The Problems with a "Multicultural" View as a Response to Diversity — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00hi again I'm back to talk about
2. 0:02multiculturalism versus colorblindness
3. 0:04and you can tell I'm recording this
4. 0:05right after the other one cuz I'm
5. 0:06wearing the same shirt I strongly
6. 0:11encourage you to watch last week's video
7. 0:13before continuing on with this week's
8. 0:15video I'll make a link available ready
9. 0:18efficiently for you we'll make it as
10. 0:19easy as possible but get the full
11. 0:21rundown on what the difference between
12. 0:22colorblindness and multiculturalism is
13. 0:24and we'll pick up from there if you're
14. 0:26ignoring me and you need to summary
15. 0:27basically colorblindness is a way of
16. 0:29thinking about diversity that focuses on
17. 0:31making sure everyone is treated exactly
18. 0:33the same and ignoring group differences
19. 0:36multiculturalism is another approach to
20. 0:39diversity that says the best way to
21. 0:41navigate a diverse a society is to
22. 0:43embrace the differences that people
23. 0:45bring to the table
24. 0:46most of the psychological research seems
25. 0:49to hint at colorblindness being a less
26. 0:51than optimal strategy but
27. 0:52multiculturalism seems to do some good
28. 0:54things but what we're gonna talk about
29. 0:57this week is that multiculturalism is
30. 0:59not perfect either
31. 1:00the first thing to understand is that
32. 1:02multiculturalism is not a perfect answer
33. 1:05to all of the things that can be
34. 1:07challenging about navigating a diverse
35. 1:09society so on the one hand yes it's true
36. 1:12that multiculturalism is associated with
37. 1:14less prejudice compared to
38. 1:16colorblindness
39. 1:17but it's also associated with slightly
40. 1:19more stereotyping after all if you're
41. 1:21attending to and really making sure you
42. 1:24acknowledge the groups that people come
43. 1:26from and the qualities that might be
44. 1:28associated with those groups it can be
45. 1:30somewhat easier to stereotype in ways
46. 1:32that you may not intend the other
47. 1:34challenge related to multiculturalism
48. 1:36runs a little deeper and a lot of this
49. 1:38draws from research from Victoria plout
50. 1:40and her colleagues the gist is that
51. 1:42multiculturalism can seem to exclude
52. 1:46people in a majority group in other
53. 1:49words when multiculturalism and
54. 1:51diversity initiatives are so focused on
55. 1:55acknowledging and embracing group
56. 1:57differences celebrating minority
57. 1:59experience it can seem to alienate
58. 2:02majority group members now you might
59. 2:05think well tough they you know deal with
60. 2:07it but the problem is that in order for
61. 2:10these kinds of initiatives to make chain
62. 2:13everybody's got to be on board with them
63. 2:15so how can we know that this is a
64. 2:17challenge and what might we do about it
65. 2:19so a bunch of good research seems to
66. 2:21show that white participants view
67. 2:25multiculturalism as exclusionary some
68. 2:29tasks have white participants pairing
69. 2:32multiculturalism ideas with a sense of
70. 2:35exclusion and they find that whites pair
71. 2:37those two concepts together more closely
72. 2:40than non-white participants do the other
73. 2:43thing we know about this issue is that
74. 2:45when white participants are faced with
75. 2:47multiculturalism they connect that idea
76. 2:50less to a sense of themselves then do
77. 2:53racial minority groups and the issue
78. 2:56there is also that when white
79. 2:58participants distanced themselves from
80. 3:01multiculturalism they're also tending to
81. 3:03be less supportive of general diversity
82. 3:07initiatives so what do we do about this
83. 3:10how can we maximize the usefulness of a
84. 3:12multicultural approach to diversity well
85. 3:15the answer seems to be in what planner
86. 3:17and colleagues are calling all inclusive
87. 3:19multiculturalism as sort of a next step
88. 3:22in the face of diversity ideology the
89. 3:25idea here is to be very clear that when
90. 3:28we talk about diversity and
91. 3:30multiculturalism we are talking about
92. 3:32everybody that all groups bring
93. 3:35something to the table it's not just
94. 3:37that minority groups bring something to
95. 3:39the table in diversity contexts if that
96. 3:42everybody brings something unique to the
97. 3:44table and that includes European
98. 3:46American backgrounds so what they've
99. 3:49done is they've had white participants
100. 3:50either read about multiculturalism
101. 3:52through the default narrative that's
102. 3:54often used to describe diversity in ways
103. 3:57that we've seen can seem to exclude
104. 4:00whites from the dialogue but they also
105. 4:04created a version of that description
106. 4:05that was very clear about the fact that
107. 4:07all inclusive multiculturalism means
108. 4:09that even European American backgrounds
109. 4:12bring something unique to a table in
110. 4:15those cases they find that white
111. 4:17participants are less threatened and
112. 4:19show less of this negative reaction to
113. 4:21multiculturalism as an issue
114. 4:24so bringing all of this together it
115. 4:26seems that even though multiculturalism
116. 4:27tends to be slightly better than
117. 4:29colorblindness as a worldview that
118. 4:32promotes real genuine diversity and
119. 4:35positive outcomes of it it still isn't
120. 4:38perfect under its sort of broad
121. 4:41definition we saw that in some cases
122. 4:43multiculturalism could provoke more
123. 4:45stereotyping so it's not a perfect
124. 4:47solution but we also saw that it can
125. 4:49imply exclusion of majority group
126. 4:52members who may feel like although they
127. 4:54embrace diversity that their group is
128. 4:56now being left out of the conversation
129. 4:58so rather than move along and say well
130. 5:01well there's no such thing as finding a
131. 5:04solution to this question
132. 5:05researchers say well let's tackle the
133. 5:08problem let's find the root cause of
134. 5:11what's going on between not accepting a
135. 5:13multicultural diversity perspective and
136. 5:15address it and when we do we find more
137. 5:18positive outcomes so a hopeful message
138. 5:21after all that does it for this week
139. 5:23next week I'll be back with something
140. 5:24else and I promise I'll be wearing a
141. 5:27different shirt see them for more social
142. 5:30psychology subscribe to this youtube
143. 5:33channel or go to be a people expert
144. 5:36dot-com and find new articles every week
145. 5:39about psychological science