Culturally Responsive Approaches in College Sports Leadership

As college sports associations like the NCAA reckon with decades of white male dominance, scholars analyze literature in gender, race, and sports leadership to imagine a path forward. 

Introduction

Pervasive issues of inequities, inequalities, and discrimination have long hindered the successful establishment of diversity and inclusion in United States college sports. These issues are underpinned by factors like implicit bias, toxic masculinity and patriarchy, and colorblind racism. 

Despite efforts to improve leadership styles and change athletic policies over the years, problems in gender and race representation, mobility, and retention remain. In response to these persistent issues, the authors propose a transformational leadership approach integrating anti-racism, anti-sexism, and culturally responsive practices.

In order to develop this approach, they rely on the anti-racism and culturally responsive leadership framework that draws upon diverse individual experiences to pursue equity and inclusivity. 

Joseph N Cooper is Professor in the UMass Boston department of Counseling & School Psychology whose research focuses on the intersection between sport, education, race, and culture. Ajhanai C I Newton (Keaton) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health & Sport Sciences whose research focuses on how race and gender (in)equity inform organizational leadership, processes, and experiences. Max Klein is a doctoral student in Learning, Leadership, and Education Policy at the University of Connecticut. Shannon Jolly is a doctoral student studying Sport Management & Policy in the University of Georgia Department of Kinesiology.

Methods and Findings

Methods 

The authors review evidence for barriers faced by women aspiring to leadership positions in sports. One study argued that dominant gender ideology and societal trends contribute to women internalizing self-limiting beliefs about their capacity for leadership in sports. Another study identified barriers at micro- (interpersonal), meso- (institutional), and macro-levels (association-wide and societal), emphasizing the systemic nature of sexism, both implicit and explicit, in sports leadership: 

1. “The macro-level factors included institutional practices, political climate, and stakeholder expectations.” 
2. “The meso-level factors included prejudice and discrimination, exclusionary leadership prototypes, and organizational cultures of diversity.” 
3. “The micro-level factors include head coaching expectations and intentions and occupational turnover intentions” 

The authors then review studies about leadership styles necessary to address the micro, meso, and macro barriers and implement proactive diversity strategies: 

• Transformational leadership focuses on inspiring and motivating followers for personal growth and organizational success, emphasizing vision and collective benefits. 
• Transactional leadership incentivizes follower behavior through exchange of benefits for performance outcomes, prioritizing organizational productivity over individual development. The predominant leadership style in Division I college sports is transactional, aligning with individualistic interests and systemic oppression, necessitating assimilation for marginalized groups seeking leadership roles.
• Servant leadership, while beneficial for smaller organizations with shared core values, may also be limited in larger, heterogeneous groups like college sports. In this context, where white people dominate leadership roles, servant leadership might struggle to address the diverse needs, preferences, and demands of underrepresented groups. 

Findings

The authors argue for the adoption of transformational leadership in college sports and other industries to embody culturally responsive and multicultural orientations. They contend that individuals from racially and gender-oppressed groups should not be compelled to assimilate into transactional leadership approaches. Instead, adopting transformational leadership norms can surpass the colorblind and patriarchal limitations of transactional leadership. In sum, the authors define transformational leadership with the following principles: 

1. Culturally Responsive: intentionally incorporating cultural characteristics, experiences, worldviews, and insights of ethnically diverse people as conduits for effective leadership.
2. Commitment to Diversity: beyond diverse leadership, a diversity of ideology and approach is necessary to deconstruct the transactional leadership precedent.
3. Anti-ism Approach: identifying and acknowledging historical oppressions, inequities, and inequalities stemming from ideologies such as white racism, sexism, and capitalism. 

Additionally, the authors propose the formation of advocate committees to address a persistent issue in college sports — gender and race discrimination. The committees should have formal organizational power to enforce and monitor systematic changes. For example, the NCAA Office of Inclusion could collaborate with organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) or the National Urban League (NUL), which are dedicated to racial and gender equity. The shared expertise of such organizations would help inform NCAA policies, practices, and evaluation methods to address systemic racism and sexism.

The authors also suggest broadening leadership development efforts. This could involve mentorships, internships, job shadowing, and professional development activities, particularly in partnership with sport leadership programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Policy recommendations for surface-level diversity involve incorporating inclusion hires, similar to practices in the entertainment industry. This approach includes revising position descriptions to value multicultural skill sets and talents, intentionally updating descriptions, and involving third-party entities in the review process. 

Ultimately, the authors recommend a culturally responsive, anti-racist, anti-sexist, and transformational leadership approach. This involves: 

• situating scandals within larger cultural contexts, 
• empowering Title IX offices, 
• embedding anti-sexism in campus culture, 
• enforcing policies to protect individuals from abuse, and 
• establishing trust and compassion with survivors of abuse.

Conclusions

Transformational leadership in NCAA sports will enable a long-overdue shift toward an anti-racist and anti-sexist organization. Three foundations of transformational leadership — cultural responsiveness, commitment to diversity, and the anti-ism approach — must underpin the NCAA’s future policies and practices in order for the organization to achieve its potential. 

The author’s cite Cunningham’s (2010) stance in their final remarks: “Change is possible. But, it takes a collective effort—a unified endeavor to transform the institutionalized systems in place, ensure a political environment where diversity is valued, eradicate decision makers’ prejudices, stereotypes, and discrimination, create and sustain university workplaces characterized by diversity and inclusion, and transform the coaching profession into one where opportunities for African Americans abound.” 

A successful adoption of this transformational approach will be evident when a) there is equitable treatment for career advancement and mobility, and b) all underrepresented and marginalized groups in the NCAA gain access to leadership positions in college sports.

New Learning Models in Higher Education: How Paired Learning Communities Help Retain Faculty of Color

Introduction

Only 20% of full-time faculty in American higher education are faculty of color (FOC). Given the growing population of underrepresented minority (URM students), the slow growth of full-time faculty of color in academia is a concern. However, when faculty of color are hired, they often find themselves acquiring additional responsibilities, such as serving as diversity representatives, mentors to students of color, guest lecturers on race and ethnicity, and expectation to act as the “racial conscience” of their institutions. Higher education institutions often fail to reward or incentivize these additional responsibilities, which often leads to the quick departure of faculty of color from higher education.

Although research on this topic is limited, the authors suggest that learning communities, which have been proven to benefit students in terms of retention, persistence, and performance, can also help reduce barriers and improve the retention of faculty of color. Learning communities have the potential to promote collaboration among faculty of color while addressing issues like tokenism, isolation, marginalization, and lack of mentorship commonly experienced by faculty of color in academia. Inclusivity-focused institutions can use learning communities to simultaneously support racially underrepresented students and faculty. The authors use this article to explore different types of learning community models and provide recommendations regarding the most effective models in the context of academia. 

This study is co-authored by Dr. Judy A. Loveless Morris, Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Tacoma Community College, and Dr. Latoya S. Reid,  Professor of Developmental Studies at Tacoma Community College. 

Methods and Findings

Method

Drawing upon their own experience as FOC in English and Sociology, the authors expressed feelings of tokenism and isolation. The historical precedent – that FOC tend to be concentrated in departments with fewer resources and less prestige – further exacerbated this marginalization. The English faculty member, the only  person of color in her department, had to negotiate stereotypes while addressing racist issues in departmental meetings and curriculum, and the Sociology faculty member encountered the dismissive assumption that her “boutique, ethnic-focused” work lacked subject relevance. 

The authors outline three learning community methods that have positive effects on faculty of color in higher education: linked, paired, and clustered. Drawing upon Tinto’s (1998) evaluation of these methods in “College as communities: Taking the research on student persistence seriously,” the authors evaluate the models according to their experiences as faculty of color. Each model is designed to support classroom facilitation and curriculum design for faculty of color who may lack institutional support networks and teaching resources:  

• Linked models, where a cohort of students takes two or more courses taught by different faculty members independently or collaboratively, with coordinated syllabi and assignments, can help students see the connections between different fields of study and promote critical thinking and problem-solving skills. 
• Paired models focus on faculty co-teaching an integrated curriculum that combines knowledge from both faculty members. This approach uses instructional strategies where two teachers work together to plan, deliver, and assess lessons. Paired models aim to enhance the learning experience for students by leveraging the strengths and expertise of each teacher. 
• Clustered models place cohorts of students in linked courses over multiple quarters to alleviate pressure on faculty of color who are held responsible for student learning. These models organize students in groups to foster a sense of community, encourage peer-to-peer learning, and promote collaborative problem-solving. 

In the study, the authors focus on the second and most effective model – paired courses.  

Findings 

Teaching in paired learning communities helped the authors address common challenges faced by FOC, such as tokenism, isolation, mentorship, and marginalization. Paired learning offered FOC the opportunity to combat institutional tokenism by engaging with their racial identities on their own terms and as an integral part of their teaching.

The paired course model fostered a collaborative, contextualized learning experience, where faculty worked as equal partners. This approach created mutual support and affirmation between faculty members and allowed them to champion one another’s skills and talents, which can be particularly crucial for women of color during the tenure-track process. The learning community provided de facto peer-level mentoring and facilitated FOC integration into the campus by helping them connect with colleagues in their respective departments. The paired course model also offered participants the opportunity to expand their network of tenure-seeking FOC.

Additionally, learning communities supported FOC scholarship. These communities afforded researchers opportunities of scholastic collaboration, which resulted in co-authorship of articles and the development of multi-course learning communities to assist historically underserved students. Ultimately, the learning communities have the potential to improve the persistence, performance, and retention of FOC by increasing opportunities for collaboration that benefit both faculty and students.

Conclusions

Learning communities offer opportunities to support faculty of color in their retention and performance, particularly for those seeking tenure. These communities can also help normalize and standardize practices of inclusion and collaboration with FOC. To genuinely enhance the retention of faculty from underrepresented racial identities, colleges should create inclusive opportunities that do not require FOC to prove or fight for their belonging. While no single strategy can bring about meaningful and lasting improvements for FOC within higher education, learning communities offer a promising approach.

Decolonizing the university: pushing beyond curriculum interventions to build an antiracist university

Introduction

In the enduring struggle to build ‘the antiracist university,’ scholars explore why this struggle to produce meaningful structural change in academia persists – and how we might imagine a path forward. In this article, Richard Hall et al. describe the long and strenuous history of university decolonization processes, which have aimed to disentangle institutional formation from the cultural and social effects of European colonialism. The Black Lives Matter movement revealed how little structural change had been actually achieved in the university of study, following multiple historical decolonial movements. The authors suggest that universities have struggled to push beyond decolonial curriculum design and assessment methods, which has left major residual structural issues unaddressed. In response, they contend that university decolonization activities should work to proactively disrupt:

• A university’s role in reproducing structures and cultures of privilege and power
• Implicit exclusionary hierarchies embedded into university systems including administrators, faculty, and students
• White male hegemony that dominates acceptable forms of knowledge production and places a higher value on European centric curriculum than Black, Indigenous and communities of color

As universities have reckoned with these themes, the rapid onset of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) agendas, intersectional identity groups, and grassroots movements have frequently come into conflict with their notoriously hierarchical structures and entrenched racialized histories. 

This study emerges at the convergence of several recent DEI interventions, and focuses on one United Kingdom-based institutional intervention, Decolonising De Montfort University (DMU). The intervention aims to address the university’s structures, culture, and practices and aims to build an antiracist university embedded with ‘dignifying dialogue.’ Within their study, the authors analyze how DMU: 1) situates its approach within Indigenous and decolonial critiques of the university, 2) contends with the impacts of white dominance, 3) challenges entrenched structures which typically stymie radical change, and 4) seeks to disrupt institutional practices.

Richard Hall is the Director of the Institute for Research in Criminology, Community, Education and Social Justice at De Montfort University (UK). Lucy Ansley is a Research Fellow at the Decolonising DMU Project at De Montfort University. Paris Connolly is a Research Fellow at the Decolonising DMU Project at De Montfort University. Sumeya Loonat is the Senior International Student Leader in the Leicester Castle Business School at De Montfort University. Kaushika Patel is the Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion at De Montfort University. Ben Witham is a Lecturer in International Politics at De Montfort University. 

Methods and Findings

Decolonising DMU began in November 2019 and was implemented across 40 programs at De Montfort University which actively utilized DEI interventions. The decolonising DMU study first surveyed students (n=233) and staff (n=44) in one on one interviews to examine the landscape of current DEI interventions. Then, researchers worked alongside an additional cohort of students and staff (n=142) to co-create new DEI programs.  These programs included: 

• Establishment of a Decolonising DMU working group 
• Adoption of a Decolonising DMU Charter
• Decolonization of the curriculum including adding more racially diverse readings and the development of new courses focused on non-Western perspectives

These programs were implemented in multiple areas including staff development, student engagement, research, library services, and institutional cultures/structures/practices – with a focus on disrupting  the University’s historical complacency in maintaining structural racism. Program creators demanded the history of racist incidents, white privilege, poor emotional resilience, failure to support Black, Indigenous, and students of color, be addressed directly and publicly.  

The authors focus on two elements of DMU’s critique – ‘cultures of whiteness’ and ‘structures of dissipation’ – in their main findings.

White institutional knowledge prioritizes and centers white, Eurocentric ideas in the fabric of the institution. Patriarchal structures have historically granted white males with the highest levels of merit in the university ecosystem, which have equally prevented meaningful and sustained decolonial change. The joint effect of these conditions is what the authors refer to as ‘cultures of whiteness.’ Microaggressive behavior, linguistic constraints, and subconscious stereotypes have enabled white culture to dominate the university ecosystem – as whiteness is naturalized as the dominant mode of being and knowledge production. For marginalized students and staff, efforts to co-produce alternate modes of being and knowing frequently struggle to seep into university’s norms. 

‘Structures of dissipation’ refers to the dissolving of non-white forms of knowledge or absorption of these forms into the dominant power structure. For Decolonising DMU, ‘structures of dissipation’ accounts for the university’s  inability to develop a structural response beyond the basic broadening of reading lists and library collections. 

Considering the two critiques presented in the study, the authors suggest a third residual issue: conversations around racial disparity in the UK university system have consistently centered on the attainment gap between white and BIPOC students. Recent efforts in the UK have attempted to push beyond this binary with a more complex analysis of the university’s institutional structural racism linked to criminal justice, employment, and policy decisions. One final challenge identified by the authors is the laborious and time-consuming nature of the work which requires all university stakeholders to reassess their involvement in these racialized histories while committing to the regular demands of their work.

Conclusions

The study presents a pertinent need to confront the practices that reinforce the denial and  disengagement of those engaging in racial equity work in university settings and the risk management of the university’s perceived reputational damage. Increasingly, institutions are engaging in more work on racial equality, responding to the Movement for Black Lives and calls for decolonization by Black, Indigenous and communities of color. This work requires that  universities confront whiteness, white fragility and privilege, and implicit behavioral norms. However, formal structures, built upon cultures of whiteness and oppression, maintain a dominant legitimacy in the university and stymie more comprehensive structural interventions. This article argues that this  dominancy, which reinforces whiteness, needs to be directly addressed through projects focused on decolonization. 

How Effective is Unconscious Bias Training? A comprehensive evaluation of recent assessments

Introduction

Unconscious bias training: An assessment of the evidence for effectiveness by Doyin Atewologun, et al. is a literature review and meta-analysis of studies that examines the evidence for the effectiveness of unconscious bias  training programs in actually reducing unconscious bias in individuals and organizations. The authors first define unconscious bias as the automatic and unintentional stereotypes, attitudes, and beliefs that people hold about particular groups of people. They argue that these biases can have negative effects on people’s behaviors and decision-making, leading to discrimination and inequality. To address this issue, many organizations have started to implement unconscious bias training (UBT) programs, which aim to increase awareness of these biases and reduce their influence. 

UBT interventions target the automatic behavioral functions in the brain which employ heuristics, or mental short-cuts, to process the large amounts of information individuals receive quickly so that people can carry out tasks efficiently. These mental short cuts can reinforce negative social stereotypes, especially for women, ethnic minorities, differently abled individuals, neurodiverse individuals, and others with protected characteristics. Atewologun et al. reference a previous intervention carried out by Baroness McGregor-Smith, member of the UK House of Lords, entitled, “Race in the Workplace.” In the 2017 study, Mcgregor-Smith examined the deep structural and historical biases that prevented individuals with protected characteristics from progressing in their careers. Mcgregor-Smith recommended that the UK Government implement a free digital unconscious bias training resource, which became a widely utilized resource in both the UK public and private sectors. The authors reevaluate these interventions a year following their initial implementation.

Doyin Atewologun is the Dean of the Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Oxford and is an expert on diversity, leadership, organizational culture, and intersectionality.  Tinu Cornish is an Occupational Psychologist who focuses on psychological approaches to diversity and inclusion leadership. Fatima Tresh is a psychologist and expert in human cognition and behavior addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion barriers. 

Methods and Findings

Atewologun et al.’s assessment aims to achieve three objectives evaluating UBT program implementations across the UK: (1), to demonstrate evidence in favor of UBT’s effectiveness (2) to analyze the contextual conditions under which UBT is most effective; and (3), to highlight evidence gaps for further research. The authors underscore that “effectiveness” in this assessment is contingent on the aims of the training designer. A 3-part rapid evidence assessment methodology was utilized to assess the UBT’s effectiveness:

Identify evidence from online databases

• Published peer reviewed articles (N=57)
• Non-academic searches like reports (N=31)

Evaluate the quality of the evidence

• Utilize the Maryland Scale of Scientific Methods (ranking scale of 1-5: 1 exhibiting the lowest rigor (before-after comparison) 5 exhibiting the highest rigor (randomized control trial))
• Exclude sources with low scientific rigor (Level 1)

Analyze the evidence 

• Identify aims and design of the intervention, draw conclusions about outcomes, and review the gathered evidence (N=18)

Among the key findings in the article, the authors highlight four types of UBT interventions they will measure: (1) awareness raising, (2) implicit bias change, (3) explicit bias change, and (4) behavior change. 

Awareness Raising 

Among the selected studies, eleven studies explicitly aimed to raise awareness of implicit bias, and the authors conclude in their analyses that UBT interventions can substantially increase awareness of bias. Whatley’s 2018 Implicit Association Test highlighted a successful intervention. In the study, Whatley measured UBT’s effectiveness on a multidisciplinary team’s attitudes toward African American students in special education. Whatley’s pre- and post- evaluations of a bias literacy workshop indicated the UBT intervention substantially improved both staff vulnerability to bias and individual student expectations.

Implicit Bias Change

Of the eleven studies aiming to change implicit bias, Atewologun et al. found that there is mixed evidence for UBT’s effectiveness. Two studies suggested that UBT can reduce the strength of bias; yet, there was no evidence that UBT can reduce bias to the extent of “neutral” preference. In Girod et al.’s 2016 evaluation of an educational presentation on reducing gender bias, 281 faculty members across 13 clinical departments at Stanford University indicated in the pre-trial a slight preference for males in leadership positions (this was consistent across all racial groups), and this male preference reduced in the post-trial measure. Yet, the authors concluded that males and older participants held stronger racialized and gendered implicit biases in both the pre- and post- trial measures. 

Explicit Bias Change

Nine studies reviewed in the assessment indicated that UBT is effective in changing explicit bias, but less effective than awareness raising or implicit bias changing . Of the available research, it was unclear to the authors how to best measure explicit bias. In Moss-Racusin et al. ‘s 2016 “scientific diversity” workshop administered to 126 life sciences instructors, the aim of the study was to increase awareness of gender diversity, reduce gender bias, and increase diversity-promoting actions. In this particular study, all three aims were effectively achieved. 

Behavior Change

Of the ten studies aiming to change behavior, only two of these studies actually measured behavior change Because of this limitation, the authors concluded that there is insufficient evidence to indicate UBT’s effectiveness. Research examining behavior change is limited, and  methods evaluating behavior change have low validity because they do not measure actual observed behavior change. In Forscher’s 2017 UBT intervention administered to 292 United States university students, researchers found that the effects of unconscious bias awareness waned two weeks post-intervention. However, a follow-up study conducted two years later between the intervention group and a control group indicated possible long-term behavior change. Participants in the intervention group were more likely to publicly refute an essay endorsing racial stereotyping than the control group.

Conclusions

In the concluding remarks, the authors highlight a variety of high-level observations about the assessed literature. Among these observations, the most notable include:  

• Male participants hold stronger unconscious gender biases than female participants. This gap can be reduced with UBT, and UBT may be more effective for men with respect to gender biases. There is some evidence that online and face-to-face UBT are equally effective for awareness raising.
• Mandatory UBT is generally more effective for behavior change than voluntary UBT. This is not supported by more rigorous studies, however. 
• Bias reduction strategies are more effective for reducing implicit bias and ineffective in reducing explicit bias.
• Some mindfulness interventions can reduce implicit bias and possibly mitigate discriminatory actions. 
• Bias mitigation strategies may have back-firing effects if participants do not want to be influenced or do not agree with the proposed direction of influence. 

In the final remarks, the authors set forth a series of recommendations for practice and future research. The first recommendation is to have a more nuanced approach to UBT content: use an implicit association test to increase awareness of unconscious bias and measure changes in implicit bias, educate participants about unconscious bias theory, and integrate bias reduction strategies in the UBT to increase participant confidence in managing their biases. The second recommendation focuses on the UBT context, such as delivering training to those who work closely together in a team unit or otherwise. Finally, the third recommendation is to evaluate effectiveness: randomly assign matched participants to control and intervention groups and deliver training to control groups when effectiveness has been established.

The authors suggest multiple areas for further research: systematic comparisons of approaches and design characteristics, investigations of UBT’s effectiveness in reducing bias against all protected groups, uniform measurement outcomes of UBT, structural changes due to UBT interventions, additional cognitive or social processes integral to maintaining inequity, and the impact of mandatory versus voluntary attendance on UBT effectiveness.

How can contemporary organizations effectively diversify? They need to start managing for diversity.

Introduction

Chavez and Weisinger introduce an alternative approach to traditional diversity programs and aim to stimulate new interventions among human resources scholars and practitioners. Their study responds to extant academic literature highlighting the shortcomings and failures of traditional diversity programs, which are widely and consistently implemented across the vast majority of large American companies. Despite the perpetual failures and recurrent frustrations espoused by diversity training programs, managers are fixated on their potential appeal, such as  attracting and retaining diverse employees, increasing organizational creativity, and broadening cross-cultural social interaction. In response to this enduring dilemma, Chavez and Weisinger suggest a novel approach to corporate diversity with three objectives: 

1. Adopt a relational culture where people are proud of their uniqueness and also integrated into the larger group. 
2. Maintain an inclusive culture where employees are intrinsically motivated to learn across multiple ideological perspectives. 
3. Implement an organizational strategy that utilizes these multiple ideological perspectives to enhance creativity, productivity, well-being, etc.

Within this type of culture, diversity trainers are better positioned to implement mandated trainings while mitigating feelings of shame or guilt, anger, defensiveness, etc. The authors use T. Cox’s (1994) definition of diversity, “the representation, in one social system, of people with distinctly different group affiliations of cultural significance,” to ground their analysis and further define “inclusion” as the degree to which diverse individuals are enabled to participate and contribute fully. Carolyn Chavez is an assistant professor in the College of Business at New Mexico State University where she researches power and influence, management education, training, and leadership development. Judith Weisinger is an associate professor in the College of Business at New Mexico State University where she researches diversity and cross-cultural management. 

Methods and Findings

The authors review two main approaches in the study: active learning and organizational learning. The active learning approach focuses on the individual learner’s capacity to apply, analyze, and synthesize knowledge via reinforcement learning. Active learning couples academic concepts with relevant experiences. This approach infuses novel values and attitudes with actions to create new associations with activities such as diversity training. 

The organizational approach locates active learning opportunities within their respective organizations where management is able to strategically capitalize on a variety of experiences and perspectives a diverse workforce offers. Imperative to the organization’s success is active signaling and participation among top managers. Facilitators must also be amply prepared for unexpected, inappropriate, or unsettling disclosures linking these disclosures to key issues within the organization. 

In the study, the authors turn to multiple case examples where instructors utilized the active learning and organizational approaches in a classroom setting. In the active learning example, classroom instructors invited students to use food to tell a meaningful personal story. After the instructor first disclosed their “food story,” all of the students voluntarily disclosed theirs as well following a similar model set forth by the instructor. The willingness of the instructor to disclose a personal story set a strong positive precedent for other students to openly disclose their own narratives. In the organizational example, managers implemented these “food stories” by first presenting their own story and then allowing others to choose what they would like to disclose. As each individual voluntarily told their own personal story, facilitators were able to transition into conversations more relevant to the organization with greater ease. For example, one facilitator asked how participants could apply the diverse cultural learnings from the activity to their own organization. 

Utilizing the two main approaches, the authors describe multiple findings most conducive to managing for diversity. Firstly, in the diversity training evaluation phase they emphasize a particular set of attitudes that business leaders should abide by: an embedded belief in the business case for diversity, a desire to promote diversity awareness, and a willingness to shift behaviors. These attitudes should undergird the organization’s training needs, objectives, mission, and culture. Four “best-practice” training evaluation findings are identified:

1. Utilize mixed methods research for cultural change: qualitative assessments like focus groups and interviews coupled with qualitative assessments like performance metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) are most effective.  
2. Managers should ask seven questions to assess culture and guide organizational transition: 1) Are diversity conversations healthy? 2) Is there a positive spirit around diversity? 3) Are leaders accommodating diverse perspectives? 4) Are diverse employees collaborating? 5) Are diverse colleagues working together for success? 6) Do individuals feel that each member is a contributor to the team? 7) Is there a spirit of curiosity and discovery that includes a diverse array of individuals? 
3. Utilize the Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI) as a diagnostic tool which measures behavioral norms (cultural “styles”) such as constructive, defensive/aggressive, and defensive/passive to determine 
4. Utilize the Denison Organizational Culture Survey, which helps determine priorities for change using cultural norms like mission, consistency, adaptability, and involvement. 

Conclusions

The authors indicate that they were able to meet their objectives: to promote a relational culture where people are proud of their uniqueness and also integrated into the larger group; to maintain an inclusive culture where employees are intrinsically motivated to learn across multiple ideological perspectives; and to implement an organizational strategy that utilizes these multiple ideological perspectives to enhance creativity, productivity, well-being, etc. They remind the reader of the differences between visual and hidden identities; they also provide an additional challenge in addressing deep-seated differences between people. However, for the sake of managing diversity, the authors are fairly confident that preserving the individual’s freedom of choice in disclosing their own story enhances relational developments and maintains a spirit of trust. They encourage managers to focus their efforts on nurturing these relationships in the long term. Lastly, they suggest that “managing for diversity” can be a competitive advantage because it leverages the unique capacities of a diverse workforce. 

A Key to Full-Scale Organizational Transformation: Implementation Teams

Introduction

Higgins, Weiner, and Young define a specific organizational body they refer to as an “implementation team.” This team is charged with designing and leading an organization-wide change strategy. Implementation teams are critical for all organizations aiming to achieve full-scale strategic changes. They are most beneficial in organizational contexts where change is frequently stymied, decisions are highly bureaucratized, and agents are resistant to move. Using the U.S. public school system as their model, Higgins et al. examine the composition of these teams and contend that they can champion organizational change in the right context. 

This study focuses on a particular subset of the public school system where systematic changes are carried out most directly by the school district, noting the “leader” is the school district CEO or superintendent. In these scenarios, the authors note that the “organization” is the school district (defined by geographic proximity), and the “implementation teams” are the individuals  charged by leadership with designing and deploying an instructional improvement strategy. The authors define two metrics they will observe in the study: positional diversity and tenure diversity. Positional diversity is indicated by the variety of current individual positions that constitute the implementation team. Tenure diversity is indicated by the variety of tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure positions on the implementation team, and the authors suggest that tenure differences might be salient because school systems tend to be quite hierarchical. Individuals with different tenures may bring varying insights about a) the barriers to implementation and b) identifying other stakeholders who may help implement the strategy. 

Setting forth these two metrics, the authors hypothesize that there will exist no relationship between individual team member learning and Hackman’s definition of a “real team.” This is because of the unique composition and task assignment of an implementation team: to facilitate organizational change. They expect that the collective enterprise and interdependence of implementation team members will hold regardless of the circumscribed boundaries suggested by “real teams.” Four discrete hypotheses are identified subsequently: 

• H1: The better the implementation team’s direction, structure, support, and expert coaching, the greater will be team member learning.
• H2: The greater the positional diversity of the implementation team, the greater the team member learning. 
• H3: The greater the tenure diversity of the implementation team, the greater the team member learning. 
• H4: The effect of the team’s enabling conditions on team member learning will vary by the team’s positional diversity such that when enabling conditions are low, positional diversity will enhance team member learning. (370-373)

Monica Higgins is a Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education whose research focuses on teams, leadership development, and organizational change. She co-authored the piece with two doctoral candidates at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Jennie Weiner and Lisa Young, whose research focuses on school leadership and intellectual history, respectively. 

Methods and Findings

In this study, superintendents across multiple Connecticut school districts were  asked to identify individuals whom they regarded as their “senior administrative team for the purposes of developing and implementing their instructional improvement strategy” (373). Each selected member then assessed their perceptions of the teams’ structural features (composition and  task design), process indicators, and effectiveness. 226 responses were recorded at a 95% response rate in 2008, and 262 responses were recorded at an 89% response rate again in 2009. 

The authors outline two aspects of: “the implementation team” model. The first analysis evaluated if “stability” is better linked to roles than to individuals. They observed role turnover across various administrations to determine if the role was eliminated, replaced, or occupied by a different individual between the two periods of data collection. Their analysis showed that 32 people (16%) left their team between the first and second evaluations. 

The second factor evaluated was if individuals on teams with low or high levels of positional diversity did (or did not) employ their roles. Data was collected during recorded team meetings. Team A (high positional diversity) used nearly double the number of positioning statements (e.g., “as an administrator, I am feeling …”) than did Team B (low positional diversity). The percentage of positioning statements (relative to total statements) utilized by Team A was much higher (41%) than Team B ( 13%).  Additionally, positioning statements from Team A members tended to focus on the potential impact of their work from the viewpoint of its external stakeholders, whereas positioning statements from Team B members tended to focus internally on the nature of the team’s work. 

Finding 1: Team stability may be an important dimension of an implementation team, but role membership may contribute to this stability more than individual membership. 

Finding 2: Based on the extent to which positions held by team members represent different roles within the organization, the diversity of roles held by implementation team members was particularly important in successful teams. 

Finding 3: Positional diversity in implementation teams may not help in certain situations, like a case in which enabling conditions are favorable.  

In the first year, each hypothesis test yielded the following: 

H1: Mostly supported. Most socio-structural conditions (compelling direction, enabling structure, and supportive context) are positively correlated with team member learning; yet none of the “real team” measures had a statistically significant relationship with team member learning.  

H2 and H3: Not supported. The analysis did not support either of the following predictions: greater positional and greater tenure diversity would yield greater team member learning

H4: Supported. Two interactions exist: one between positional diversity and compelling direction and the other between positional diversity and supportive context. When individuals rate their teams poorly on enabling conditions (compelling direction and supportive context, in this case), greater positional diversity mitigates negative effects on team member learning. Conversely, on teams that already feel supported (individuals rate their teams highly on enabling conditions), positional diversity is unhelpful. This surprise may suggest that enabling conditions like compelling direction may not be important in team compositions.  

In the second year of data collection, the authors found that the same three enabling conditions (supportive context, enabling structure, and compelling direction) demonstrated a positive relationship with team member learning (H1). However, no relationship was found between the “real team” indicators and learning. Second, neither positional nor tenure diversity had a significant relationship with team member learning (H2 and H3). Third, there were two significant and negative interactions between positional diversity and enabling conditions (H4): when individuals felt less supported on their teams, greater positional diversity mitigated the negative effects on team member learning; conversely, when individuals felt more supported on their teams, positional diversity was unhelpful in mitigating negative effects on team member learning, which again suggests that enabling conditions may not be important in team compositions. 

Conclusions

System-wide changes have a greater potential to be effectively achieved when teams are specifically designed to accommodate a great degree of flexibility and adaptability within them. In organizational contexts today, where the urgency for change is acute, collaborative forms of leadership like those achieved on implementation teams are evermore necessary.  Future research to engage in multi-level analyses is needed to consider how team-level factors like diversity influence individual outcomes (e.g., team member learning). 

Philanthropic Evaluation: Toward an Antiracist Future of Practice

Introduction

This study examines a recent upward trend in the number of foundations embracing racial equity as a core value. It identifies  philanthropic evaluation, a practice that has yet to embrace this core value. The author, Jara Dean-Coffey, explores how race and racism have affected philanthropic evaluation practices and contends that these practices may inadvertently reinforce racism. The author addresses this problem by tracing the co-evolution of both disciplines, identifying its racist myopia, and offering a framework for equitable evaluation practices moving forward.

Jara Dean-Coffey is an evaluation practitioner who has worked with philanthropic foundations for over two decades to strengthen their evaluation skills. She is affiliated with the Luminare Group, a firm that consults with philanthropic organizations  to promote equitable interventions. 

Methods and Findings

This paper analyzes the formation of the evaluation field through a historical lens. The exercise of conducting evaluations  emerged from the federal government and academic research institutions to determine the allocation of public funds and monitor the effectiveness of those funds. From its inception, evaluation, as a practice, was not equipped to interrogate structural inequalities and formulate solutions that promoted equity.  The discipline was conceived by a select number of high-earning, white male industrialists who developed philanthropic foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, Sage) and used evaluations to determine outputs and costs for their foundation work. In the 1980s, the federal government expanded its internal evaluation practices, leaving many evaluation professionals searching for new clients, namely philanthropic foundations. These foundations were identified as an industry through which public dollars could be leveraged to implement large-scale programs with quantifiable, objective data and rigid scientific rigor that needed oversight. In this setting, context and culture were assumed as control variables instead of critical elements of the program design and evaluation approach, which renders equity practices extremely difficult to measure. 

The author then deconstructs the evaluation discipline as a mode of defining, describing, and analyzing the world from the vantage point of a narrow set of definitions, descriptions, and analyses. The racialized distribution of public goods and services has historically favored white “publics” while severely undeserving non-white individuals. According to Dean-Coffey, the consequence of this historical omission is a framing effect that  relies on entrenched assumptions of what is normal and perhaps even right. This unconscious process has undermined the imagined possibilities of alternate evaluation practices that aim to decouple from their historically racist biases. As the nation has been forced to reckon with its structurally embedded racism, the evaluation discipline has recently attempted to generate philanthropic funds based on data showing racialized inequalities. Yet, these efforts have largely reified the prevailing limiting assumptions that advance the scientific logic of its founders. 

In response, Dean-Coffey sets forth recommendations for more equitable evaluation frameworks:

Equitable Evaluation Principles

Conclusions

Foundations aiming to promote equitable evaluation must first acknowledge the privileged and racist paradigms that cloak evaluation as objective and neutral. They must explore their personal values, principles, and orthodoxies that generate barriers to equitable evaluation and generate new practices to interrupt these patterns. This includes engaging in a new methodological approach, which tests for variables like culture and context to deconstruct the prevailing assumptions about knowledge, truth, and evidence. Evaluators must become more diverse, and their training must consider multiple modes of conceiving knowledge to produce more robust validity and rigor. 

Tech Sector Diversity: In Growth or Decline?

Introduction

The study explores disparate diversity trends in the American Tech industry. While the industry boasts some of the highest paying salaries across the country’s economic sectors, the highest paying occupations are not equally distributed across demographic attributes. When isolating gender and ethnicity, analyses show disparate employment trends in executive, managerial, and professional levels in the Tech sector. This study explores the slow increases in gender and ethnic diversity in the Tech sector, which fall behind shifts in the labor force at large. The white male-dominated industry has attempted to improve its diversity efforts, but their solutions are typically ineffective and reluctantly enforced. The study was conducted through the Center for Employment Equity at the University of Massachusetts Amherst by sociologists JooHee Han nd Donald Tomaskovic-Devey. Dr. Tomaskovic-Devey studies the processes that generate workplace inequality and Dr. Han specializes in social inequalities and population dynamics at the University of Oslo. 

Methods and FindinGS

This study examines changes in diversity trends across three employment categories: executive (top leadership ranks responsible for diversity and financial returns), managerial (implement policy and task coordination), and professional (core technical production including scientists, engineers, etc.). While the industry at large is experiencing rapid growth, this growth does not align with consistently upward trajectories for racially and ethnically diverse individuals across all employment categories. The authors observe Tech firms across the largest 10 of fifty-five federally recognized Tech-related industry codes. Utilizing time-series data, the researchers first compare the percentage of demographic attributes in executive, managerial, and professional roles for the top five demographic categories employed: white men/women, Asian men/women, and Black men.

The data show that white men maintain the predominant makeup of all three occupational categories in 2008: 

• Professionals: 47.4%
• Managers: 56.2%
• Executives: 71.6%

Although a steady decline in the white male share of employment is notable in 2016: 

• Professionals: 43.4% (-4%)
• Managers: 50.8% (-5.4%)
• Executives: 65.8% (-5.8%)

The four remaining demographic profiles indicated very minor increases in each occupational category – at most, a 2% increase over the 8-year period. The authors compare these percentage changes to the overall labor force at large to indicate that the Tech sector exhibits meager progress in employment diversity respective to demographic shifts in the population at large.

At the professional level, the authors identified the following key trends:

• Individual firms falling behind the tech sector diversity growth rate are more likely to maintain homogeneously Asian or white male employment compositions
• In rapidly expanding firms, Asians and women are hired into newly created jobs at higher rates than other demographic groups

At the executive level, the authors identified the similar trends:  

• Employment growth in executive ranks (alongside firm growth) is strongly associated with increased executive diversity. This may suggest that the addition of new executive positions offers space for increasing executive diversity
• Due to the limited number of executive positions across firms, each rapidly expanding firm added, on average, only one or two diverse executives; thus the authors cannot determine whether their contributions improve firm innovation and productivity. 

At the managerial level, however, the authors identified disparate trends:

• The number of new management jobs is high in both firms with rapidly increasing and rapidly decreasing diversity; expanding managerial ranks can be associated with both positive and negative diversity trends
• Rapid managerial job expansion can either consolidate white male dominance or expand it

The authors further measure employment growth at large against growth in each of the specified demographic categories. They find that while all firms show upward employment growth, the growth rates differ substantially across each demographic attribute. These firms were subsequently parsed by their diversity growth rates – strongly decreasing (-.1%), slow growth (17.9%), and rapidly increasing (32.1%) – to measure how changes in each occupational category corresponded with changes in the other occupational categories.

• Across all three growth categories, an increase in executive jobs is associated with an increase in executive diversity.
• In contrast, an increase in managerial jobs corresponds with both rapidly increasing and rapidly decreasing firm diversity. 
• A third critical trend is that firms with increases in both executive and managerial diversity also demonstrate increases in professional diversity.

Conclusions

While latent research has indicated that increases in diversity correspond with increases in firm growth, the authors postulate which attribute precedes the other. Is it true that more prosperous firms have a greater capacity to diversify their managerial, executive, and professional employment categories, or do diversity measures increase firm prosperity? The authors postulate that the causal pattern emerges both ways – yet the most critical finding of the study is that any diversity gains in Tech diversity are much weaker than demographic shifts in the labor market at large. The disparate diversity trends among firms indicate a key tradeoff between demographic attributes: as white male dominated numbers decrease, white females tend to be employed the most – this may be at the detriment of other demographic attributes. 

While these tradeoffs are a pertinent and latent area of study, the key to improving demographic diversity in all occupational categories is by improving executive diversity.

Multiple indicators identified by the authors suggest that executive diversity is most frequently increased in response to political pressures. The authors conclude that the expansion of executive and managerial diversity can trickle down and substantially change the demographic composition of the professional labor force. Their optimism lies on the fact that although the Tech sector at large has made unsubstantial progress toward diversifying its demographic attributes, some individual firms have exceeded the industry substantially. A close analysis of these firms will help to identify processes to improve firm diversity at all three occupational levels and reciprocate these processes across the industry at large.