Implementing Diversity Training Targeting Faculty Microaggressions and Inclusion: Practical Insights and Initial Findings

Despite the importance of faculty diversity training for advancing an inclusive society, little research examines whether participation improves inclusion perceptions and belongingness. Integrating training and diversity education literature concepts, this study examines the effectiveness of training targeting microaggressions in six STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) oriented departments at a research-intensive university. Reactions data collected at the end of face-to-face training suggested that participation generally increased inclusion understanding. Self-assessments on inclusion concepts collected from 45% of participants before and three weeks after training suggest participation increases perceptions of the importance of inclusion, microaggression allyship awareness, inclusive behaviors, and organizational identification. Compared to white men, women and minorities reported a greater increase in satisfaction with their department affiliation. While self-assessment results are exploratory and have limitations, analysis suggests that diversity training may enhance knowledge of microaggressions, allyship, inclusive behaviors, and belongingness perceptions. We provide insights for evaluating and implementing diversity training interventions

It\u27s the cheese: Collective memory of hard times during deindustrialization

Unquestionably, food and the way we communicate about it are important markers of identity. Like other chapters in this volume that illuminate connections to cultural, social, and gendered identities, food also is inherently linked to social class. Dougherty, Dixon, and Chou (2009) explain that people from different social classes have distinct relationships with food. From the security and taken-for-grantedness of food in middle and upper classes to the insecurity of food in lower socioeconomic classes, people\u27s relationships to food structure everyday practices and discourses. Particularly for working class people (because food on the table is not always a taken-for-granted assumption), food is a highly salient issue that affects a number of behaviors, including not only how they talk about food but also how they prepare meals and make risk-benefit assessments in occupational settings. In this chapter, we focus our attention on a context in which temporary economic upheaval highlights the importance of food in understanding the material complexities of social class and financial insecurity. In this study, we take a retrospective observer-participant stance to gain insight into accounts of hard times by individuals who were coming of age during the early 1980s recession. Our communicative lens focuses attention on the content and processes whereby people construct messages, tell stories, rework identities, and talk into being those revised realities that incorporate the consequences of negative life events. While the individuals\u27 parents recalled particular strategies enabling resilience, such as talk and material practices associated with tightening one\u27s belt, preparing for anticipated hard times by saving money and stocking up, and seeking alternative sources of income, individuals who were children or adolescents during the 1980s commented on a different event-government giveaways of surplus cheese--and its significance for them. Nearly 30 years later, these kids, who are now mid-life adults, spontaneously and consistently brought up the cheese during interviews about life during the 1980 recession. Our research project examines why the cheese is so important to them and how it played a central role in this cohort\u27s collective memory of hard times in Irontown, a small mining community in the Rust Belt

Interrogating Culture

As scholars increasingly pursue engaged research and learning experiences around the globe, questions arise about the ways in which can be interrogated for cross-cultural, intercultural, and transnational dialogue. In this paper, power and ethical stances are implicated in processes that are iterative, dialectic, and dialo gic. Some strategies for interrogating culture are presented

Pondering Diverse Work-Life Issues and Developments Over the Lifespan

In responding to the editor’s invitation to “consider the inherent difficulty of communicating about our differing life-realms of experience (e.g., public-private, work-family, work-life, personal-professional, etc.),” I first “play the academic” in (a) providing an overview of some academic research and community practice on workplace negotiations and (b) laying out some of the overarching macrodiscourses that can prevent innovative thinking about work-life solutions. I conclude with some personal reflections on my own work-life dilemmas