Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Diversity Displays and Organizational Messaging: The Case of Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Diversity Displays and Organizational Messaging: The Case of Historically Black Colleges and... Diversity has simultaneously become a pervasive goal and euphemism for racial differences in higher education. Although discourses within the postsecondary context highlight the positive impact of diversity on learning outcomes, organizational diversity efforts nevertheless warrant interrogation, given their possible obfuscation if not reification of, racial inequality and hierarchy. How do Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)—colleges and universities that are, by their very nature, racialized organizations within higher education—express and adapt to the challenges presented by diversity imperatives? In this article, we interrogate this question through systematic content analyses of visual and narrative materials from 31 HBCUs. Results highlight how these institutions often rely on the same mechanisms that characterize diversity within predominately White institutions (PWIs)—commodification of difference and disconnection from issues of racial equity. Consequently, diversity for HBCUs reflects the more general racialized inequality regime in higher education—a regime wherein these organizations largely reinforce ideas, such as racial capitalism, which have implications for racial equity. Our results and discussion hold implications for scholarship on organizational diversity but are also informative with regard to the capacity and constraints of racialized organizations to meet the needs and interests of those they serve. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Sociology of Race and Ethnicity SAGE

Diversity Displays and Organizational Messaging: The Case of Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Download PDF
17 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/sage/diversity-displays-and-organizational-messaging-the-case-of-oIu1odoPud

References (66)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© American Sociological Association 2021
ISSN
2332-6492
eISSN
2332-6506
DOI
10.1177/2332649220980480
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Diversity has simultaneously become a pervasive goal and euphemism for racial differences in higher education. Although discourses within the postsecondary context highlight the positive impact of diversity on learning outcomes, organizational diversity efforts nevertheless warrant interrogation, given their possible obfuscation if not reification of, racial inequality and hierarchy. How do Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)—colleges and universities that are, by their very nature, racialized organizations within higher education—express and adapt to the challenges presented by diversity imperatives? In this article, we interrogate this question through systematic content analyses of visual and narrative materials from 31 HBCUs. Results highlight how these institutions often rely on the same mechanisms that characterize diversity within predominately White institutions (PWIs)—commodification of difference and disconnection from issues of racial equity. Consequently, diversity for HBCUs reflects the more general racialized inequality regime in higher education—a regime wherein these organizations largely reinforce ideas, such as racial capitalism, which have implications for racial equity. Our results and discussion hold implications for scholarship on organizational diversity but are also informative with regard to the capacity and constraints of racialized organizations to meet the needs and interests of those they serve.

Journal

Sociology of Race and Ethnicity – SAGE

Published: Jul 1, 2021

There are no references for this article.