Diminishing Diversity: A Discussion on Diversity as a Buzzword
- Isaiah Castillo
- Apr 17, 2019
- 7 min read
Diversity is the buzzword at the center of today’s political and social spheres. Articles on diversity are widespread in academic research, blog posts, and just about every available social media platform. It’s become a central principle around which we structure our organizations and a concept many, including myself, seek to champion within our own lives. Diversity advocacy is setting new standards for what diversity looks like in our workplaces, politics, and higher education.
Diversity is everywhere and at the same time, it is not.
I found my inspiration for this article after participating in a diversity awareness campaign on campus recently. The event was set up as a series of stations where individuals watched videos, tested their ability to spot biases, and took pledges to promote diversity in their lives. At one station, participants were able to assess the diversity of their networks by answering a series of questions about the people with whom they are connected. They answered questions about their friends, families, coworkers, and others they may interact with on a regular basis such as professors and classmates.
However, something concerned me about the way participants assessed the diversity of their networks. The only answer choices they were presented with were based on race and ethnicity. I left the event questioning how we have come to define diversity and how our emphasis on race, ethnicity, and gender, effects the way we build our networks and work organizations.
Modern conversations on diversity place an overwhelming focus on race, ethnicity, and gender. And rightfully so. We are in a social and political period of advocacy where gender and race are at the forefront of conversations. Over the years women and minorities have increasingly entered the workforce, education, and politics and have seen an improvement in programs which provide them equal opportunity. This past midterm we saw more women and minority candidates win elections than ever before. The data on race and minority employment and education is a sign of the progress this focused advocacy has brought about.
Yet, for as much as this advocacy has led to progress, it has also hindered how we think of diversity by creating a Focusing Effect. In placing an exceptional amount of focus on specific aspects of a concept we fail to recognize the others which constitute it; we equate larger concepts to only the small pieces which are so regularly discussed.
Limited research has specifically addressed the link between the focusing effect and perceptions of diversity, but like many psychological principles, the cognitive process of the effect can be applied beyond the specific studies that have addressed it. In combination with other concepts, such as the availability heuristic, (the tendency for people to estimate the probability of an event or the frequency of a kind of thing by the ease with which instances come to mind), the frequency of the modern narrative of race primes us to think of the concept in specific terms much like the attention to crime reporting in the news makes us believe that crime is more prevalent than it is.
What often fails to be included in conversations on diversity are the other categories it encompasses such as socioeconomic, intellectual, religious, political, life experience, and countless others. In advocating and focusing conversations on race, ethnicity, and gender we dissociate the term from its more comprehensive context. As a result, diversity has often become a façade and a tool for both conscious and unconscious rationalization. The idea of diversity today compels us to believe that achieving diversity, whether in our workplaces or personal lives, is achieved by checking off the race and gender boxes; that as long as we include a few minorities and a mix of genders, our networks and workplaces can qualify as being diverse. In constraining diversity, we ignore the many other environmental and social factors which influence the unique perspectives of individuals.
The flaw surrounding the modern narrative on diversity isn’t just in our inability to give attention to its range of categories, but also in our failure to talk about the different dimensions in which we can engage with it.
Using the idea of diversity dimensions defined by Dr. Monica Williams from the University of Connecticut, I propose a Diversity Engagement Spectrum which we can utilize to begin to think about the depth of our engagement with diversity (Figure 0.1).
(Figure 0.1)
Awareness: Awareness is the mere realization that diversity exists. It doesn’t require that we like it or that we fight against it, rather merely that we acknowledge its existence.
Tolerance: To tolerate diversity is not to only realize that diversity exists but to accept it without expressing negative attitudes towards those individuals different from us.
Celebrating: Celebrating diversity is to incorporate diversity into our lives by interacting with people different from us and participating in the activities and cultural practices of those communities.
Leveraging: Leveraging takes celebrating a step further by requiring that we not only have diversity present in our lives but that we seek to understand the mechanisms and practices which create that diversity. That includes learning the history and reasons behind practices and communities. When we leverage diversity, we learn what individuals offer in their different skills, perspectives, and experiences.
Immersing: Immersing in diversity is to actively participate and experience what diversity has to offer. It merits that we place ourselves in environments and communities different from our own and seek to experience those mechanisms which lead to differences between us and others firsthand.
Demanding: Williams describes demanding as the most engaging with diversity. However, in placing demanding on the end of the spectrum would imply that to demand diversity is to also leverage and embrace it. However, one can advocate for diversity without truly understanding the mechanisms behind the differences that shape it. We can demand diversity based on principles of equality and freedom without necessarily understanding the history and abstract arguments that support the cause.
When we fail to engage with diversity beyond celebration, we miss out on the knowledge it affords us and can lead us to reinforce negative behaviors that harm the very concept we claim to promote. Without an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts of diversity, we are more susceptible to adopting or celebrating practices that are distasteful. Icky concepts like cultural appropriation can be attributed to a lack of understanding of the contexts behind practices like hairstyles and clothing.
So, what do we gain in redefining diversity and attempting to leverage and immerse ourselves in diversity?
Science tells us that engaging different categories of diversity across the spectrum leads us to better problem-solving, more creative thinking, and to be more empathetic. This phenomenon is called the Edge Effect. In ecology, the edge effect describes the unique biodiversity that occurs at the intersections of different ecosystems. Applied to social science, the Edge Effect describes how creativity is fostered by our interactions with other cultures.
Social scientists like Adam Galinsky have done wonderful work to show how the Edge Effect manifests through different types of interactions. Galinsky and his colleagues found that whether abroad or at home, individuals may elevate their creativity, spark innovation, or enhance entrepreneurial projects by learning and integrating different social relationships. Students who had more diverse cultural interactions performed better on creative tasks. However, the team also found that consistent with prior work, the depth of those relationships was a stronger predictor of creativity than the breadth.
Broadening the goalposts of diversity in organizations can allow workplaces to better utilize human capital. In hiring and building diverse work environments managers can not only bring in new and unique perspectives but enhance the creativity of their current members. The more diverse a work community and the more opportunities employees have to leverage that diversity, the more organizations can squeeze out of their human capital. Sometimes to foster creativity, organizations need to hire individuals who may not fit the traditional mold for a position but bring a unique cultural perspective. Studies have shown that research projects composed of more a diverse team were cited more often than those who had homologous teams. Diverse hiring beyond just race and gender can be the spark that propels an organization or project.
We can also foster the benefits of the Edge Effect within our own lives by engaging different types of diversity. Opening ourselves to different perspectives and experiences allows us not only to progress academically and professionally but also opens doors to new lifestyle options. Leveraging others’ unique perspectives builds our knowledge of places we’ve never gone and people we’ve never met as well as deepens our understanding of those in the communities around us. Expressing understanding of others allows us to build better relationships with others who are unique from us, perpetuating a cycle of leveraging diversity and engaging others. Building networks of individuals with different areas of knowledge, different socioeconomic statuses, and different life experiences can launch personal growth.
Today’s rhetoric of diversity and the mindset of checking off the race and gender boxes hinders us from harvesting the full potential it offers. Leveraging differences affords us the ability to better collaborate across differences and find unique solutions to the tough issues we face today. As we continue to advocate for diversity, it’s important to remain conscious of how we come to think of diversity. If we can counter today’s diversity trap in our thinking, we as individuals, organizations, and societies can truly benefit from the opportunities multidimensional diversity affords us.
Comments