The term 'political correctness' carries negative connotations. This negativity has been generated mainly by media coverage and is mainly due to tensions between political opinions. But does that mean that we should do nothing?
We moved on to do an activity which demonstrated the differences between people. This consisted of a set of questions which started off being quite general and gradually became more specific. As the questions got more specific the differences became apparent. This lead to an exchange of anecdotes about how we have all pre-judged people from time to time and what the consequences were.
Tom then talked about how a Social Model (or self identification/classification) was taking over from a Medical Model: People are disabled by the way a society is designed rather than their differences. For example: If a wheelchair user is unable to get on a bus or access a building, that person has been disabled by society - the design of the bus or the building which hasn't taken into consideration the needs of a diverse spectrum of people.
The difference between Equal Opportunities and Diversity were discussed. This brought to light something that I have often pondered; the fact that a society struggles to deliver equal opportunities to a population with unequal needs and preferences. This was summarised with a fantastic analogy:
- Equal Opportunities = Melting Pot
- Diversity = Stir Fry
Translated as Equal Opps attempts to take the differences which exist between every individual and boil them down to the lowest common denominator, whilst Diversity recognises those differences and tries to use them to adapt.
Slides
Diversity makes the most of what individual differences bring to the organisation - always a compromise between the needs of the majority balanced against the individual.
Equality: when we treat people equal but ignore the differences
Equity: recognise difference
Drivers for change for diversity include: legal, customer, community focus, reputation and public profile, contribution to a fair society and demographics.
We went on to look at a brief history of modern equality legislation which, amongst other things highlighted just how recently societies were extremely unfair.
- 1975 Sex Discrimination Act
- 1976 Race Relations Act
- 1995 Disability Discrimination Act
- 2000 Race Relations (Amendment) Act
- 2003 Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation and Religious Belief)
- 2006 Employment Equality (Age Discrimination)
Jane Elliott and the Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes Exercise
We watched this video and though I've seen it before still found it incredible. I won't got into a long winded discussion about it when I can link to a summary on the bbc
Two things struck me about what the kids did in this video. One was that the perception of superiority made the kids perform better (so not a good argument for equality??) and the other was how encouragement and positivity increased performance.
We all hold values (some quite strongly)
We all make assumptions about people and situations
We talk briefly about how media effects prejudice but not taking any notes on this bit I'm a bit vague on the details. I could go on a rant about media, advertising and manipulation but it probably wouldn't be healthy for me :-)
Categorising and dealing with prejudice
What do you do?
What can you do?
Deciding to challenge:
Anylise the behaviour against criteria which includes:
- Does the behaviour fit in with law or KMC policy/expectation?
- How would the behaviour be viewed at a tribunal?
- How would the behaviour be viewed by a senior manager?
- Is it respectful and dignified?
- Is there any stereotyping?
- Could you justify not challenging the behaviour if someone else did?
- Could the behaviour cause offense?
We looked at the pros and cons of different ways of challenging prejudicial behaviour.
Challenging without confronting - public
Pros
witnessed, seen by victim and all present
Cons
Can cause embarassment, can be viewed as negative, may be dismissed by the group if they support the perpertrator
Challenging without confronting - private
Pros
Confidential, minimise embarassment, opportunity to discuss, no support of perpertrator from peers.
Cons
Not public, victim may not know about the challenge, you may be thought to support the perpertrator
Intent V. Effect
Then intent of the behaviour is irrelevant if it causes offence or discomfort
The justification that nobody minds is doesn't hold water as people may not be comfortable speaking up in protest of the behaviour
It doesn't matter if the victim is present or not, the behaviour is still prejudice and intollerable.
Challenging without confronting
- Monitor the behaviour of the people involved
- Restate the expected standards of behaviour
- Re-educate what and why the behaviour is unacceptable
- Make the potential consequences of the behaviour clear
A very enlightening day. Took too many notes and left it too long before I typed them up but here they are. Please comment, critisize, and add your own interpretation of the day, which I'm sure, and certainly hope are different from mine.
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