ChatterBank1 min ago
Diversity Or Ability?
57 Answers
http://
/// Schools are being offered £30,000 extra funding to hire and promote gay and transgender teachers, it can be revealed. ///
/// Critics have described the policy as "profoundly misguided" and warned it will oblige head teachers to favour some staff over others, regardless of their
ability. ///
/// Schools are being offered £30,000 extra funding to hire and promote gay and transgender teachers, it can be revealed. ///
/// Critics have described the policy as "profoundly misguided" and warned it will oblige head teachers to favour some staff over others, regardless of their
ability. ///
Answers
Jim, //The more people you are drawing from when choosing your workforce, the better chance you will have of finding the most able people.// I don’t understand your reasoning. Schools already have the whole workforce from which to choose and their choice should always be the most able candidate for the job. This scheme is intended as an incentive to favour...
07:56 Mon 07th Dec 2015
Jim, //The more people you are drawing from when choosing your workforce, the better chance you will have of finding the most able people.//
I don’t understand your reasoning. Schools already have the whole workforce from which to choose and their choice should always be the most able candidate for the job. This scheme is intended as an incentive to favour certain sections of the community, and is therefore discriminatory. I disagree with it entirely.
(I don’t understand the confusion over the OP either – unless the inhabitants of the schoolyard are, as always, relishing the opportunity to take yet another puerile pop at AOG).
I don’t understand your reasoning. Schools already have the whole workforce from which to choose and their choice should always be the most able candidate for the job. This scheme is intended as an incentive to favour certain sections of the community, and is therefore discriminatory. I disagree with it entirely.
(I don’t understand the confusion over the OP either – unless the inhabitants of the schoolyard are, as always, relishing the opportunity to take yet another puerile pop at AOG).
People seem to think that all the problems of discrimination in the workplace seen in , well, almost all of human history are now magically over. Who are they trying to kid? In theory, yes, the entire workforce is now available but this is far from the case in practice. For many reasons, people from minority groups can still struggle to break into certain jobs. In some cases this is as much due to the perception of barriers, ie that people fear they won't be welcome in a particular environment. That, too, can be detrimental to the chances of finding the best talent. That too represents something that schemes like this can be used to overcome.
In an ideal world you are of course exactly right that such schemes are discrimination and therefore inappropriate. But we aren't there yet. To get there may require some effort to nudge things in the right direction. And it is correct that a more diverse workforce is a more able one. The question presented by the OP is a false dichotomy.
In an ideal world you are of course exactly right that such schemes are discrimination and therefore inappropriate. But we aren't there yet. To get there may require some effort to nudge things in the right direction. And it is correct that a more diverse workforce is a more able one. The question presented by the OP is a false dichotomy.
Whilst human nature is what it is – and it always will be – a truly level playing field can never exist. Efforts to counter that result in us tying ourselves up in knots. Promotion of one group will always result in discrimination against another – and that’s not fair either. Leaders of industry may recruit as they wish, but where the education of our children is concerned only the best qualified will do.
No, it can't ever exist. But I don't agree that there's more harm than good done by trying. Challenging discrimination, or the perception of it, wherever we find it ends up opening things up far more than they used to be -- and that is a sign of progress, whatever you and AOG may think.
Even the "only the best will do" comment is indicative that there is still a sense of bias in our society that if you are a member of a minority then you probably got where you are because of positive discrimination, rather than talent, whereas someone who isn't from a minority background obviously deserved the job solely on merit. Which is utter nonsense. Programmes like this are, or at least should be, about ensuring that the application process is as open as possible. In the end, of course, talent should be the deciding factor, but there remain huge imbalances at the application process. And that is was these outreach programmes are trying to change.
Even the "only the best will do" comment is indicative that there is still a sense of bias in our society that if you are a member of a minority then you probably got where you are because of positive discrimination, rather than talent, whereas someone who isn't from a minority background obviously deserved the job solely on merit. Which is utter nonsense. Programmes like this are, or at least should be, about ensuring that the application process is as open as possible. In the end, of course, talent should be the deciding factor, but there remain huge imbalances at the application process. And that is was these outreach programmes are trying to change.
"No one is barred from applying."
Like I said, that may be true in theory but not in practice! Bars may not be set up deliberately but they can still exist in the perception, and so that perception has to be challenged. Sometimes by brute force, if necessary, until there is no longer any such perception.
As a case in point, Oxbridge applications are open to all, but there is still an overwhelming majority of such applications from private school education -- in part because there is an industry of encouraging and aiding applications in private schools that doesn't exist in the state school system, but also because many state schools still perceive Oxford and Cambridge Universities as elitist. They are wrong -- but the perception is real, and has denied many a capable state school student from even considering an application in the first place. So the universities set up outreach programmes to change these perceptions, and gradually the relative balance between applications is changing in the right direction. Were that not the case, many totally able students might never have bothered to apply, and would therefore certainly not have been accepted. The standards for acceptance never changed (hopefully), but active encouragement have ensured that the application pool is as large as possible, so that the final selection of candidates is far more likely to be the most talented. (For the record, this didn't quite apply to me, as though I came from a state school background I'd already decided I wanted to apply to Cambridge when I was 12, long before I had a chance to perceive the place as elitist. For others at my school, including some who ended up going to Cambridge, I'm fairly sure the outreach programme was quite important in helping to persuade them to consider it, and they were ultimately successful. The University, and the students, benefitted from encouraging diversity.)
Just saying that you have an open application policy and hoping that things will osmose naturally to a state at which the applicants, and then the workforce, are a roughly proportionate reflection of the diversity in society, inevitably means that you will wait a long time. And during that wait, you can be sure that at least some would-be applicants, totally capable of the job, may never apply -- because wishing does not make it so. It takes work to ensure that equality is realised.
Like I said, that may be true in theory but not in practice! Bars may not be set up deliberately but they can still exist in the perception, and so that perception has to be challenged. Sometimes by brute force, if necessary, until there is no longer any such perception.
As a case in point, Oxbridge applications are open to all, but there is still an overwhelming majority of such applications from private school education -- in part because there is an industry of encouraging and aiding applications in private schools that doesn't exist in the state school system, but also because many state schools still perceive Oxford and Cambridge Universities as elitist. They are wrong -- but the perception is real, and has denied many a capable state school student from even considering an application in the first place. So the universities set up outreach programmes to change these perceptions, and gradually the relative balance between applications is changing in the right direction. Were that not the case, many totally able students might never have bothered to apply, and would therefore certainly not have been accepted. The standards for acceptance never changed (hopefully), but active encouragement have ensured that the application pool is as large as possible, so that the final selection of candidates is far more likely to be the most talented. (For the record, this didn't quite apply to me, as though I came from a state school background I'd already decided I wanted to apply to Cambridge when I was 12, long before I had a chance to perceive the place as elitist. For others at my school, including some who ended up going to Cambridge, I'm fairly sure the outreach programme was quite important in helping to persuade them to consider it, and they were ultimately successful. The University, and the students, benefitted from encouraging diversity.)
Just saying that you have an open application policy and hoping that things will osmose naturally to a state at which the applicants, and then the workforce, are a roughly proportionate reflection of the diversity in society, inevitably means that you will wait a long time. And during that wait, you can be sure that at least some would-be applicants, totally capable of the job, may never apply -- because wishing does not make it so. It takes work to ensure that equality is realised.
Jim, //Someone always has to lose out.//
That’s exactly what I’m saying. The principle is commendable in its way, but idealism can’t work in practice. I really don’t see how we can ‘engineer’ the result and call it ‘fair’. Think how delighted you’d be if someone less qualified and less capable left you unemployed simply because he was gay and you are not.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. The principle is commendable in its way, but idealism can’t work in practice. I really don’t see how we can ‘engineer’ the result and call it ‘fair’. Think how delighted you’d be if someone less qualified and less capable left you unemployed simply because he was gay and you are not.
Presumably I'd feel as rotten as that gay person, and many others like him, will have felt in the years when things were very clearly the other way around.
I don't agree that this is about promoting less-able people just to tick diversity boxes, which is the slant you're putting on it. It seems to me to be more about encouraging applications from, and providing training to, those from under-represented backgrounds in a bid to boost representation. If it did get to the point where, say, a superb candidate with impeccable credentials were discarded ahead of some useless random person who happens to tick a few boxes, then I'd absolutely agree that that's wrong -- but I'm not convinced at all that this is what the scheme is about. It's the Telegraph's take on a story that they've already twisted a little by focusing on one particular minority characteristic as opposed to the myriad others.
At the end, I think we both agree that talent and ability should triumph over other considerations, but if that is genuinely the only thing that matters to getting a job then it stands to reason that such a workforce will be representative of the diversity of society. And it isn't. So you have to question whether ability is really the only thing that matters, and it can help to actively encourage things to move them in the right direction.
Consistently asking the question as if ability and diversity were a choice is really quite mistaken. The two go hand in hand, and you don't have to choose one over the other. I don't think this scheme undermines that, because it is focused on driving up applications specifically, and the standards for acceptance to the job will still apply.
And yes, Ellipsis, you're right.
I don't agree that this is about promoting less-able people just to tick diversity boxes, which is the slant you're putting on it. It seems to me to be more about encouraging applications from, and providing training to, those from under-represented backgrounds in a bid to boost representation. If it did get to the point where, say, a superb candidate with impeccable credentials were discarded ahead of some useless random person who happens to tick a few boxes, then I'd absolutely agree that that's wrong -- but I'm not convinced at all that this is what the scheme is about. It's the Telegraph's take on a story that they've already twisted a little by focusing on one particular minority characteristic as opposed to the myriad others.
At the end, I think we both agree that talent and ability should triumph over other considerations, but if that is genuinely the only thing that matters to getting a job then it stands to reason that such a workforce will be representative of the diversity of society. And it isn't. So you have to question whether ability is really the only thing that matters, and it can help to actively encourage things to move them in the right direction.
Consistently asking the question as if ability and diversity were a choice is really quite mistaken. The two go hand in hand, and you don't have to choose one over the other. I don't think this scheme undermines that, because it is focused on driving up applications specifically, and the standards for acceptance to the job will still apply.
And yes, Ellipsis, you're right.
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