Inclusivity

PsyGuy
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Location: Northern Europe

Inquiry

Post by PsyGuy »

@Heliotrope

Well 13.4% of the US population is black so is 1 in every 10 ITs at your IS black?

I wouldnt make the claim that ITs are less racist, unless you mean that the all white faculty just claims they arent racist.
Heliotrope
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Re: Inquiry

Post by Heliotrope »

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Heliotrope
>
> Well 13.4% of the US population is black so is 1 in every 10 ITs at your IS
> black?
>
> I wouldnt make the claim that ITs are less racist, unless you mean that the
> all white faculty just claims they arent racist.


I assume you mean 1 in 7.5?
And no, we're not at 13,4%, and there are also other minorities to consider when talking about a diverse faculty.
I don't think we're aiming to get to a certain percentage, but to hire the best person for the job irregardless of skin color, sexual orientation, etc.

However, if for this conversation we limit ourselves to black ITs, I suspect we get way too few applications of black ITs to ever get to 13,4% unless affirmative action is part of the hiring process. Hence my question about how diverse the group of ITs (or DTs looking to go overseas) is as a whole. Perhaps someone in recruiting can say something about this?

And I would make the claim that ITs are less racist, based on my experiences in IE and back home.
Illiane_Blues

Re: Inquiry

Post by Illiane_Blues »

> However, if for this conversation we limit ourselves to black ITs, I suspect we get
> way too few applications of black ITs to ever get to 13,4% unless affirmative action
> is part of the hiring process. Hence my question about how diverse the group of ITs
> (or DTs looking to go overseas) is as a whole. Perhaps someone in recruiting can say
> something about this?

I'm not in recruiting but I once talked to a recruiter about this as part of a discussion about the applicant pool, and he referenced the low number of black applicants. For some teaching jobs that number is zero. I remember him saying 1 in 20 as an average but not sure as it's been a few years.
PsyGuy
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Location: Northern Europe

Reply

Post by PsyGuy »

@Heliotrope

I meant 10%.

So whats the proportion/percentage of non-white ITs who arent local host nationals? According to the US Census estimate for 2019, 76.3% of the population is white leaving 24.7% in composite minorities. So is 24% of your ISs faculty who are not local host nationals, non-white?
If I consistently choose four faculty of the foreign/expat staff is one of them going to consistently be non-white?
Heliotrope
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Re: Reply

Post by Heliotrope »

I think we're at about 15-20%, but when I say that my current school hires regardless of skin color, religion of sexual orientation, that doesn't mean they actively try to create a faculty body that the same percentages of minorities as the US population. I'm not sure why you choose the US, as we also have staff from the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It just means that skin color, ethnic background, religion or sexual orientation aren't factors in the hiring decisions. So the percentage of (for example) black candidates as part of the entire candidate pool would more relevant than your 13,4%.
sciteach
Posts: 258
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2014 7:49 am

Re: Inclusivity

Post by sciteach »

Note that the following comments are just observations - it does not make them correct or even that I agree with them all.

International teaching is a different beast than what we see in our home countries if we come from the west. We talk about representation - but our parents and boards at many schools have a very different view of this.

In SE Asia being Filipino, from the sub-continent or holding an African visa (irrelevant to skin color) can have major problems. I've personally seen Filipino's employed by western admin and then have the board try and remove that staff member because people from this country should only be housekeepers or wait staff.

I've seen fantastic African American staff leave good schools because of how they are treated by parents and the local community. I'm ashamed to say that I even known of some parents who have removed students from schools because of the color of a person's skin.

What I do find perplexing is how in my experience many people from the US in international schooling try and force their world view onto their new environments. To me - this is arrogance in the extreme and through my experiences it's mainly perpetuated from a vocal highly educated white liberal families who have held some wealth from birth.

I'm the first in my extended family to ever complete university, live overseas or hold a government job and complete this all through public schooling. Then I teach students who might go away for a long weekend to ski in Japan, Canada or Europe from a SE Asia location.

To put it simple - our perceived hell-holes of home countries might actually be doing better than other places in the world. Yes there could be more diversity but it comes in many more forms than just skin color. Country or residence, gender and I think the biggest of all is generational financial status plays a bigger role but it's quite difficult to achieve this through Skype interviews.

I've generally seen that most of the better schools try and get a good smattering of people from different countries and try to do something with the genders. For example - try and not have all of your English department only male or only female. Having experience in the curriculum is also up there as well. Working in departments which are mainly from the same country with no IB experience apart from that school with limited international experience can be hell. It can be the difference between a functional department and dysfunctional department.
Illiane_Blues

Re: Inclusivity

Post by Illiane_Blues »

Have seen similar things.
It def takes a commitment from the school, which is easier when it's a tier 1 school with a wait list such as the one Heliotrope works at.
Lower tier schools that are struggling to keep enrolment at capacity will be quicker to give in to pressure from parents.
Have also seen this in other areas of schools I've worked at in the past (cancelling a LGBTIQ+ event because parents objected), but now luckily Im at a school that can 'afford' to stick to their principles.
crypticblu
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 2:05 am

Re: Inclusivity

Post by crypticblu »

International schools have lots of work to do, as evidenced by the #black_at_ hashtag on social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, the open letters of students' lived experience, and the creation of groups such as ISS' Diversity Collaborative and the Organization to Decolonize the IB. Anti-racism is not a destination, so there is no international school that has arrived or is even three blocks away.

I am happy that the Black Lives Matter movement has many individuals looking at institutions with a more critical eye and calling in performative practices, especially our students. Bravo to the youngsters!

OAN: I just left a "2nd tier" for-profit school in China that had a very diverse staff. There were 15 African Americans on staff, including me, and around 11 more POCs. This did not stop the Chinese parents from enrolling their children. I served as the middle school dean, a position with substantial parental interactions, and my experiences were positive. The school never shied away from addressing the R-word, racism. Last academic year, I chaired a panel with other POC, including an Asian-American colleague, to discuss the racism, prejudice, and xenophobia students would encounter in the West and how to navigate it.

For every parent who is a "racist," there are parents who acknowledge the elephant in the room because they or someone they care about has experienced it, and they aim to prepare their children. Today's political climate leaves little room for ignoring racism, whether anti-black or anti-Asian. BIPOC educators are out here. Please don't believe the hype that we aren't qualified or applying for positions. Besides, how would one know that we aren't applying? Racial demographic data is not collected or tracked. Things that should make you go hmm when you hear such claims.

https://www.instagram.com/blackatunis/
https://thebite.aisb.ro/index.php/black ... -community
https://www.instagram.com/black_at_isd/
https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-r ... ons-racism
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-53208274
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvw04h4h
PsyGuy
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Location: Northern Europe

Discusion

Post by PsyGuy »

@Heliotrope

So your still under represented at your best estimate.
The US is a large western country was the rational for my choice.
How do you know skin color, ethnic background, religion or sexual orientation aren't factors in the hiring decisions, do you have a window into their heart, their mind, their soul that you know these things, because the data doesnt support your conclusions, youre really under represented but it not the often very accurate factors why.

@sciteach

We would appear to be in agreement as I wrote many parents have a definition of what western edu is, and theres a strong propensity for that to mean white edu.
Ive seen that as well.
Ive also seen overt racism in IE.
Thats not only true for the US, but the export (whether wanted or not) of western nationalism isnt new.
Isnt that smattering just tokenism though? We hired a black person from S.Africa to be our ICT IT, we hired a guy to be a EC IT, we hired a local host national to teach the host language at the full IT salary scale, then we patted ourselves on the back for championing diversity.

What I find so disingenuous is when IE edus say "hey were trying, theres a shortage of minority DTs in education to start with, and were some what representative" when they could succeed overnight. There are plenty of qualified potential NES ITs in S. Africa, the Philippines, India. This is one of those issues that if IE really wanted to solve and address they could, of course thats not really what IE wants they want to be Karens. They want to look like supporting one position while continuing to maintain a status quo.

@Illiane_Blues

I concur.

@crypticblu

Weve been here before though. The US had a war over this, diversity and equality won, yet here we stand, so many years later still fighting the cause and thats a very western cause, many cultures do not have an issue with segregation.
Why is this still an elephant?
Heliotrope
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Joined: Sun May 13, 2018 1:48 am

Re: Discusion

Post by Heliotrope »

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Heliotrope
>
> So your still under represented at your best estimate.
> The US is a large western country was the rational for my choice.
> How do you know skin color, ethnic background, religion or sexual
> orientation aren't factors in the hiring decisions, do you have a window
> into their heart, their mind, their soul that you know these things,
> because the data doesnt support your conclusions, youre really under
> represented but it not the often very accurate factors why.

As I said before, when I say that my current school hires regardless of skin color, religion of sexual orientation, that doesn't mean they actively try to create a faculty body that the same percentages of minorities as the US population.
It just means that skin color, ethnic background, religion or sexual orientation aren't factors in the hiring decisions. So the percentage of (for example) black candidates as part of the entire candidate pool would more relevant than your 13,4%.
Hence my question about how diverse the group of ITs (or DTs looking to go overseas) is as a whole. If we know that, we can see if there might be some hidden bias after all.

And while the percentage of black people in the US might be 13.4%, it's 3% in the UK, 3.5% in Canada, 1.6% in Australia, and a staggering 0.3% in New Zealand. Except New Zealand, those are also large western countries. And all of those countries are represented in our staff.


@Illiane_Blues
Yes, you're absolutely right.
PsyGuy
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Location: Northern Europe

Reply

Post by PsyGuy »

@Heliotrope

How do you know skin color, ethnic background, religion or sexual orientation aren't factors in the hiring decisions, do you have a window into their heart, their mind, their soul that you know these things, because the data doesnt support your conclusions, youre really under represented but it not the often very accurate factors of why, why are you so special, or is it youre just making a claim?

So your better represented than some other national, that just makes you maybe less racists then them.
Heliotrope
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Joined: Sun May 13, 2018 1:48 am

Re: Reply

Post by Heliotrope »

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Heliotrope
>
> How do you know skin color, ethnic background, religion or sexual
> orientation aren't factors in the hiring decisions, do you have a window
> into their heart, their mind, their soul that you know these things,
> because the data doesnt support your conclusions, youre really under
> represented but it not the often very accurate factors of why, why are you
> so special, or is it youre just making a claim?
>
> So your better represented than some other national, that just makes you
> maybe less racists then them.


Which data?
A said, we'd need to know how diverse the group of ITs (or DTs looking to go overseas) is as a whole, before we can say anything about whether or not skin color, ethnic background, religion or sexual orientation are factors in the hiring decisions or not.
As said, the goal is not to have the faculty be a perfect ethnic representation of the US (or any) population, just to hire the best teacher for the job, regardless of skin color, etc. That leads to different outcomes, unless the group of ITs or DTs looking to go overseas as a whole itself is a perfect ethnic representation of the US (or any) population.

All I can say is that of all the ISs I've worked at and the ones my close teacher friends have worked at (with whom I have discussed the issue), my current IS has the most diverse faculty. It's not a boast, just an observation. It's not a leap to contribute it to the way they recruit. And of course there might be other ISs with a more diverse faculty out there.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the last sentence in your post, but if you can translate it into English, I'd be happy to respond to it.
PsyGuy
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Reply

Post by PsyGuy »

@Heliotrope

The whole of what ITs, there are plenty of non-white ITs available who are NESs, or do you mean minority ITs available from the west?
So you really dont know then if your IS is discriminatory or not, because you dont have the data?
You do realize that being the least discriminatory member of a group, doesnt make you non-discriminatory?

It was in English.
fangpiren
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Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2020 3:34 am

Re: Inclusivity

Post by fangpiren »

When does inclusivity become a political platform that should be avoided? For example, SEARCH sent out an email recently in support of BLM, which I also support. There are others however who are on the All Lives Matter side of the line, so its political now and best left out of the classroom. I would never, for instance, hand a BLM poster in my classroom and again I support their movement.
Heliotrope
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Re: Reply

Post by Heliotrope »

I think my IS tries to not be discriminatory, and given how diverse the faculty is compared to other ISs they are doing a decent job of walking the walk.
But until I know what percentage of the applicants at my school is a minority (so I can compare that to the percentage on the faculty), I can't be sure of course.

Thanks for thinking that I'm the 'least discriminatory member of a group', or does that second 'you' not refer to me? I assume not. And if it does, I'm probably not though. The sad truth is that everyone discriminates. We just have to admit that to ourselves, try and identify it when it influences our decisions, and try to work on it.
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