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The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential to develop a shared understanding of systemic discrimination and the complexity of equality and an appreciation for the range of interventions designed to redress inequality within the context of business school curricula.

Qualitative material was gathered over a four-year period through written reflections of student interpretations of equality. Participants were enroled in a human resource management (HRM) course critically examining systemic gender discrimination, women’s organisational experiences, gendered employment outcomes and the range of interventions designed to redress gendered employment outcomes. Threshold concepts framed the analysis of participant reflections.

The paper shows that while the participants developed a shared understanding of systemic gender discrimination, their interpretations of equality and appreciation for the range of interventions available to redress inequality differed. These differences were shaped by the extent to which participants integrated their understanding of systemic discrimination with their interpretations of equality, and the extent to which the interventions to inequality transformed, upheld or challenged participant agendic self-identity and world view.

The study provides support for continued use of equality as a construct in both research and teaching settings. The study highlights that unequal outcomes are an enduring phenomena, and that introducing the notion of equality to the classroom helps develop student’s ability to understand dynamics of discrimination in the workplace. The limitations of the study relate to the sample size, and dependence on a single specialist HRM course, in addition to the specific New Zealand context.

The differences in interpretations have implications for the way educators introduce discussions of equality within the business school classroom.

The paper demonstrates that developing a shared understanding of systemic discrimination does not always lead to developing a shared understanding of the complexity of equality or appreciation for the many forms of interventions available.

Over the past 16 years, a legislative and policy framework has evolved in Canada to address systemic discrimination in employment in the federal jurisdiction, and in organizations that sell goods or services to the federal government. Data collected pursuant to the Employment Equity Act, as well as published literature and government documents, are reviewed in order to provide a critical analysis of the federal policy framework as set out in 1987 and revised in 1996. This review is the basis for assessing both progress and lack of improvement in the employment status of racial minority, aboriginal, and disabled women and men, as well as white women, within the federal sector. Reasons for limited results are proposed, and issues posed by contemporary labour market trends are identified. It is argued that the results of employment equity policy are disappointing because the policy is not being implemented by employers and effectively enforced so that there are consequences for employers’ failures to comply. In other words, there is a persisting gap between employment equity policy and practice. This gap presents difficulties in evaluating the content of employment equity policy, since it is not possible to evaluate a policy that is not implemented.

This chapter provides a qualitative analysis of 40 immigrant women's labor force experiences in the Maritime provinces of Canada (the Maritimes). The framework of analysis is feminist and anti-racist and the point of departure is the immigrant women's own perspective. Immigrant women feel marginalized in the labor markets of the Maritimes, despite their qualifications, past work experience and willingness to work, as a result of specific systemic barriers they face in employment. Some of these barriers affect immigrant men or native-born women as well. Immigrant women, however, are affected, in addition, by the multiple and mutually reinforcing interactions of these barriers. In this chapter we examine immigrant women's strategies to overcome the systemic obstacles of the labor market.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a proactive public policy approach to complement relatively reactive existing policies addressing gender‐related employment disparities in the USA, and to provide an initial empirical illustration of the proposal.

The paper provides a conceptual application of theories of total quality management (TQM) to the topic of gender‐related employment disparities, followed by an empirical illustration using US Current Population Survey data and a gender equal employment opportunity (EEO) scorecard.

Using the TQM framework, company outliers were conceptualized on the EEO scorecard as “special” causes of economy‐wide equal employment variation and the industries in which companies are situated as “common” causes. The paper identifies two underperforming industries on gender‐related employment outcomes: Mining and Construction, and Transportation, Communication and Utilities.

Further conceptual work on the application of TQM to gender disparities in employment is recommended. Also, the study considered broad industry categories; future research should refine these categories further.

It is recommended that US enforcement agencies incorporate industry considerations more explicitly into their activities. Employer insights may be beneficial to improving equal employment opportunity performance at the industry level.

The application of TQM theory to the topic of gender‐related employment disparities is a novel approach that may motivate new public policies.

Introduction “Equality is, at the very least, freedom from adverse discrimination. But what constitutes adverse discrimination changes with time, with information, with experience, and with insight. What we tolerated as a society 100, 50, or even 10 years ago is no longer necessarily tolerable. Equality is thus a process ‐ a process of constant and flexible examination, of vigilant introspection, and of aggressive open mindedness.” (Excerpt from Equality in Employment, A Royal Commission Report, 1984)

Affirmative action in the USA, and employment equity in Canada, are policy frameworks that have developed through the use of legislation, regulation and decisions by courts and administrative tribunals, as mechanisms for addressing discrimination in employment. Managing diversity, in contrast, is a voluntary initiative by corporate decision makers, at the level of the firm, in response to the growth of diversity in the workforce and marketplace. Provides a framework for comparing and assessing the three approaches and choosing between them.

The decline in attendance at historically Black colleges and universities and their existence is as much about the theoretical frameworks of social knowledge that exist within a putative post-racial society as it is about the systemic destabilization of educational institutions that produce a critical mass of Black and Brown professional through, inter alia, neoliberal narratives of individualism. What impact does framing have on erroneous beliefs about the efficacy of HBCUs? In the context of America's historical and current sociopolitical environment, HBCUs are more than educative spaces for Black students. HBCUs are places where the transformative practices of rhetorical criticism and collective action can uproot attitudes and theories that lead Blacks students to believe the marginalized outcomes they experience are their own fault over systemic racial discrimination.

The goal was emancipatory, to characterise and dislodge oppressive management practices, to allow for the possibility of seeking an alternative organisational construction free of postcolonial/subaltern subordination and discrimination in a local, well-documented narrative.

The study was informed by a postcolonial/subaltern perspective and drew on the employment experience of an Aboriginal woman, Canada’s first Indigenous Dean of a law school. The researcher employed a combination of case study and critical discourse analysis with the aim of advancing rich analyses of the complex workings of power and privilege in sustaining Western, postcolonial relations.

The study made several conclusions: first, that the institution, a medium-sized Canadian university, carefully controlled the Indigenous subaltern to remake her to be palatable to Western sensibilities. Second, the effect of this control was to assimilate her, to subordinate her Indigeneity and to civilise in a manner analogous to the purpose of Indian residential schools. Third, that rather than management’s action being rational and neutral, focused on goal attainment, efficiency and effectiveness, it was an implicit moral judgement based on her race and an opportunity to exploit her value as a means for the university’s growth and status.

Through a postcolonial/subaltern perspective, this study demonstrated how management practices reproduced barriers to the participation of an Indigenous woman and the First Nations community that an organisation was intended to serve. The study demonstrated how a Western perspective – that of a university’s administration, faculty and staff – was privileged, or taken for granted, and the Indigenous perspective subordinated, as the university remained committed to the dispossession of Indigenous knowledge and values.

Historically, Canada has always been a diverse nation made up of a wide variety of different peoples. However, the nature, causes and manifestations of diversity have been changing, along with the attitudes towards the treatment of diversity within the country's social, economic and political structures. For example, the dominant organisational culture in business and government has traditionally been created by white, able‐bodied, Canadian‐ born males with shared values and behaviours (McDonald, 1991). Other groups, described as non‐dominant or minority, were often excluded from full participation in the economic, social and political life of such organisations. Increasingly, however, non‐ dominant groups such as women, people of colour and persons with disabilities have been entering the workforce, creating the phenomenon known as workforce diversity.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the claim that the tie-break criterion introduced under the Equality Act 2010 is not really positive action as is claimed by its government sponsors. It evaluates this claim by locating the tie-break into equal opportunities theory, taking into account merit considerations, and reviews its potential implications.

A conceptual discussion of the tie-break.

The paper concludes that the tie-break is not positive action, nor is it positive discrimination. It employs the framework established by Forbes (1991) and attempts to locate it in theoretical discussions of the need to refine merit to take identity characteristics into account. While it could serve to make a more sophisticated approach to merit possible it fails to achieve its implicit potential in this regard.

The paper is conceptual and will benefit from empirical support in the future.

Practically, the tie-break promises to add some greater clarity to the muddled understanding of equal opportunities and diversity that underpins much policy and legislation. As a result it will arguably prove hard to implement and will carry other associated problems.

Socially, the tie-break, mis-represented as it currently is, promises to create greater uncertainty around the nature and purposes of equality of opportunity. Consequently, it could exacerbate tensions and hostilities and promote significant resistance to “equality” measures.

This paper is an original conceptual piece that will shine a light on an important legal innovation. The tie-break is not what it is described to be and carries both potential and threat for advocates of equality of opportunity. In pursuing socially significant outcomes of this type, conceptual accuracy and transparency are vital, and this paper contributes to this endeavour.