Preparing a Racialized Equity Labor Force: The Role of Race, Gender, and Place
Employers’ ideas about who should learn the cultural competencies needed for engagement in workplace diversity initiatives reflect their own race and gender and those of educators and learners. I explore how employers, through their reaction to colleges’ efforts to teach students cultural competency...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2025
|
| In: |
Race and social problems
Year: 2025, Volume: 17, Issue: 4, Pages: 401-418 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Keywords: |
| Summary: | Employers’ ideas about who should learn the cultural competencies needed for engagement in workplace diversity initiatives reflect their own race and gender and those of educators and learners. I explore how employers, through their reaction to colleges’ efforts to teach students cultural competency, influence the preparation of a labor force capable of engaging in these initiatives. Specifically, I analyze gender and racial variation in employers’ responses to colleges’ efforts designed to foster cultural competency and whether they believe cultural competencies are more appropriate for students of color or White students to learn. Using survey experiment data from a sample of employers drawn from the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center AmeriSpeak panel, I manipulate the type of college shown to respondents: a Historically Black College versus a Historically White one. White men express the least support for cultural competency initiatives across conditions, though they show comparatively greater support when these efforts occur in HBCUs versus HWCUs. White women exhibit few differences across conditions but demonstrate consistently higher levels of support than White men when exposed to either condition. Black men exhibit slightly greater enthusiasm for initiatives at HBCUs, whereas Black women’s support is similar across conditions. Employers may not fully back the student cultural competency development, but they do not entirely reject the value of colleges preparing students with skills to engage in workplace diversity initiatives. The findings underscore the intersection of race and gender in shaping attitudes about cultural competency education and its perceived role in advancing workplace equity. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1867-1756 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s12552-025-09448-y |
