Diversity Digest

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion at King's College London

Tag: community cultural wealth

The Demand for Difference

December 11, 2020 /

This blog is part of a series from Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Sarah Guerra, where she will be addressing the ‘whole picture’ of EDI, why it is important, and how we go about making effective, systemic change.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of opening our Network summit in partnership with Radius, and earlier in the week, the privilege of attending the launch of our new Mutual Mentoring scheme. In doing so, I was able to reflect on how essential building empathy and understanding are, and the role which staff networks play in EDI success. Celebrating diversity and difference and building community is a critical component of our EDI strategy here at King’s. It is one of the reasons we have made a conscious and proactive effort to develop and support staff networks, partner with KCLSU, broaden our development approach to  More than Mentoring, and ensure that we continue to support network development and wellbeing via events like the Radius summit.

Celebrating difference is about recognising that each employee or student is unique and valuing that individual difference. It is about understanding each other and moving beyond tolerance, to fully embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions that a truly diverse community can bring. Celebrating cultural events across the year, whether it be Pride, Black History Month, Trans Awareness Week, or Disability History Month, which we are currently celebrating, helps to unite and educate, and allows us to better understand each other’s perspectives.

King’s College London’s Proudly King’s Network at London Pride

Through understanding a range of diverse backgrounds and experiences, we can all gain a sense of pride for the diversity of our culture. Celebrating and understanding varied backgrounds is crucial to personal and community growth.

There are so many benefits of celebrating differences and enabling people to be their true selves at work. For example, doing this helps us and our organisations overcome stereotypes.

‘A stereotype is an over-generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group’

Stereotyping, whether it be conscious or unconscious, is too commonplace. It has a negative impact on the way people see and behave with others who they perceive (consciously or unconsciously) as different. Stereotyping encourages us to make assumptions about others, which can be incorrect and hurtful, as well as hindering collaboration and teamwork. When an organisation celebrates differences, it encourages the dissolution of preconceived notions, breaks down stereotypes and helps us to see people for who they are.

Celebrating difference and counteracting stereotypes discourages racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism, to name but a few key things we must combat. These are often borne out of fear and ignorance. In the workplace, it could be a subtle joke or simply leaving someone out; either way it is not something we want to persist. With increased awareness and appreciation of different cultures and races comes increased respect for other people and their differences. Prejudice and stereotypes are removed through education and celebration and their removal is a necessity to discourage the ignorance that supports these ‘isms’.

People tend to surround themselves with people ‘like them’, as it is familiar and safe. Therefore, it is important to actively build cultural awareness of difference. Encouraging working with different cultures and backgrounds not only helps to educate others and build appreciation of other cultures and their histories, but it can also prevent ‘groupthink’.

Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of individuals reaches a consensus without critical reasoning or evaluation of the consequences or alternatives. Groupthink is based on a common desire not to upset the balance of a group of people.

It is proven that having a more diverse set of people in the room prevents groupthink, leading to innovation, which ultimately leads to better decision-making. Increasing openness to difference helps create new ways of working, improves current processes and gives people the ability to make changes in the way they work, for the better. Once again, I recommend my AKC lecture to consider this in more detail.

Groupthink can encourage harmful or detrimental ways of thinking

In seeking ‘unity’ we must, at the same time, remember and celebrate individual uniqueness.  Without this we will not be enabling people to be themselves. We will instead risk forcing them to assimilate to ‘a norm’. Embracing and celebrating difference brings a greater breadth of ideas and solutions and builds a culture where everyone feels valued and appreciated. Developing this inclusive culture requires more sophisticated and capable managers, as increased diversity increases the perspectives and ideas that need to be reconciled and rationalised. One of the ways we are helping build this is via Cultural Competency, a set of behaviours which takes this thinking and embeds it into the curriculum and professional development for all students and staff.

I developed my own confidence and capability by learning about myself and my differences, and consequently, was able to move from feeling othered to feeling empowered and confident. This is why I believe that this celebration of difference and building of community is one of the most crucial requirements of being successful, and why I have embedded it within King’s overall EDI  .

Reconceptualising Resilience

May 5, 2020 /

Alex Prestage is Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Manager at King’s. Throughout his career, he’s reflected on resilience in Higher Education and now offers his thoughts on its potential as the King’s community rise to challenges posed by the current pandemic.

Resilience – a word we often use in times of crisis.

Before continuing to read, spend a second or two to reflect: what is resilience? Where does it come from? How can it be measured?

What were your thoughts and reflections? Was it an easy concept to define? Do you think you have it? How much do you think you have? When will you know you have enough? How do you get more?

Of course, I’m being only slightly facetious here. Resilience is a word we rarely define in specific terms and it’s almost impossible to measure quantitatively – the threshold for it is usually imagined. It’s a hard concept to grapple with, and often just leaves us wanting more.

Resilience is commonly defined as the capacity for an individual or organisation to recover from adversity – something, perhaps, we can all relate to of late; something we are going to, collectively, need more of in the future.

However, the UK Education sector (not just HE) and successive governments have a worrying habit when speaking about resilience – a habit of adopting a flawed model and way of thinking, particularly when referring to our learners and their outcomes. You might remember Nicki Morgan and David Cameron’s Character Education or be familiar with Angela Lee Duckworth’s grit.

Typically, when invoking ‘character’ or ‘grit’ we refer to resilience as essential or innate; something that people either have some (or no) capacity for and that this is static. More often than not, we refer to a deficit of resilience, a lack, suggesting that the outcome of a situation may have been more positive “if only X had been more resilient”.

It’s this conceptualisation of resilience in HE that I and others have written about before, and this understanding that I think UK HE, and King’s, should move away from if we are to be truly resilient to the adversity we currently face and will continue to face as a community of colleagues and learners. However, I’m not about to bash an idea without an alternative to propose.

So, what am I suggesting?

Reconceptualising resilience.

Naturally as an Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Practitioner (and lapsed social scientist), I draw from minority voices – those who have the most adversity to – for sage guidance and advice.

Professor Tara J. Yosso, a critical race theorist who applies CRT to education and access, explores the subject of community cultural wealth to recognise the diverse, often ‘invisible’ forms of wealth and capital ethnic minority communities have access to (or don’t).

A model of community cultural wealth, which is comprised of linguistic, resistant, navigational, social, familial and aspirational capital.Professor Jaqueline Stevenson applied Yosso’s model to students studying in UK HE, and used the framework to better understand what makes communities and individuals resilient (or not).

The research of both academics suggests that resilience is in fact a social phenomenon. Rather than being intrinsic to the individual, resilience is generated and created by communities; and, by extension, we all play a part in developing and maintaining others’ – and our collective – resilience. Like a big team effort, if you like. It’s also important to recognise that many of the factors influencing resilience are beyond our control – empathy walks are a great way of visualising and demonstrating this fact.

In the context of a global pandemic, and the challenges we as a community of colleagues and learners face and will continue to face, I’d like to focus on three forms of capital we can all help foster:

  1. Aspirational capital, our ability to maintain hopes and dreams;
  2. Social capital, our network links and community resources including emotional support;
  3. Navigational capital, our ability to maneuver through institutions.

Indeed, I’ve spotted examples of our community adapting and fostering these assets in our emerging response to the situation, but I’d like to emphasise the value in the subtle, ‘soft’ behaviours – they aren’t just for lockdown, but for life!

Aspirational capital — with so much ambiguity and uncertainty, it can be hard to maintain confidence in our hopes and dreams. We might need some time to take stock and (re)appraise our goals in light of the new parameters and context we find ourselves in. For many of our students, particularly finalists, this will be an area of vulnerability and concern. It’s important to recognise the emotional toll that this sense of loss, ambiguity, and a process of reimagining our hopes and dreams might take; each of us can be alert to this fact and seek to support one another with finding new hopes and dreams, no matter the scale.

Social capital – whilst the everyday reality of lockdown looks different for everyone, varying according to our caring responsibilities, living situation, health etc., we all have a degree of social distance and isolation between us. It’s been fantastic to see many of the teams I work with across the university initiating digital coffee breaks to maintain the social fabric of King’s. Our networks and connections are assets we draw on in our work and learning, especially in the face of adversity. Creating and developing opportunities for staff and students to e-meet, connect and enjoy the benefit of a simple conversation is more important now than ever before.

Navigational capital – as our context changes, we’ve rapidly adapted our teaching and services, impressively so! . For some of our students and staff, this will mean trying a new platform (like Zoom or MS Teams) or will mean that they are required to navigate another part of our already complex organisation. Where we have been required to change and adapt, it’s important to bring others with us, providing clear instructions and signposting as applicable. Something that might seem glaringly obvious from one perspective might not be the case from another.

They may seem like small steps, nudges if you like, but theory (and my own practice) suggests that we will foster a more empathetic, more resilient community through renegotiating and so maintaining hopes and dreams, taking time with one another socially, and providing clear instructions with no assumptions. I’m passionate about realising a reality where we take collective responsibility for addressing and weathering the adversity we face — a community of colleagues and learners where we are stronger together than apart.

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