Advancing Together
Uniting Through Difference: Rich Cultural-Identity Expression as a Conduit to Inclusion
Rachel Arnett
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although previous research suggests that bringing attention to minority cultural identities in the workplace can lead to professional penalties, this research provides promising evidence that the opposite can occur. I examine how cultural minority employees engaging in rich and meaningful conversations about their racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds (referred to as rich cultural-identity expression) influences majority-group coworkers’ inclusive behaviors, such as majority-group employees’ willingness to socially integrate with and professionally support minority coworkers. Three experiments found evidence of majority-group employees behaving more -- not less -- inclusively toward minority coworkers who engaged in rich cultural-identity expression, as opposed to small talk that did not bring attention to a minority cultural background. Even when minority employees richly expressed negatively valenced cultural information that could provoke anxiety (such as issues with discrimination), this form of sharing had positive effects on most measures of inclusive behavior in Studies 2 and 3 (although one exception was found in Study 3). No benefits were observed when minority employees engaged in surface-level cultural-identity expression (Studies 2 and 3) and intimate, noncultural self-disclosure (Study 2). The power of rich cultural-identity expression is its ability to increase majority-group individuals’ status perceptions of, feelings of closeness to, and sense of learning potential from minority coworkers. This research provides promising evidence that minority employees may be able to express valued aspects of their cultural identities while gaining -- as opposed to jeopardizing -- inclusion.
Why Do Companies Go Woke?
Nicolai Foss & Peter Klein
Baylor University Working Paper, November 2022
Abstract:
“Woke” companies are those that are committed to socially progressive causes, with a particular focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion as these terms are understood through the lens of critical theory. There is little evidence of systematic support for woke ideas among executives and the population at large, and going woke does not appear to improve company performance. Why, then are so many firms embracing woke policies and attitudes? We suggest that going woke is an emergent strategy that is largely shaped by middle managers rather than owners, top managers, or employees. We build on theories from agency theory, institutional theory, and intra-organizational ecology to argue that wokeness arises from middle managers and support personnel using their delegated responsibility and specialist status to engage in woke internal advocacy, which may increase their influence and job security. Broader social and cultural trends tend to reinforce this process. We discuss implications for organizational behavior and performance including perceived corporate hypocrisy (“woke-washing”), the potential loss of creativity from restricting viewpoint diversity, and the need for companies to keep up with a constantly changing cultural landscape.
Time Is Money? Wage Premiums and Penalties for Time-Related Occupational Demands
Wei-hsin Yu & Janet Chen-Lan Kuo
American Journal of Sociology, November 2022, Pages 820–865
Abstract:
Despite research linking time-related work demands to gender inequality, the literature lacks a comprehensive analysis of wage premiums and penalties associated with differing temporal demands. Using longitudinal data and fixed-effects models that address unobserved heterogeneity among workers, we examine how various temporal constraints imposed by occupations are associated with pay. Unlike prior studies, our analysis separates an individual’s working hours from an occupation’s expected work time. We find pay premiums attached to the requirements for long hours and meeting frequent deadlines, but we find wage penalties for occupations that require much temporal coordination and allow little work-structuring discretion. Schedule irregularity is linked to lower pay for women but higher pay for men. Thus, differing remuneration logics appear to apply to different time-related occupational demands. The analysis also indicates that the premium for the occupation’s work-time expectation is lower for women, particularly professional and managerial women, even after considering their actual working hours. We suggest that employers’ suspicion of women’s ability to comply with their occupation’s work-time norm, which is likely more pronounced for professional and managerial women, might contribute to these results.
Underrepresented Minority Students in College: The Role of Classmates
Daniel Oliver
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
The role of racial diversity at colleges has been debated for over more than a half a century with limited quasi-experimental evidence from classrooms. To fill this void, I estimate the extent that classmate racial compositions affect Hispanic and African American students at a large and oversubscribed California community college where they are minorities. I find that when minority students are exposed to a greater share of same-race classmates, they are more likely to complete the class with a pass and are more likely to enroll in a same-subject course the subsequent term. The findings are robust to first-time students with the lowest registration priority versus all students and different combinations of fixed effects (e.g., student, class, and instructor race).
Female peer mentors early in college have lasting positive impacts on female engineering students that persist beyond graduation
Deborah Wu, Kelsey Thiem & Nilanjana Dasgupta
Nature Communications, November 2022
Abstract:
Expanding the talent pipeline of students from underrepresented backgrounds in STEM has been a priority in the United States for decades. However, potential solutions to increase the number of such students in STEM academic pathways, measured using longitudinal randomized controlled trials in real-world contexts, have been limited. Here, we expand on an earlier investigation that reported results from a longitudinal field experiment in which undergraduate female students (N = 150) interested in engineering at college entry were randomly assigned a female peer mentor in engineering, a male peer mentor in engineering, or not assigned a mentor for their first year of college. While an earlier article presented findings from participants’ first two years of college, the current article reports the same participants’ academic experiences for each year in college through college graduation and one year post-graduation. Compared to the male peer mentor and no mentor condition, having a female peer mentor was associated with a significant improvement in participants’ psychological experiences in engineering, aspirations to pursue postgraduate engineering degrees, and emotional well-being. It was also associated with participants’ success in securing engineering internships and retention in STEM majors through college graduation. In sum, a low-cost, short peer mentoring intervention demonstrates benefits in promoting female students’ success in engineering from college entry, through one-year post-graduation.
Higher Education and the Black-White Earnings Gap
Xiang Zhou & Guanghui Pan
American Sociological Review, February 2023, Pages 154-188
Abstract:
How does higher education shape the Black-White earnings gap? It may help close the gap if Black youth benefit more from attending and completing college than do White youth. On the other hand, Black college-goers are less likely to complete college relative to White students, and this disparity in degree completion helps reproduce racial inequality. In this study, we use a novel causal decomposition and a debiased machine learning method to isolate, quantify, and explain the equalizing and stratifying roles of college. Analyzing data from the NLSY97, we find that a bachelor’s degree has a strong equalizing effect on earnings among men (albeit not among women); yet, at the population level, this equalizing effect is partly offset by unequal likelihoods of bachelor’s completion between Black and White students. Moreover, a bachelor’s degree narrows the male Black-White earnings gap not by reducing the influence of class background and pre-college academic ability, but by lessening the “unexplained” penalty of being Black in the labor market. To illuminate the policy implications of our findings, we estimate counterfactual earnings gaps under a series of stylized educational interventions. We find that interventions that both boost rates of college attendance and bachelor’s completion and close racial disparities in these transitions can substantially reduce the Black-White earnings gap.
The (In)Flexibility of Racial Discrimination: Labor Market Context and the Racial Wage Gap in the United States, 2000 to 2021
Felipe Dias
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, February 2023
Abstract:
Does racial wage discrimination increase during economic downturns? In this article, the author tests empirically the association between economic conditions and racial wage discrimination for black, Hispanic, and Asian workers. Using data from the Current Population Survey, the author finds that the wage gap between Hispanics and whites, and between Asians and whites, increases with the job-seeker rate and unemployment rate. However, the wage gap between black and white workers increases slightly with the unemployment rate and does not change at all with the job-seeker rate. The author advances the concept of “wage discrimination flexibility” to argue that racial wage discrimination against black workers is more rigid and resistant to changes in economic environments, whereas wage discrimination against Hispanics and Asians is more flexible and responsive to economic conditions. The author discusses the implications of these findings for theories of discrimination and for policies aiming to foster equal opportunities in the labor market.
Race and teaching evaluations: Evidence from the covid-19 pandemic
Christopher John Cruz, Sonia Dalmia & Manuel Pulido-Velásquez
Applied Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
While faculty of colour tend to receive lower course evaluations, it is unclear whether the lack of face-to-face interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic affected them differently. We examine this question using course-level data from a large US university. Estimates from our difference-in-differences models show that non-white faculty suffered a larger decline in ratings compared to their white peers, with the effect persisting even after controlling for English as the faculty’s second language. These findings contribute in furthering the discussion on how universities value course evaluations to measure teaching effectiveness and allocate faculty resources.
Principal and Teacher Shared Race and Gender Intersections: Teacher Turnover, Workplace Conditions, and Monetary Benefits
Samantha Viano, Luis Rodriguez & Seth Hunter
AERA Open, January 2023
Abstract:
Recruiting racially minoritized principals is one suggested strategy to increase the racial diversity of teachers, who would then better match their increasingly racially diverse students. However, focusing solely on race ignores the salience of race-gender intersectionality in principal-teacher relations. Using three waves of nationally representative, cross-sectional data with school and year fixed effects, we compared similar teachers in the same school who are and are not race-gender congruent with their principal. We found that better discretionary workplace benefits were concentrated among Black teachers with Black principals, especially Black male teachers with Black male principals, who reported workplace supports almost half a standard deviation higher than did similar non-Black female teachers in their school. Male teachers earned up to $2,890 more supplemental income with male, racially congruent principals; female teachers earned up to $1,050 less with female, racially congruent principals. However, teacher turnover was not consistently responsive to race-gender congruence.