Subject Based Activities
Management and Business studies
“The only way to ensure your business is diverse and reaps the benefits of diversity is to adopt a strategic approach to the issue ….Diversity has to be positioned in an organisation as part of the way things are around here. In other words how people are treated and how people treat each other” (2007 Ali)
Examples of managed approaches to diversity and image
- In ShipleyCollege there are posters on the wall of each classroom saying “EVERYONE MATTERS.”
- The Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education celebrates diversity with an annual diversity week. In 2004 the Diversity week had a multiculturalism theme with both staff and students taking part in activities ranging from Indian and Chinese dancing to discussions about racism in sport.
- The University of Huddersfield published “Towards Diversity”- a six-page colour newsletter, covering :-how to create a fair and inclusive environment in the university, why the university monitors equality data, equality and diversity training and the accessibility of buildings.
?Which of these approaches would you consider to be the most effective?
?Why? Can you suggest any other approaches?
Lesson Notes
All colleges, HE Institutions, training organisations and all public sector bodies should have Equality and Diversity policies. They have a legal duty under the terms of equality legislation to : promote racial equality, to promote equality between men and women and to actively look at ways at ensuring equality for disabled people.
Narrow diversity : Some organisations do the legal minimum necessary, that is; they monitor data and assess and report on the impact of their policies on different racial groups, on women and men and on disabled people.
Broad diversity : Some organisations are more proactive and aim to promote diversity in all aspects of their work – in their employment practice and in their customer base. Their policies also include promoting diversity in religion and political belief, economic background, sexuality and age.
Look at the “aims” section of your organisation’spolicy on Equality and Diversity and consider whether, in your opinion, they take a narrow approach to diversity or a broad approach.
Health, public services and care
“Fitness Standards Formal Investigation: The Disability Rights Commission launched a general formal investigation on 22 May 2006 looking at the barriers people with impairments and long-term health conditions face in trying to pursue careers in teaching, nursing and social work. We are focusing on the issue of fitness standards because we are concerned that people with impairments and long-term health conditions are sometimes seen as not fit to work in these occupations – perhaps because they are considered to be a risk to the public or because these jobs are seen as too demanding for people with impairments or long-term health conditions to cope with.” (DRC website 18/01/2007)
Examples of a “fitness standard”
- Nursing and Midwifery Council (Education, Registration and Registration Appeals) Rules 2004’ mention “good health and good character”
- The ‘Registration of Social and Independent Health Care, Wales, Regulations 2002’ requires a statement confirming that the applicant is “physically or mentally fit for the purposes of the work which he or she is to perform”.
?What is Health? How can you recognise it? Can you be both disabled and healthy?
?What is Fitness? Fit for what?
?Do people working in the Health and Social Care sectors need to be physically and mentally fit and healthy?Why? / Why not?
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Lesson Notes
People working in the health and social care sector may be more used to the stereotype of a disabled person as a patient, customer, client or resident.. Like all employees, Health care workers with disabilities and chronic health conditions are covered by the Disability Discrimination Act.
Look up information on the medical model of disability and the social model of disability on the Disability Rights Commission web site.
Consider which of those models apply to your experience of work in health or social care sector.
Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy
Is it inevitable that we will discriminate against people who are not of average appearance e.g. physically disabled, older, shorter, fatter or thinner than average?
On the BBC Slink magazine web pages ( aimed at teenage girls), web surfers are invited to deface pictures of celebrities by morphing their faces using a game called “DFACE”
Have a go at this morphing game or make your own morph picture of a face as above.
Discuss in pairs
?Would it be fair to do that to a picture of a friend? Or to a picture of yourself? Does it feel different to deface the picture of a celebrity?
?If you change your face, if you cover your face or if you present a different image to others, do you change who you are?
?Do other people’s reactions to how you look affect your every day activities?
Lesson Notes
What is a beautiful face? Some scientists have argued that we are biologically ‘hard wired’ to be attracted to a healthy and symmetrical face or a young face.
Theorists like Judith Langlois have argued that we are attracted to faces that have an average shape and size of features (1990) and that as a child we develop a stereotype in our minds of what is an attractive face.
The definition of disability according to the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) includes “severe disfigurement “. A wine bar refused to allow entry to a person who had a skin condition, which was found to be a disfigurement as defined under the DDA. This case highlights the social barriers confronting people who do not fit the stereotyped view of “averagely attractive”.
Go on the web site of the Disability Rights Commission, Key in “disfigurement” and search for legal cases that have been taken about this issue. Consider, as a customer, how you would react in this situation.
References
Ali, Mohammed, Chief Executive of QED UK, “Hearts and minds first” in Telegraph and Argus, Bradford and District Newspapers, Monday January 15th 2007
Disability Rights Commission Web site January 18th 2006