Participants’ Awareness of and Concern with the Issues Addressed
The rating instrument used with the “RPP,” “Cultural,” and “Internalized” workshops included an item made up of a series of statements reflecting participants'
Figure 16.6: Working in an Increasingly Diverse and Global Society.
awareness of and concern with the issues addressed before and after the workshops. In all, there were 155 rating instruments from these three workshops. Participants were asked to select one of these statements, but 21 did not select any and 33 selected more than one.
The questions fell into two groups. The first looked at how often participants thought about the issues presented in the workshops (Table 16.2) and the second concerned reasons why the issues were important to them (Table 16.3). Of the 134 participants who provided answers to this section, 111 (83%) answered the items regarding how important the issues were to them and 102 (76%) answered the items that addressed why they were important. As Table 16.2 shows, nearly half of those answering the “How Often” items chose “Before today, I thought about these issues some of the time but this workshop helped me to identify new issues I don't usually think about,” and only a few (n = 8) had not previously thought about the issues. It is possible that many of those not answering also had not given much thought to the issues.
The statements selected suggest that these issues were very much on the minds of participants both before and as a result of the workshops. Only 12 of the responses (representing only nine persons) were to statements indicating lack of interest in the issues addressed. The rest, as Table 16.2 shows, chose statements that indicated that these issues were on their minds either some or all of the time.
Table 16.2 HOW OFTEN PARTICIPANTS THOUGHT ABOUT ISSUES
|
Number of Responses |
Percent of Responses |
Percent of Participants |
|
|
Before today, I never really thought about these issues. |
8 |
7.21% |
5.97% |
|
Before today, I never really thought about these issues and I don’t really see how they’re relevant to workplace roles, tasks and relationships. After today, I don’t really see myself continuing to explore them. |
4 |
3.60% |
2.99% |
|
Before today, I never really thought about these issues but I now understand how important they are to workplace roles, tasks and relationships and I will continue to explore them. |
16 |
14.41% |
11.94% |
|
Before today, I thought about these issues some of the time. |
16 |
14.41% |
11.94% |
|
Before today, I thought about these issues some of the time but this workshop helped me to identify new issues I don’t usually think about. |
53 |
47.75% |
39.55% |
|
Before today, I thought about these issues all of the time. |
14 |
12.61% |
10.45% |
|
Total |
111 |
100.00% |
82.84% |
Table 16.3 WHY ISSUES IMPORTANT
|
Number of Responses |
Percent of Responses |
Percent of Participants |
|
|
Before today, I thought about these issues all of the time because of who I am as a cultural being. |
27 |
26.47% |
20.15% |
|
Before today, I thought about these issues all of the time because of the work that I do. |
30 |
29.41% |
22.39% |
|
Before today, I thought about some of these issues all of the time but now I will think about others to pertain to who I am as a cultural being and issues of power and privilege. |
45 |
44.12% |
33.58% |
|
Total |
102 |
100.00% |
76.12% |
Identifying or not identifying as a person of color had no statistically significant effect on whether items were chosen.
The most frequent response to why the issues presented were important to participants was the third option, (See Table 16.3) that some of the issues presented were previously on the participant's mind all of the time but now he or she will think about other issues pertaining to himself or herself as a cultural being and to issues of power and privilege.
