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.
Tag: unit1
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 History classes in general are very Eurocentric and while the US is a global player, the historical content on African and Asian history is significantly lacking.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.
History lessons: inequality, diversity and the national curriculum
The sense of belonging of an individual coming from an ethnic minority background is usually quite complex in their newly adopted country, and Claire Alexander and Debbie Weekes-Bernard present the obstacles that Britain faces with their introduction of their new curriculum. In 2014, the revised history curriculum became a controversial issue due to what many perceived as a nationalistic and ethnocentric take on the long history of Britain. This was mainly reflected by the receivers of this curriculum, the student population, being increasingly diverse. Statistics have shown that in the UK, students from Indian and Chinese backgrounds consistently outperform native White British students academically, and that demographically speaking, around 20% of England and Wales’s population are of non-White British minority backgrounds. When the British government is trying to create a sense of belonging for the younger population, is it the right choice to solely focus on the past of the native population? Over the course of Britain’s history, it went from a Celtic island conquered by continental Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxons, went through a Latinization process with the Norman Invasion of 1066, and created the largest empire in history encompassing most of North America, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. This means that when students learn about the legacy of the British Empire, instead of just the minority the native British became in this commonwealth, the students should learn about the contributions and affects the colonized African and Asian populations created for the empire.
Alexander, C., & Weekes-Bernard, D. (2017). History lessons: Inequality, diversity and the national curriculum. Race Ethnicity and Education, 20(4), 478–494. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2017.1294571
Expanding the Canon
In “Creating culturally responsive environments: ethnic minority teachers’ constructs of cultural diversity in Hong Kong secondary schools”, Ming-tak Hue and Kerry John Kennedy wanted to tackle the challenge of Hong Kong’s increasingly growing ethnic minority students and how the teaching environment can adapt to this changing reality. Part of Hue and Kennedy’s research included interviewing secondary school teachers of varying ethnic minority descent, ranging from Canadian to Pakistani. The researchers then used their responses to create a model to allow educators to re-manage their teaching habits and deepen their understanding cross-cultural education.
Even though it is well known that Hong Kong is an international city, the vast majority of the population belong to the Chinese ethnicity (as high as 95%), while there is a growth in ethnic minority students within the public education sector (School of Education Statistics Section, Education Bureau, 2012). However, while this number only makes up 1.94% of the city’s primary and secondary students, the more important issue faced by the educational system is that there is a quick growth of non-Chinese speaking students, from 0.71% (2008/2009) to 1.43% (2011/2012). However, many of the city’s schools are not prepared to tackle this problem, and the combination of a lack of ethnic minority teachers as well as the tendency for ethnic minority students to underperform educationally remains a major problem.
Studies have shown that there is a gap between ethnic majority and ethnic minority students’ in terms of academic performance and employment opportunities (Darling-Hammond, 2006; Frankenberg, Lee, & Orfield, 2003), and that in order to close the gap, the social connection between ethnic-majority and minority students needs to be achieved by the host society (Stanton-Salazar, 1997; Yosso, 2005). To achieve this, several Hong Kong schools already looked for ways to respond to the cultures of ethnic-minority students, and mainly of those who come from low socio-economic backgrounds. While in many Western countries the increase of ethnic minority teachers to assist ethnic minority students is common, that is not so much the case in a relatively homogenous city like Hong Kong. However, one of the most important aspects of having ethnic minority teachers is the understanding and help they can offer to the students, such as dealing with racism, increasing tolerance, the promotion of multiculturalism, slowly ridding cultural stereotypes, and increasing the perception of Hong Kong as a multi-ethnic society.
The study among the interviewed teachers also looked into the experiences of ethnic minority teachers through a social construction of reality. There were three parts to this experience that Hue and Kennedy looked into, which were the changes in space (the community of ethnic minorities), the place (classrooms), and the time spent in classrooms. This was done to allow the teachers to relive their former teaching experiences and explore a narrative to help their future in assisting minority students.
The findings then showed that teachers from an ethnic minority background became even more aware of their own ethnic identities as well as becoming more aware of the “minor acts of racism” within Hong Kong’s educational system as well as the larger society. The goal was then to transform the educational system according to the idea of “cosmopolitanism”, the idea that in order for Hong Kong to become recognized as a truly international city, it must create a space for non-Chinese speakers to take part and feel accepted. Part of this can be achieved with tackling Hong Kong’s trilingual problem in education, since ethnic minority students will have to become fluent in the official languages of Cantonese/Chinese, English as well as their native tongues. The ethnic minority teachers explained that in order to truly help the non-Chinese speaking students reach academic success and attend tertiary level education, English and more importantly Cantonese (the native language of most of Hong Kong’s population), must take part in their daily lives.
I specifically chose this article because it is directly tied with the readings that we have done in the past week, how diversity is becoming more and more important because our perception of it is also becoming more clear. Being from Hong Kong and having friends of ethnic minority backgrounds, I believe that the research shown in this article is essential to assist Hong Kong’s population in moving forward from the traditional belief that the city is universally Chinese-speaking.
Article:
Hue, M.-tak, & Kennedy, K. J. (2013). Creating culturally responsive Environments: Ethnic minority teachers’ constructs of cultural diversity in Hong Kong secondary schools. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 34(3), 273–287. https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2013.823379
Discussion Questions Week of 6/14
Response #1
Common sense seems to dictate that a fair and equal society will have all parts of society represented in the workplace, but that is not the case in reality. In Gundemir’s article focusing on ethnic and racial diversity, it is argued that the increase of ethnic minorities in places of leadership in the workplace not only indicates a progressive change in modern corporations, but in terms of the economic aspect, their inclusion is linked to a growth in creativity, an increase in quality decision making, as well as enhancing the company’s performance.
I used the template of “Common sense seems to dictate” to indicate the “they say” portion, since the article used several sources to back the author’s views and that only compounded the views on diversity in the workplace that we have today in society. I believe that it will be very easy to transition to the “I Say” portion after using this template.
Response #2
The readings from Gundemir et al and Austin/Pisano really do play a part in providing more evidence in my belief that there needs to be an emphasis on innovation as well as the prioritization of the diversity of ability within corporations. My reasoning for this belief is based on commercial competition, and if the leadership of major corporations are unwilling to even experiment with the idea of hiring neurodiverse individuals with extraordinary gifts because of a traditional sense of conformation, rival companies will exploit that and pursue this reformed approach, which will lead to their companies outpacing the conservative mindset of the former company. These articles, and more specifically the article by Gundemir et al, are similar to the “Why Diversity Matters” reading from the previous week, and I believe that articles with more examples of success with employment diversity will help a lot. Personally, I think that my experience studying in Syracuse allowed me to understand the value of diversity within the workspace, especially since my program included students from countries from Asia to the Americas.
Discussion Questions
Response to #1
Out of the assigned readings I personally found the topic of organizational culture to be the most interesting. As the term culture has a very loose definition and can be molded based on the values and beliefs of different societies, organizational culture is not too dissimilar to the traditional sense of culture that we often perceive in religious and ethnic groups. In Watkins’ article, he pointed out the different responses to what the term organizational culture is, with some concluding it to be either a product of incentives or compensation. However, the quote that I find the most compelling and the closest to my perception of what organizational culture means is the one by Abdi Osman Jama. Jama stated that, “An organization [is] a living culture…that can adapt to the reality as fast as possible.” If we are to agree that the point of the organization is to survive, thrive, and provide meaning for its participants, adaptation and change according to reality is the utmost necessity and should serve as its defining feature. The only disagreement I have with Jama is that the quote and Jama’s definition defines an ever-changing culture, one that has no solid base or root in what created the culture in the first place. Whether the organization is centered on business, culture, religion, or any other goal, there has to be a set of “rituals” and origin story that cannot be changed. The stability of the origin point and meaning for the organization will prevent the final disintegration of the organization itself, since the organization loses all meaning when its sole purpose is simply based on adaptation to change and the unknown.
Response to #2
Why Diversity Matters proves once again that racial and gender diversity in the workplace, in general, brings positive financial benefits. Based on McKinsey’s Diversity Matters report, the examined companies were all based in countries with large populations of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. This makes perfect sense since to appeal to the larger market in the Americas and the United Kingdom, representation within larger corporations provides both a better image as well as generate interest among ethnic minorities. However, coming from an East Asian background, the focus on racial diversity is not as prominent an issue as over in the West, especially due to the relatively homogenous ethnic structures of China, Japan, and Korea. Having spent most of my life in Hong Kong, which is already one of the more westernized and ethnically diverse cities in East Asia (with significant Filipino, Indonesian and Indian populations), I have noticed that minority ethnicities constantly fluctuate between 6~8% of the city’s population, and the lack of government assistance in assimilation, linguistic and communication issues prevent ethnic minorities in Hong Kong from being seen or represented in career fields outside of low-skilled labor. In this reality, the combination of low numbers and lack of financial capability means that the value and pressure placed on businesses in Hong Kong or the larger East Asian sphere to adopt the stance of having more ethnic diversity within the workplace is especially low compared to the West.
Moving on from Unit 1
Let’s start pulling some things together. Here are a few lessons from our first unit of the course that I hope you will carry forward in our next projects:
- We need to understand a text’s rhetorical situation before we can work with it—over the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at some sets of texts that talk around some of the same issues but from different angles. Looking closely, we can trace many of these differences to facets of their writing situation: i.e. different audiences, different purposes, different credentials/experiences of the authors, different contexts. In order to figure out how much stock to put in folks’ ideas, what ideas of our own we might build upon them, or how to use these sources to help explain ideas to other people, we MUST first understand the texts themselves and where they’re coming from.
- Understanding a text’s rhetorical situation also gives us a window in to whether and how it works, and what we might learn from its example as writers—we can see how writers try to appeal to their readers (using 2nd person, anticipating and responding to their concerns, styling their text to be visually engaging). We can see how writers build their arguments (linking evidence to claims, providing the reader with opportunities to follow their chain of thought back through hyperlinks to sources or citations). We can see writers drawing on their personal experiences to tell us stories about how they came to wonder about something and how they developed their understanding of it. By watching how other people do this work, we prepare ourselves to do it, too.
- We need a variety of tools—we’ve examined how-to texts (from Harris and TSIS) and content-focused ones; we’ve watched videos; we’ve discussed. We’re coming to appreciate the complexity of our big topic area and to see how we’re only really going to make progress toward our understanding by engaging with a variety of resources and voices. That’s not just an academic exercise for us in this course; that’s a core guideline for research. As researchers and writers, we will also need that multi-faceted set of perspectives if we’re ever going to make progress toward understanding. AND we need to use a multitude of tools in presenting our ideas to our readers—whether that’s templates, graphic representations of data, varying levels of formality, etc. Furthermore, this sort of diversity of perspectives and approaches is a core value for organizations–an essential component of fair and effective collaboration.
So let’s continue. We’re growing our body of knowledge this week through accretion—each of you is adding something to it with the article you’re going to explain to the rest of us, and reviewing your classmates’ posts will be an important part of this week’s work. As we move forward, we’ll continue to learn from each other even as we head down individual research paths.
One final point, summary isn’t just a hoop for you to jump through. It’s how you test yourself to ensure that you’re conversant enough with the text to work with it in your own writing. If you can’t effectively summarize it, you probably shouldn’t be working with it in a project, because you can’t be sure you’ll fairly characterize its perspective and utilize its full value. A careful definition and description of a source (as part of a summary that also details its main take-away points) is a necessary precondition to be able to work further with that material.
Ready to move on? The unit 2 assignment sheet is available here and on Blackboard. Take a look, and let’s get ready to go.
Expanding the Canon
Strategic Diversity Leadership
In “Strategic Diversity Leadership: The Role of Senior Leaders in Delivering the Diversity Dividend” (Journal of Management, September 2020), Luis L. Martins shines a spotlight on the role that top executives play in driving organizational performance through diversity and inclusion. In this paper, he discusses his findings from an extensive literature review of contemporary research, work that led him to develop a new framework he calls “strategic diversity leadership.” His purpose is to share this framework with organizational leaders who are seeking competitive advantage as well as his academic peers to inspire further study.
When Martins, a professor and chair of the management department at The University of Texas at Austin, finds a new way of solving a problem, it is worth taking a closer look. Over a 30-year academic career, he has conducted research and written extensively on the factors that drive innovation, change, and performance, including diversity and inclusion. He has also consulted for dozens of private- and public-sector clients to test solutions in the real world.
A missing link
There is a significant body of research that shows diversity leads to better organizational performance, but there is also evidence that shows the implementation of diversity and inclusion programs do not always lead to the desired results. Martins calls these desired results the diversity dividend, defined as “the enhancement in an organization’s performance that is attributable to its diversity” (1192). When he investigates why the diversity dividend is not realized, he discovers a missing link between the traditional role of top executives and the role they must play in their organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts. Martins argues that because senior leaders hold positions of authority, they have both the platform and the responsibility for realizing the benefits of a diverse workforce. If Martins is right, which I believe he is, implementing a strategic diversity leadership framework to close this gap is a key to better performance.
Leaders must lead
Martins defines strategic diversity leadership as “the shaping of the meaning of diversity within an organization by the organization’s senior leaders” (1194). To build his framework, Martins first asserts that senior leaders must frame a vision that not only defines diversity but also describes how inclusion will be used to distribute the power of diversity to benefit teams and the organization. Unfortunately, Martins describes the vision process in theoretical terms, but he does not expand these ideas by giving specific examples of how his ideas can be applied.
In the second part of his framework, however, Martins provides concrete suggestions to show how senior leaders can symbolize the value of diversity and inclusion. For example, he describes ways leaders can use the power of speeches and public statements to articulate that the “current state is unacceptable” (1198). He also suggests that senior leaders visibly participate in public activities that promote diversity and inclusion (1198-1199), including ceremonies, marches, and celebrations. In other words, top executives must “talk the talk” and “walk the walk.” While Martins does offer practical suggestions, he does not offer examples of organizations that are successfully implementing these ideas. His argument would be stronger if he could point to organizations and practices that can be emulated.
I believe that the strategic diversity leadership framework Martins proposes is useful because it shifts the focus for solving organizational culture challenges from the level of supervisors, staff, policies, and tasks to the level of executives, vision, strategy, and organizational design. Martins is telling us that those who hold the most power in an organization must be held accountable. I couldn’t agree more. Ultimately, I believe Martins’ strategic diversity framework will lead to positive results, but I also must point out that he stops short of holding top executives accountable for delivering on diversity and inclusion measurements in and of themselves. In my opinion, accountability for those measurements is a remaining gap in the framework. As a result, I think Martins misses an opportunity to raise diversity and inclusion to the level of other organizational commitments such as carbon neutrality or sustainability, for example.
Although the strategic diversity leadership framework holds great potential for bringing about change, Martins understands that he is breaking new ground and proposes further study to finetune his theories and reveal additional insights. I look forward with optimism to seeing his ideas confirmed and taken even further by way of more research and evidence from real-world situations.
Works Cited
Martins, Luis L. “Strategic Diversity Leadership: The Role of Senior Leaders in Delivering the Diversity Dividend.” Journal of Management, 1 September 2020, pp. 1191-1204, https://doi-org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.1177/0149206320939641.
“Luis Martins Biography.” The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business. https://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/execed/faculty/luis-martins.
Expanding the Canon
In many workplaces across the globe, diversity seems to be a problem, evident in the large disproportion of minorities in positions of power or even in minor company roles. Specifically, the police force is an organization that struggles with diversity. These two charts show that, while there has been a slight increase over the decades, much can be done to improve.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eeoc.gov%2Fadvancing-diversity-law-enforcement&psig=AOvVaw3HdYuQubPUcCD1-RFchiUu&ust=1625513122464000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAoQjRxqFwoTCMDO9baSyvECFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eeoc.gov%2Fadvancing-diversity-law-enforcement&psig=AOvVaw3HdYuQubPUcCD1-RFchiUu&ust=1625513122464000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAoQjRxqFwoTCMDO9baSyvECFQAAAAAdAAAAABAK
Three women Debra Langan and Carrie Sanders (Criminology Professors), and Tricia Agocs (a citizen in police services for 10 years) wanted to delve into the treatment of women in the Canadian police force to bring awareness towards the issues female police officers often face. The police force is already a predominantly male profession, so women are an outsider group within the larger organization. To determine real life examples, Langan et al created a study that featured 16 Caucasian females from across Ontario, Canada. However small the sample size, most of the women reported a poor work environment, in addition to stating that the culture and management is inadequate and in much need of improvement. This is evident in the study conducted where “one in five [officers] … think about leaving their current police force from once a week to several times a week”. Women often push themselves extremely hard, believing that they need to prove themselves more to show that they deserve to be there. Langan et al want the police departments across Canada to address these issues and more as well as expectations for women due to their unfair treatment.
Many of the articles we have previously explored mentioned the various issues regarding diversity in the workplace. The examples these 16 women gave to show how they are treated were very eye opening and it became clear how brave they are for staying, especially since many considered quitting. Langan et al made the internal sexism these policewomen faced very evident in the stories from the article. This study was conducted in Canada about five years ago. It is unfortunate that, despite all this evidence showing the problems and where the department can be improved, nothing significant changed. Problems with diversity within the police force still prevail everywhere. Three years after the study, this particular TEDtalk, linked below, gives additional evidence on how females face discrimination in the police, only this time, it is focused on the United States.
In this TEDtalk, a policewoman who has been in the force for 25 years reveals that out of all American police officers, only about 13% are women, which has statistically been very steady for around the past two decades. This number is incredibly low especially given the amount of data the TEDtalk gives that shows how valuable they are. She states that “policewomen are less likely to use force or be accused of excessive force; they are less likely to be named in a lawsuit or citizen complaint and the presence of a policewoman reduces the use of force among other officers” while still receiving the same amount of force from criminals that male officers do. Despite all these advantages to women in police departments, they still face all those aforementioned examples of discrimination in the article and TEDtalk.
The reason I chose these pieces of media was to give evidence to our much-researched topic of the lack of diversity in workplaces. It is important to see these real-world examples, how discrimination impacts daily life, and how little has been done to stop it. More awareness is necessary to fix this issue, which is why we need to keep spreading the media being researched in class.
Article:
Debra Langan, Carrie B. Sanders & Tricia Agocs (2017) Canadian Police Mothers and the Boys’ Club: Pregnancy, Maternity Leave, and Returning to Work, Women & Criminal Justice, 27:4, 235-249, DOI: 10.1080/08974454.2016.1256254
Expanding the Canon
Algorithm-Driven Hiring Tools: Innovative Recruitment or Expedited Disability Discrimination? by Lydia X. Z. Brown, Ridhi Shetty and Michelle Richardson, presents us with a compelling report on the consequences AI based assessments have on employment of the disabled. Many of us revel in all the latest advancements in technology. We think the more tech, the better. Brown, et al., however, immediately set about clearing up any misperceptions we may have had about the neutrality and fairness of artificial intelligence-based hiring tests. We are treated to an informative and eye-opening breakdown of all the different types of tools and tests currently being used for hiring. Although it is not expressly noted by Brown, who is autistic and an expert on disability rights and algorithmic fairness, it is clear neurodivergent employment candidates have a high potential for being discriminated against via these tests. The authors also make certain to share with us that many employers do not realize how biased these tests can be. Hence, Brown, et al., spend a great deal of time pointing out the numerous ways an employer could be held liable for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)1. As such, this report proves to be a valuable resource for self-advocates and employers alike. It is important to note that it was prepared by the Center for Democracy, an advocacy group who focuses on equity in civic technology and digital privacy/data among other things.
More than anything else, this paper is an exercise in both empowerment and how to be an anti-ableist in the hiring process. It educates us on the use of personality tests, face and voice recognition and resume screening for patterns. The authors remind us that algorithms are created by people and people have bias. Hence there are biased algorithms. We are provided with shocking statistics such as,
“76% of companies with more than 100 employees use personality tests.”
“An estimated 33% of businesses use some form of artificial intelligence in hiring and other HR practices.”
“The employment rate for people with disabilities is about 37%, compared to 79% for people without disabilities.”
The authors inform us that many software developers market hiring assessment software to employers that not only measure a potential employee’s proficiency at the job, but other skills like cognitive ability (abstract thinking), motivation and personality. It seems that developers don’t factor in ADA regulations, such as using criteria that have the effect of discrimination, into their software and employers don’t ask them to. As Brown, et al educate us, this is problematic because some skills might not even be relevant to the job being applied for and knock a person with autism or even depression out of the running. We learn that candidates are ultimately chosen, not by a human, but by a machine. Machines ignore nuances and context and lack empathy. Just as the articles we read in class helped enlighten us on what unconscious bias and inclusion are, Brown, et al., are resolute in persuading us that the abilities many of us take for granted, like good eye contact, could make us blind to how people with disabilities (folks with autism in this case) are forced to maneuver the employment landscape.
Figure 1 Screen capture from info.recruitics.com
The authors offer us insight into how the intersection of people’s disability, race and socioeconomic status leads to hiring discrimination. This is something our class might want to further explore. What if a job seeker is applying for a low-wage warehouse job or looking to flip burgers? Why should a personality test matter? What if you are not white or male? Will the test indicate that you won’t thrive socially in a work environment dissimilar to your own social network because the software was developed by white men?
As mentioned earlier, Brown, an autistic person who also possesses intersecting identities, is a champion for equity in hiring. They appeared in HBO Max’s documentary2 “Persona: The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests” where they elaborated on the devastating effects of digital hiring assessments on neurodivergent people and other marginalized groups. Not only will disabled readers see that Brown, is like them and advocating for them, but the authors hope to appeal to our ability to empathize with people unlike ourselves. Brown, et al., also “walk the walk” by providing a plain english version of their report and offering solutions (like using disabled software developers) based on Civil Rights Principles for Hiring Assessment Technologies3
Some may say the report itself is biased. But is it bias if you’re telling the truth?
Footnotes
Source:
- 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(6) (2018); 29C.F.R. § 1630.10(a) (2019). Three other ADA provisions similarly prohibit disparate impact of people with disabilities. These prohibit (1) limiting, segregating, and classifying an applicant or employee in a way that adversely affects their opportunities or status because of their disability; (2) contractual or other relationships that have the effect of disability discrimination (a simple agency theory of liability); and (3) utilizing standards, criteria, or methods of administration that have the effect of disability discrimination. 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(1)-(3) (2018), 29 C.F.R. § 1630.5-.7(2019).
- HBO Max, Persona the Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests Persona | Official Trailer | HBO Max – YouTube
- See Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, Civil Rights Principles for Hiring Assessment Technologies (Jul. 2020), https://civilrights.org/resource/civil-rights-principles-for-hiring-assessment-technologies/.