Journal of Management Education

A diversity education dilemma occurs when exposure to information concerning status hierarchies, related to demographic and other socially salient identity groups, reinforces those hierarchies in the classroom. Discussions of diversity-related issues in a variety of management courses (e.g., immigrant issues in labor relations, the composition of executive leadership teams in strategy, workplace compliance issues in human resource management) may highlight or draw attention to status differences as individuals identify with—and are identified by others as belonging to—higher or lower status groups (e.g., based on race/ethnicity, gender, or physical disability). As a consequence, the “real world” status hierarchy is strengthened within the classroom with negative consequences for student learning. This study uses status characteristics theory to provide a framework for understanding ways in which one’s best-intended practices may be undermining student learning. The authors also propose a series of practical ways that instructors can mitigate the status hierarchy to create a more equitable learning environment while simultaneously tackling issues related to diversity.

The assignment for the students was to write honestly about how they felt regarding specific current events dealing with diversity. However, what resulted was a kairos moment for the professor—an instance that called for her best response even when she did not know what that was—when a student crossed the line in terms of respectful communication. Our story picks up there and follows us through our own emotions and dialogues as we worked to make sense as to why the student responded as he did and how the emotionally charged issue could be turned into a teachable moment around language, boundaries, understanding, and acceptance.

In this article, the authors describe a classroom incident and their subsequent learnings about effectively managing issues of gender diversity in an MBA course titled “Women in Organizations.” The authors employ Kolb’s learning cycle as a framework for describing the incident (concrete experience), reflecting on and discussing what occurred (reflective observation), examining pertinent literature for possible explanations (abstract conceptualization ), and devising practical strategies to mitigate such incidents in the future (active experimentation). The study describes the collaborative learning journey in which the authors engaged as a team of instructors and researchers to make sense of this incident and refine their pedagogical practices. The article concludes by offering practical suggestions for improved pedagogy in management education settings, specifically fostering greater gender reflexivity in the classroom, and using functional subgrouping to encourage understanding and integration of differences.

This commentary to “Gender in the Management Education Classroom” (Bilimoria, O’Neil, Hopkins, & Murphy, 2010) employs social identity and self-categorization theory to analyze the incident described in the article. In any MBA classroom, students are dealing with multiple group memberships. Similar to workplace settings, when the focus is on diversity, categorization processes can lead to challenging situations in the classroom. Practical considerations and institutional influences in dealing with diversity-based conflict in the classroom are also discussed.

This commentary adds to the analysis and recommendations presented in “Gender in the Management Education Classroom” concerning a very challenging incident focused on powerful gender/diversity dynamics. It discusses the centrality of emotion in students’ experiences of diversity discussions and calls for teachers to explicitly help students develop the capacity to interact in emotional situations about challenging intercultural issues with people from other identity groups. Developing such a capacity includes both intrapersonal and interpersonal components. A key intrapersonal piece is students’ looking at themselves, particularly their cultural identities, and how those identities can be threatened during diversity discussions. Interpersonal skills for dealing with such moments include adopting a learning stance, advocacy and inquiry, and investigating deeply how the other person constructs reality. Teachers’ own emotions are also an important element of the diversity classroom, because of both their potential impact on teaching behavior and the opportunity to model intercultural effectiveness for students.

The fields of diversity training and diversity education have developed in a disconnected manner. This divide ensures that each field advances slowly and with narrow focus. The authors argue here that the divide should be bridged with attention to the best practices that diversity training and diversity education offer. By integrating the best that each perspective has to offer as outlined here, both fields of inquiry and practice may be enhanced.