Diversity Resources
Diversity and inclusion resources written by and for scholars and professionals in communication and related fields. Compiled by the Libraries Diversity and Inclusion Team, May 2018.
Among Cultures: The Challenge of Communication by
Among Cultures: The Challenge of Communication, Third Edition explores intercultural communication and the relationship between communication and culture, using narrative as a common and compelling thread for studying intercultural interactions. Anchored in the position that people make sense of their worlds through choosing and telling narratives to themselves and others, this text is replete with narratives and stories. Chapters address key aspects of intercultural communication, including verbal and nonverbal communication; stereotypes and bias; identity; conflict; diversity; and ethics. Using an interpretive approach to intercultural communication, the text helps students understand that although a person may appear different, his/her common sense is quite reasonable within a particular interpretive context. Resources are included to help students understand and explain the reasonableness of other cultural systems. The text includes activities for students to complete while reading, including self-assessments and nonverbal self-knowledge tests. Reflection questions within and at the end of each chapter promote thinking and discussion on each topic. With its unique approach to studying intercultural communication via real-life narratives, this text facilitates a deep understanding of the cultural aspects of communication. In providing the narratives of others, it encourages students to tell their own stories and build a strong foundation for communicating across cultures. New to the Third Edition: New chapter--"What Role Does Culture Play in Contemporary Contexts?"--explores intercultural communication as it relates to the environment, health, and technology. New sections on identity, silence, and terms of address as important communicative practices in intercultural settings. Updated sections on honorifics, key terms, social dramas and the golden approaches to ethics.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781138657816Publication Date: 2017-09-14
Culturally Mindful Communication: Essential skills for Public and Nonprofit Professionals by
Intercultural communication is a necessary skill for those who work in the public and nonprofit sectors, and yet there is a dearth of literature available to help public and nonprofit professionals develop an ability to effectively communicate, interact, and lead in a multicultural society. Drawing on research in intercultural communication, psychology, and public and nonprofit administration, Culturally Mindful Communicationprovides useful strategies for students and practitioners of public service to improve their intercultural communication skills. Topics include: expectations for public and nonprofit professionals in today's multicultural society frameworks for assessing cultural differences and similarities verbal and nonverbal communication in the intercultural context stereotyping, prejudice, ethnocentrism, microagression, and social privilege as barriers for effective intercultural communication key considerations for effective multicultural teams approaches for effective multicultural community engagement, and leading with cultural mindfulness.　 To facilitate student learning, several useful pedagogical features are employed throughout the book. The reader follows the stories of two fictional characters - Lavita, a cultural coordinator in city government, and Leo, a program manager at a nonprofit - in their intercultural communication challenges in public and nonprofit sectors. Mini-case stories called 'cultural moments' are incorporated to illustrate real-world intercultural communication examples and to invite application of the tools and concepts introduced in the text. Each chapter includes a set of discussion questions designed to build on the intercultural communication challenges of Lavita and Leo and the 'cultural moments' as well as activities that can be completed in class or as homework assignments. Designed to offer guidance to both current and would-be public servants, Culturally Mindful Communicationwill be required reading for Public Administration and Public Affairs courses that address diversity and cultural competence, as well as for practitioners looking to develop their intercultural leadership and communication skills.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780765644015Publication Date: 2017-07-20
Power and Diversity in Public Relations by
Power, Diversity and Public Relations addresses the lack of diversity in PR by revealing the ways in which power operates within the occupation to construct archetypal practitioner identities, occupational belonging and exclusion. It explores the ways in which the field is normatively constructed through discourse, and examines how the experiences of practitioners whose ethnicity and class differ from the 'typical' PR background, shape alternative understandings of the occupation and their place within it. The book applies theoretical perspectives ranging from Bourdieuvian and occupational sociology to postcolonial and critical race theory, to a variety of empirical data from the UK PR industry. Diversity emerges as a product of the dialectics between occupational structures, norms and practitioners' reactions to those constraints; it follows that improving diversity is best understood as an exercise in democracy, where all practitioner voices are heard, valued, and encompass the potential for change. This insightful text will be essential reading for researchers and students in Public Relations, Communications, Media Studies, Promotional Industries, as well as all scholars interested in the sociology of race and work relations.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780415811958Publication Date: 2014-09-22
Dialogue Across Difference: Practice, Theory and Research on Intergroup Dialogue by
Due to continuing immigration and increasing racial and ethnic inclusiveness, higher education institutions in the United States are likely to grow ever more diverse in the 21st century. This shift holds both promise and peril: Increased inter-ethnic contact could lead to a more fruitful learning environment that encourages collaboration. On the other hand, social identity and on-campus diversity remain hotly contested issues that often raise intergroup tensions and inhibit discussion. How can we help diverse students learn from each other and gain the competencies they will need in an increasingly multicultural America? Dialogue Across Difference synthesizes three years' worth of research from an innovative field experiment focused on improving intergroup understanding, relationships and collaboration. The result is a fascinating study of the potential of intergroup dialogue to improve relations across race and gender. First developed in the late 1980s, intergroup dialogues bring together an equal number of students from two different groups - such as people of color and white people, or women and men - to share their perspectives and learn from each other. To test the possible impact of such courses and to develop a standard of best practice, the authors of Dialogue Across Difference incorporated various theories of social psychology, higher education, communication studies and social work to design and implement a uniform curriculum in nine universities across the country. Unlike most studies on intergroup dialogue, this project employed random assignment to enroll more than 1,450 students in experimental and control groups, including in 26 dialogue courses and control groups on race and gender each. Students admitted to the dialogue courses learned about racial and gender inequalities through readings, role-play activities and personal reflections. The authors tracked students' progress using a mixed-method approach, including longitudinal surveys, content analyses of student papers, interviews of students, and videotapes of sessions. The results are heartening: Over the course of a term, students who participated in intergroup dialogues developed more insight into how members of other groups perceive the world. They also became more thoughtful about the structural underpinnings of inequality, increased their motivation to bridge differences and intergroup empathy, and placed a greater value on diversity and collaborative action. The authors also note that the effects of such courses were evident on nearly all measures. While students did report an initial increase in negative emotions - a possible indication of the difficulty of openly addressing race and gender - that effect was no longer present a year after the course. Overall, the results are remarkably consistent and point to an optimistic conclusion: intergroup dialogue is more than mere talk. It fosters productive communication about and across differences in the service of greater collaboration for equity and justice. Ambitious and timely, Dialogue Across Difference presents a persuasive practical, theoretical and empirical account of the benefits of intergroup dialogue. The data and research presented in this volume offer a useful model for improving relations among different groups not just in the college setting but in the United States as well.
Call Number: LB1033.5 .G876 2013ISBN: 9780871544766Publication Date: 2013-03-15
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Strategies for Facilitating Conversations on Race by
Facilitating conversations about race often involves tension, as both the facilitators and participants bring emotional experiences and their deeply held values and beliefs into the room. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Strategies for Facilitating Conversations on Race guides facilitators through a process of becoming comfortable with the discomfort in leading conversations about racism, privilege and power. This book walks you through the important steps to create a foundation where participants feel brave enough to take risks and share their stories and perspectives. It guides you through strategies for engaging participants in courageous conversations with one another in ways that don't shame and blame people into understanding. This book is a useful tool for individuals, organizations and college professors who are interested in learning techniques for guiding their audience through dialogue whereby they become open to listening to one another for understanding rather than holding on to old beliefs and maintaining a posture of defense. Readers will learn how the dynamics of race show up in cross cultural spaces, including the unique challenges faced by facilitators of color and white facilitators. In addition, we explore how to identify and counter white privilege in the dialogue between participants. Both novice and experienced facilitators will learn helpful strategies for leading conversation that result in people recognizing their role as change agents in ending oppression.
Call Number: OhioLINKISBN: 9781475814989Publication Date: 2015-03-19
Reflections on Gender from a Communication Point-of-View: Genderspectives by
This volume documents the experiences of, and reflections on, gender from undergraduate students in the field of Communication. It is the product of conversations, queries and discoveries that emerged from a spirited Communication and Gender course offered by the Department of Communication at Barry University, USA. The essays collected here offer an introspective from the students’ point of view as they grapple with gender issues as they intersect with their identities, sexualities, race and ethnicity, and nationalities, as well as socio-economic backgrounds in their everyday communicative experiences. On a subject as personal as gender, multiple perspectives exist, many of which do not necessarily fit traditional ideas about how to enact gender. The students’ reflections explore a diversity of standpoints on gender as they internalize ideas about selfhood and scrutinize their own understandings of gender as it is constructed, performed, evaluated, and negotiated through communication.
Call Number: OhioLINKISBN: 9781443816991Publication Date: 2017
Inter/cultural Communication: Representation and Construction of Culture by
Today, undergraduate students are more familiar with others cultures than ever before because of the media, Internet, local diversity, and their own travels abroad. As such, traditional intercultural communication textbooks which focus solely on the ′differences′ approach aren′t truly effective for today′s students, nor for this area′s growth.By including a social constructionist approach - which explores how culture is constructed and produced in the moments in which it is experienced - Inter/Cultural Communication: Representation and Construction of Culture in Everyday Interaction provides today′s undergraduate students with a fuller understanding of how culture and communication affect and effect each other.Inter/Cultural Communication improves upon current textbooks in four significant ways: (1) provides a differences approach and a social constructionist approach; (2) explores the consequences of cultural moments on immediate communication and on larger scale social issues; (3) is descriptive, not prescriptive, of how culture is communicated; and (4) introduces intercultural topics, rather than interpersonal topics, to undergraduate students.
Call Number: OhioLINKISBN: 9781412986939Publication Date: 2012-07-23
Communication and PR from a Cross-Cultural Standpoint by
How should we approach cultural diversity in the workplace? Multinational corporations, transnational project teams and glocalised production and distribution processes raise challenging issues for communication and PR professionals. The complex nature of these communication processes often shows that existing models of cross-cultural or intercultural communication are inadequate to allow researchers or professionals get to grips with the complexity of the interactions encountered. This book aims to pinpoint and address the apparent limits of many traditional intercultural communication research methods when they are applied to real situations in today's hybrid and cosmopolitan global organisations. Written by distinguished scholars from around the world, the chapters challenge traditional ways of thinking and established academic categorisations. The chapters are structured around three main lines of questioning: how can we approach multicultural teambuilding situations where culture is a multi-faceted and multi-level dynamic construct linked to identity and experience, rather than 'simply' a question of national habitus; how can we study emerging concepts, categories and practices in such situations using culturally sensitive qualitative research methods; and how can we approach the field of PR from very different cultural standpoints?
Call Number: OhioLINKISBN: 9789052018775Publication Date: 2012-09-04
The New Gay for Pay: The Sexual Politics of American Television Production by
Television conveys powerful messages about sexual identities, and popular shows such as Will & Grace, Ellen, Glee, Modern Family, and The Fosters are often credited with building support for gay rights, including marriage equality. At the same time, however, many dismiss TV's portrayal of LGBT characters and issues as "gay for pay"--that is, apolitical and exploitative programming created simply for profit. In The New Gay for Pay, Julia Himberg moves beyond both of these positions to investigate the complex and multifaceted ways that television production participates in constructing sexuality, sexual identities and communities, and sexual politics. Himberg examines the production stories behind explicitly LGBT narratives and characters, studying how industry workers themselves negotiate processes of TV development, production, marketing, and distribution. She interviews workers whose views are rarely heard, including market researchers, public relations experts, media advocacy workers, political campaigners designing strategies for TV messaging, and corporate social responsibility department officers, as well as network executives and producers. Thoroughly analyzing their comments in the light of four key issues--visibility, advocacy, diversity, and equality--Himberg reveals how the practices and belief systems of industry workers generate the conceptions of LGBT sexuality and political change that are portrayed on television. This original approach complicates and broadens our notions about who makes media; how those practitioners operate within media conglomerates; and, perhaps most important, how they contribute to commonsense ideas about sexuality.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781477313596Publication Date: 2018-01-13
