the benefits of having women in the police force. This video was interesting to me because I remember many years ago when I read a report about criminal psychology and interrogation within the police department, and that an outstanding amount of criminals are willing to confess if the interrogator is a woman. I don’t know if studies have changed over the years, but if this maintains to be the case then having more women within the force should become a necessity, not out of social obligation but out of the will to increase the efficiency of the police department.
Response #3
Bogost’s article was a great read since it was similar to Austin/Pisano’s style of writing: a storytelling narrative. The audience follows the journey of Amy Webb, and we have the ability to empathize with her after reading through her experiences at the airport and truly understanding her problems. But writing a post simply in a storytelling method does not guarantee success, and Bogost managed to capture the reader’s attention with his transitions. Strong transitions in the article such as “But that’s an aspirational hope” and “Those efforts have merit” easily helps to bring the reader to the author’s next point.
Discussion 8/16
For my unit 3 project, I have decided to focus on men’s mental health and raise more awareness on the stigmas surrounding the issue, such as “men are not allowed to show emotion”, “men should not cry”, etc. To teach more about this, I think that the target audience is between teenagers to young adults, so high school and college male students. The best way to reach this group, in a professional manner, would be through an educational infographic sent by the place of education. By sending out a campus wide email, it ensure that the pertinent information is easily accessible, concise, and available to a large portion of the target demographic.
I am aware that an issue with sending a school wide email is that many students tend to, either ignore their emails or briefly skim them. To counteract the proclivity to glance at the emails, I would make it as brief as possible, yet maintain a good amount of necessary information in easy-to-read sections. And for the students who neglect to read the email at all, the infographic could be printed out in poster format and posted to various doors in different halls. Therefore, I will try and make the infographic as visually pleasing as possible.
The reason I think that this information for this target audience should come from the schools, is to solidify that men have resources to help deal with their mental health issues that are offered at most colleges/ universities/ high schools. At the end of the memo, I would remind the students that there are always people willing to help, and in Syracuse’s case, just a phone call away or right across campus at the Barnes Center.
I personally really like this infographic in reference to my research because I could try to make mine come across as a sort of step by step to getting help and to counteract the stigma behind men’s mental health. I also want to include statistics on my infographic so I am still looking around at different examples. With this particular one, I enjoyed that it is very simple and easy to understand but that also just makes it a little boring, so I want to make mine more engaging.
Response 8/18
My project will be directed at young people entering the workforce. The goal is to educate future employees on how to proactively identify and address issues of sexism and sexual assault in the work setting.
The form of my project will be an infographic. The example I located explained how to stop the spread of germs (specifically respiratory diseases like COVID). I like that infographic I located incorporated a combination texts with visual elements. This style can be very informative yet can be an easy and engaging read. However, this infographic has less text/facts than I would like to include. The content within this source has the ability to show more visually with pictures than my topic will. I do like the conciseness and organizational components of this graphic because it effectively gets the main points across. I also thought the color scheme worked well. I enjoy making infographics and am excited to see how mine turns out.
https://www.tmcc.edu/sites/default/files/documents/ehs-coronavirus-infographic.pdf
(Mine was a PDF so it would not embed)
Discussion Week of 8/16
In this type of writing, its most influential and distinctive features would be stylized words that stand out over others. In this example, it would be, “Be An Ali”. The “A” in “ali” forms part of a wheelchair graphic. The poster demonstrates how to support those with disabilities and succumb to ableism and judgment. While stylized words look nice, the effective ones usually have a double meaning like this behind them. They are incorporated in a way that makes viewers remember the words and the special effects that go with them. In this specific example, this poster is linked for people to print out and put up as flyers, being pretty spot on when it comes to my desired genre.
This example works well because it is bold and clear and includes subtexts that encircle “Be An Ali”. To grab readers’ attention, there first needs to be the main subject displayed. When it comes to my topic, intersectionality and bias could get tricky since there are two. I am afraid readers won’t know where to look, become overwhelmed, and move on with their day, not retaining any information. So, my challenge will be to incorporate the two together and somehow display their co-existing features. Intersectionality and bias overlapped with my research, which I verbalized, which I now need to demonstrate graphically.
What I like about this poster the most is its simplicity. There is one main focus here, and subtext helps support it. Light graphics are an excellent addition, and I bet viewers would remember the poster more due to these. However, I do not believe this example is 100% successful. The simplicity is a little overdone, with words not very organized, just surrounding the poster’s title. Yes, they are categorized but with mini headings. For my poster, especially after viewing this one, I want to set up my words in a very strategic way. I am not sure yet what this entails, but I know graphics will be incorporated to tell a straightforward story to the viewer. Not only do I want this to be straightforward, but meaningful and impactful.
I also want certain subjects of text to bounce off of each other and connect. In this example, the text is written the same way bullet points would be. I want my bodies of text to co-exist with each other, presenting a cohesive overall body of text. There are a lot of design strategies that I have been brainstorming that I plan to experiment with. Being a design major myself, one of the most important things that I have learned and have continuously seen through successful design is that graphics have the power to spread a message sometimes more than words. With this graphic and text combination, I believe my poster could be compelling. I do not want to lose sight of one over the other but simultaneously incorporate the two to enhance each other.
https://www.nccsdclearinghouse.org/nccsd-posters–products.html
Discussions/Homework Week of 8/16
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/browncenter_20161209_teachers_memo.pdf
The writing in this memo is conveying brief yet critical information quickly to multiple individuals at once. While it is not as formal as a business letter, it is professional since it includes action items for the intended recipient. This particular memo is divided into three general sections: The situation, Recommendations and Conclusion.
First the memo gives a quick introduction to the memo’s purpose. In my example it is talks about teachers being among our most valuable school resources for improving student learning.
My introduction would go something like this:
One in four individuals in the United States have a disability, which equates to 61 million people (CDC, 2021). For many of these individuals, disclosing an invisible disability in the work environment is an extremely complex dilemma. It can enable maintaining or obtaining employment, however disclosure can result in losing employment or to not being hired, due to of discrimination and stigma.
The next part of the memo is the situation. The situation gives an overview of the topic and provides the reader with a general outline about the overall purpose. The memo is clearly written by people in academic institutions with certain philosophies of education. The tone of the memo is polite and is written in a formal manner.
The memo says “In order for students to benefit from good teachers, school systems must recruit, prepare, improve, and retain excellent teachers and distribute these excellent teachers equitably across schools and communities. We currently face challenges across these areas.”
My situation might be:
The lack of disclosure by employees indicates they often feel the need to disguise their disability during the recruitment process as well as during the rest of their employment. Having a disability is different from the norm and thus obvious in a damaging way from others. With this potential stigma, individuals are afraid to disclose their disability, lest it adversely affect their employment relations and career prospects.
The next part is the recommendations. Recommendations are the point of the memo. Recommendations should be persuasive however all recommendations need support. As such the memo will encompass straightforward recommendations with support material immediately following or support for the recommendations, with data.
My recommendation might be:
The disclosure process is complicated, and the result is influenced by numerous factors.
For example, HR managers are an important stakeholder group who have mainly negative attitudes and behavior regarding disabilities. Since their job is to act on behalf of their organization, their attitudes and behavior may not change until organizations at the level of management change.
In the memo it starts out with “The federal government can increase the effectiveness of the teacher workforce through efforts to recruit, prepare, improve, retain, and more equally distribute excellent teachers. In keeping with the broader federal role in education, the federal role in teaching policy involves investments in capacity building and knowledge generation.” After that a series of recommendations are listed.
The final part is the conclusion. This sums up the point of the memo. It is clear cut and succinct.
“Teachers are the most important school resource for improving educational opportunities for students. We recommend six steps for the federal government to improve the teacher workforce, particularly in the most difficult-to-staff schools:”
My conclusion might sound something like this.
People with invisible disabilities are in a susceptible position as they choose whether or not to disclose their diagnoses. If recipients of these disclosures are supportive, this could create a more positive experience for the individuals disclosing.
However, it should be noted that multiple studies have shown that disclosure during the hiring period resulted in fewer invitations for job interviews (Hipes et al, 2016).
Positive outcomes of disclosure include:
– Improved relationships with colleagues and supervisors
– Authenticity
– Work environment support
– Friendly culture
Negative outcomes of disclosure include:
– Facing stigma
– Discrimination
Overall, as I evaluated this memo, I envision something shorter and more succinct. However I want to make sure I include research as it is to be directed to professionals in the field.
References:
Disability Impacts All of Us Infographic | CDC. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Retrieved 16 August 2021, from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html.
Hipes, C., Lucas, J., Phelan, J.C., White, R. (2016) The stigma of mental illness in the labor market, Social Science Research, Volume 56, 2016, Pages 16-25, ISSN 0049-089X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2015.12.001.
Discussions / Homework Week of 8/16
I’ve decided to share an example of an online magazine article from the Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2021/08/how-to-work-with-someone-who-creates-unnecessary-conflict?ab=hero-main-text . What’s distinctive about this type of writing is that it offers advice and it’s written in the first person. So, although this piece is meant for anyone who works in or owns a business, and is published in a business magazine, the author makes it friendly and as though she were having a conversation with a colleague. She also breaks down her advice into chunks with explanatory headers. The author quotes experts, as well as the experiences of those in the workplace, and includes links to research and other relevant articles. I appreciate the conversational tone and, as I too plan on doing, the links to other articles. These links help to provide evidence to back up her statements without changing the flavor of the article into something more scholarly. This made me realize that what I’ve written for my project so far might need to be tweaked a little to sound more advisory and less explanatory. I also like how the author used several case studies to demonstrate the issue being discussed. I think I may lean on some examples of situations I’ve encountered as a union rep. as my own case studies. In the sample article, there are step-by-step instructions on how to tackle the stated problem. Later, the author offers best practices that are being used successfully by other companies. I probably won’t be able to offer step-by-step instructions, but I will be able to suggest what can help create the cultural change I want to see in organizations.