Verified Document

Diversity And Inclusion: Learning Journal Activity One: Essay

Diversity and Inclusion: Learning Journal Activity One: Bias and Judgment

The workplace is becoming increasingly diverse. Numerous laws have been enacted to curb discrimination and make the workplace more inclusive of minorities; however, prejudice and bias still remain a major problem in work settings. In fact, as O'Brien (2013) points out, most people do not even know that they are biased, and so, they do not do anything to correct the same. I took the IAT test for race and gender to determine my degree of bias towards people of different genders and races. The scores and their corresponding interpretations were as follows:

Race: Preference score 2 - I moderately prefer whites to blacks

Warmth Score 6 -- harbor more warmth for whites than blacks

Gender Preference score 1 -- I strongly prefer males to females

Warmth Score 9 -- harbor more warmth for males than females

I partly agree with these scores. There was this time when I was chosen to lead a sales drive for a newly-launched product among university students, and I had to pick twenty students from each of the three universities within my assigned zone to be part of the sales campaign. From the very onset, I had this preference for male candidates, and wanted all the three teams to be led by males because I considered males to be more aggressive and work-driven and females. Well, I had my way, and had the three groups led by males; but we encountered a lot of difficulty winning female customers, and since the organization had specific targets for both and female customers, we ended up losing the number one spot to a different group. Perhaps we would have reached the target and made better sales for the organization if I had not underrated the performance and ability of female candidates. I keep thinking that females would have better understood the needs of female clients and raised concern with the organization before it was too late.

Activity 2:...

They range from quotas granting a specific number of admission spots to minorities, to selection policies granting minorities lower entry points. Besides bringing about balanced representation, affirmative action is geared at compensating minorities for wrongs committed against their forefathers in the past. Based on my undergraduate experience, I have no doubt that affirmative action plans have made the university community more diverse, and students more appreciative of cultural differences. However, I think they raise some serious ethical questions. First, they unfairly breed grounds for reverse discrimination because they work to deny qualified and deserving majority students a chance at success just because the university admission policy requires there to be a specific number of minority students in the total admissions made every year. Secondly, they lower the accountability standards needed to drive minority students to work hard -- I mean, why work hard to attain a GPA of 4.0 if you can obtain a university admission with 3.2? Thirdly, affirmative action, in my view, is condescending to minority students, painting a false image that they cannot succeed on their own, and need some kind of assistance to be able to match up to their majority counterparts. I think the concept of affirmative action was initiated with very good intentions; however, as long as these ethical concerns still exist, I remain a strong skeptic, particularly of the quota strategy.
Activity 3: Commitment to a Work Group

I am highly committed to the groups that I work with at my place of work, some of which have been operational for more than a year. My commitment is driven by the fact that these are the people…

Sources used in this document:
References

Alonso, M. (2012). Best Inclusion Practices: LGBT Diversity. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan

Community Tool Box. (2014). Strategies and Activities for Reducing Racial Prejudice and Racism. Kaplan University. Retrieved 22 March 2015 from http://ctb.dept.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/reduce-prejudice-racism/main

O'Brien, R. (2013). Bodies in Revolt: Gender Disability and a Workplace Ethic of Care. New York, NY: Routledge

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2001). Affirmative Action. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 24 March 2015 from http://www.civilrights.org/resources/civilrights101/affirmaction.html
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Learning Journal: Personal Reflection Personal Reflection Now
Words: 340 Length: 1 Document Type: Essay

Learning Journal: Personal Reflection Personal Reflection Now more than ever before, diversity is a real issue for the American society, and with this demographic change comes the need to develop strategies and techniques for making people more appreciative of the gender, ethnic, religious, and cultural differences that constitute the fabric of society. One's gender, ethnicity, race, religion, or sexual orientation does not define who they are and what their abilities are. These

Learning Styles As Identified by Kolb That Promote Academic Success...
Words: 7960 Length: 30 Document Type: Term Paper

growing recognition of the changing educational needs of college students, particularly those attending community colleges. In response to this awareness, reform efforts have been implemented in order to meet the needs of students. As reform efforts have been considered, increasing attention has been directed toward assessing the influence of learning styles on academic performance. The term 'learning styles' has been used to refer to the ways in which individuals

Diversity and Inclusivity in Leadership
Words: 3649 Length: 13 Document Type: Essay

Hightowers Petroleum Company a middle sized company is initiating a project with the objective of unifying the different personalities that make up the company's workforce. This objective stands as the broad objective in trying to bridge the cultural differences among the organization's workforce. In the organization differences of the employee's background have brought about different cultures that seem to result in conflict upon attempts in moderating the workforce to observe

Diversity in Law Enforcement
Words: 1383 Length: 5 Document Type: Research Paper

Diversity Law Enforcement Diversity in Law Enforcement The United States culture has had a level of diversity ever since it's founding. In fact, the U.S. would called to potential immigrants from all over the world to come and join the "melting pot" of individuals that had different beliefs, religious practices, unique trade skills, and inventiveness. Despite the way the American society was originally constructed, there are still issues with racism and inequality

Diversity Policy at Lehigh This
Words: 1272 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

Diversity Training The school aims to recruit students that will balance the spectrum of diversity. Before this can be accomplished however, existing and future employees of the university will need to be prepared. "Diversity is about encouraging and enabling all employees to draw on their talents, skills, and experience for the benefit of the business." (Bruno, 2004) Schools that are diversity sensitive will more often be prepared for the competitive recruitment

Diversity in the Classroom Community,
Words: 1372 Length: 5 Document Type: Research Paper

Another factor that impacts the level of community resources offered is that many of the schools do not offer intramural activities for elementary school students. Participation in these group activities are most often children from middle to middle upper class families; due in part to cost and accessibility. Those representing the lower socioeconomic strata tend to take greater advantage of the social services available within the community. Social services purported

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now