Diversity essay (1/4) - outline and references

This is the first part of a four-part assignment.  Your goal is to complete a 1000-word (four-page, double-spaced) essay on the way issues of diversity -- like representation, stereotyping, globalization, and inclusivity -- connect to your chosen career community.  The first step is to come up with an idea and submit an outline.

The goal of the paper: Analyzing and evaluating diversity and work

Research suggests that a diverse and inclusive working environment is one of the main drivers of creativity, productivity, and overall industry effectiveness. During the second half of the semester, our lectures, readings, and discussions focus on questions related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the job market and workplace. We spend time learning what diversity and inclusivity mean, and how those concepts may be understood in specific careers or industries, drawing on scholarly research and case examples.

In this paper, you will make an argument about what the main concerns about inclusivity and diversity are within your chosen career community, and what actions educators, students, workers, and leaders in that career community can (and should) take to address those concerns.  For example, you might explore the gender demographics of the computer engineering field, and propose ways of making that industry more accessible to women; you might address the role of national or ethnic identity in the consumer marketing industry, and propose ways of helping advertisers be more culturally sensitive in their campaigns; or you might address the issue of geographic diversity in the education industry, to think about how professional teachers can connect across areas with vastly different local histories and populations.

In other words: Your paper should identify a specific form of diversity that applies to your selected career community and address the question, "How well does this career community engage with this particular aspect of a diverse society, and how can it do better?"

Writing on sensitive and normative topics

This paper differs from your first paper (on technology) in that it is intended to be not only descriptive and analytical, but also normative -- in other words, arguing for a certain course of action, for the world as it "should" be in your opinion.  However, you still need to use authoritative, scholarly articles for ideas, concepts, evidence, arguments, and examples to support your claims.  

Questions about diversity and inclusion often spark debates that are personally and culturally sensitive. You may already have had personal experiences with these debates that are playing out in the relationships and activities you’ve begun to develop in your chosen areas of study. This assignment will involve synthesizing those debates, using the assigned scholarly articles and material from lecture, in addition to reliable outside sources, to make an argument about what obstacles stand in the way of enhancing diversity in your career community, and what can be done to counteract these trends, including the role a liberal arts education may play in this process.

Questions that might help generate ideas for your paper

• Are there broad cultural assumptions or stereotypes in this career community about who is best suited to perform particular kinds of work?  Where do those assumptions come from?  Are those assumptions harmful?
• Does this career community employ a diverse range of people or are its employees comprised of a narrow range of individuals?  What about its managers/owners/leaders?
• Does this career community provide goods or services to a restricted segment of the population?  Are there opportunities for bringing the benefits of this career community to a wider audience? 
• How does the experience of working in this career community differ around the globe?

Suggestions for focusing your topic

• Pick a specific occupation, industry, company, organization, or case with your broad career community to focus on.  Usually if you can narrow the topic of your paper, you can more easily bring in broad ideas from the literature to analyze that focused case.
• Reread the eight articles from your reader and think about whether any ideas, concepts, evidence, or arguments from those articles might be useful in your paper.  You may cite any of those articles that are helpful as scholarly sources in your paper.
• You might imagine your role in writing this paper as being an employee in an organization who is charged with analyzing diversity and inclusion in your own workplace.  Your goal is to write a brief memo -- supported by outside evidence -- describing the situation, identifying a concern, and proposing a change to your manager or supervisor.  

Steps to follow in composing and turning in your outline

For this first part of the assignment, you need to turn in a brief outline of your paper, including:

• a description of the topic of your paper (which aspect of diversity and which career community -- try to be specific as possible, to a particular industry, field, organization, or case)
• the intended thesis of your paper (the argument your paper will make about how diversity and inclusion are related to work in the career community -- this can be in terms of employment demographics, demographics of customers/clients, workplace policies that affect different groups in different ways, patterns of diversity that relate to the education required for this career, specific concerns about stereotypes or discrimination, etc.)
• a detailed map of the flow of your paper (indicating which authoritative articles you intend to use to help you make your argument)
• a tentative conclusion (that should answer the "why does this matter?" question)