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Article
Publication date: 29 May 2007

Rosanna Duncan, Julianne Mortimer and Jane Hallas

The UK Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places a statutory duty on all public authorities to promote race equality throughout all their functions. The purpose of this paper is…

Abstract

Purpose

The UK Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places a statutory duty on all public authorities to promote race equality throughout all their functions. The purpose of this paper is to discuss steps being taken by social landlords in Wales and contractors and consultants to promote race equality within the construction procurement process.

Design/methodology/approach

The principle methods of data collection were focus groups with social landlords and postal questionnaires and semi structured telephone interviews with construction contractors and consultants.

Findings

Little action is being taken by social landlords in Wales to promote race equality within the construction procurement process. Furthermore, construction contractors and consultants that undertake work on behalf of social landlords are doing little to ensure race equality within their own organisations.

Research limitations/implications

A relatively small sample of construction contractors and consultants took part in the research.

Practical implications

In order to meet their obligations under current legislation social landlords need to ensure that they promote race equality within the procurement process. Construction companies including maintenance and minor works contractors that aspire to be engaged by social landlords will need to demonstrate that they are committed to race equality and its implementation and have the appropriate policies and procedures in place to ensure this.

Originality/value

This research is the first to evaluate the procurement practices of social landlords in Wales and how these practices may impact on race equality within the procurement process. The research also examined the steps being taken to promote equality by construction contractors and consultants operating within the social housing sector in Wales.

Details

Facilities, vol. 25 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-2772

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 May 2006

Stuart Speeden

This article considers how the persistence of race inequalities can be addressed in the field of regeneration. Race has been a consistent feature in inner urban areas yet there is…

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Abstract

Purpose

This article considers how the persistence of race inequalities can be addressed in the field of regeneration. Race has been a consistent feature in inner urban areas yet there is little to suggest contemporary means of regeneration has taken this on board.

Design/methodology/approach

The article is based on a series of qualitative, semi‐structured interviews that were undertaken as part of ongoing work associated with the implementation of the Equality Standard for Local Government in England.

Findings

An emergent set of relations between equality, social inclusion and community cohesion is evident. As a result, aspects of inequality continue to lie at the heart of public sector intervention policies such as regeneration.

Research limitations/implications

The article suggests that while there may be methods of management to help ensure good equality principles, it is the role of local democratic and political processes to eradicate such practice.

Practical implications

The findings are important to public sector management. Continued work on Equality Standard for Local Government should take on board the findings of this article.

Originality/value

The article adds knowledge to how, in the field of regeneration, the characteristics of institutional racism can be locked into the practices and organizational cultures of public sector agencies.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 26 no. 5/6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 July 2009

Tony Bennett

The purpose of this paper is to report on the discussions that took place and the key themes raised at a conference focusing on the role of the union equality representative, held…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report on the discussions that took place and the key themes raised at a conference focusing on the role of the union equality representative, held at the British Trades Union Congress (TUC), London, in February 2009.

Design/methodology/approach

The conference was structured around the contribution of a number of keynote speakers, reports back from project workers and question and answer sessions with delegates. The paper is based on observation, summary notes and conference documents.

Findings

The conference demonstrated the potential for a new type of union representative to help address inequality and discrimination in the workplace, with clear examples of early successes reported by unions participating in the project. However, it also highlighted barriers that may still remain until the equality rep has the same legal rights and status accorded to other union representatives in the UK.

Originality/value

This report highlights a key new initiative from the British trade union movement in addressing equality and diversity issues at work through the recruitment, training, organising and ongoing support of a network of specialised union equality representatives.

Details

Equal Opportunities International, vol. 28 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0261-0159

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 31 January 2014

Åsa Ekvall

This study will look at the relationship between norms on gender equality on the one hand and the level of gender equality in the political and socioeconomic sphere, the presence…

Abstract

Purpose

This study will look at the relationship between norms on gender equality on the one hand and the level of gender equality in the political and socioeconomic sphere, the presence or absence of armed conflict, and general peacefulness on the other.

Design/methodology/approach

Data on gender equality norms from the World Values Surveys, political and socioeconomic gender equality from the Global Gender Gap Index, armed conflict from the Uppsala Conflict Data Base, and general peacefulness from the Global Peace Index are analyzed in a bivariate correlation.

Findings

The results show a significant association between norms on and attitudes toward gender equality and levels of political and socioeconomic gender equality, absence or presence of armed conflict, and level of general peacefulness.

Research limitations

There is no data base on norms on and attitudes toward the use of violence which is why only levels of violence are included in the study.

Social implications

The study shows that governments, aid agencies, NGOs and others working on conflict prevention and peace building need to focus on improving gender equality in order to achieve a sustainable decrease in conflict levels and an improvement in general levels of peacefulness.

Originality/value

This study is original in that it looks at norms on gender equality on the individual level on the one hand and actual levels of both gender equality and violence in the society, including armed conflict on the other.

Details

Gendered Perspectives on Conflict and Violence: Part A
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-110-6

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 15 January 2021

Jennifer Pearson, Lindsey Wilkinson and Jamie Lyn Wooley-Snider

Purpose: Sexual minority youth are more likely than their heterosexual peers to consider and attempt suicide, in part due to victimization experienced within schools. While…

Abstract

Purpose: Sexual minority youth are more likely than their heterosexual peers to consider and attempt suicide, in part due to victimization experienced within schools. While existing research suggests that rates of school victimization and suicidality among sexual minority students vary by school and community context, less is known about variation in these experiences at the state level.

Methodology: Using data from a large, representative sample of sexual minority and heterosexual youth (2017 Youth Risk Behavior States Data, n = 64,746 high school students in 22 states), multilevel models examine whether differences between sexual minority and heterosexual students in victimization and suicide risk vary by state-level policies.

Findings: Results suggest that disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual boys in bullying, suicide ideation, and suicide attempt are consistently smaller in states with high levels of overall policy support for LGBTQ equality and nondiscrimination in education laws. Sexual minority girls are more likely than heterosexual girls to be electronically bullied, particularly in states with lower levels of LGBTQ equality. Disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual girls in suicide ideation are lowest in high equality states, but state policies are not significantly associated with disparities in suicide attempt among girls.

Value: Overall, findings suggest that state-level policies supporting LGBTQ equality are associated with a reduced risk of suicide among sexual minority youth. This study speaks to the role of structural stigma in shaping exposure to minority stress and its consequences for sexual minority youth's well-being.

Details

Sexual and Gender Minority Health
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-147-1

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 5 December 2023

Susanna Bairoh

The purpose of this study is to understand how executives in technology companies relate to targets for gender equality, especially pertaining to top management.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to understand how executives in technology companies relate to targets for gender equality, especially pertaining to top management.

Design/methodology/approach

The study draws on 19 interviews of CEOs, senior line managers and HR directors in ten technology companies operating in Finland. The method is (reflexive) thematic analysis.

Findings

Previous studies on the role of executives in promoting gender equality provide somewhat mixed results: while their role is vital, senior leaders may not be inclined to support gender equality targets and measures. Drawing on critical feminist theorizing, this study identifies three ways in which the executives in technology companies related to gender equality targets: endorsing, negotiating and resisting. However, all these responses were constrained by the executives’ assumption that their companies are meritocratic. The study illustrates how executives’ narrow understanding of gender equality and reliance on the presumably well-working systems, combined with underlying doubts about the competence of women, hinder the advancement of women to top management.

Originality/value

While previous studies have evaluated targets to increase the number/percentage of women, both in certain “ideal case” companies and in terms of their effectiveness more broadly, this study discusses how technology company executives navigate these targets in relation to women's assumed “competence”.

Details

Gender in Management: An International Journal , vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1754-2413

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 29 October 2003

Anh Nga Longva

Scandinavian societies do not figure prominently as study objects in the international social science literature. To the extent they do, their analysis tends to revolve around one…

Abstract

Scandinavian societies do not figure prominently as study objects in the international social science literature. To the extent they do, their analysis tends to revolve around one seemingly unavoidable concept, that of equality. There is much agreement among Scandinavia experts that if there is one cultural trait that recurs again and again in this part of the world it is what some have described as “the passion for equality” (Graubard, 1986). Many writers have suggested that the Nordic passion for equality springs from a peculiarly strong preoccupation with equity (rettferd). But this is not the only reason why: according to Hans Frederik Dahl (1984, p. 95) “[t]he Nordic equity ethos…appears to apply both to the political action of leveling out – making the rich pay, taxing the top – and, in a jealous comparison, of making sure that nobody overtakes and passes you in position or possessions.” Like Dahl, other Norwegians consider envy to be a central element in this quest for equality, a sort of Nordic “crab antics” (Wilson, 1973).1 Envy provides a plausible explanatory frame for the drive at leveling out – “making the rich pay, taxing the top” – a meaning the Norwegian term likhet does indeed encompass. But in addition to equality likhet also means similarity or sameness, a parity that does not necessarily have to do with equity and cannot always be described in terms of getting rid of (unfair) privileges. Earlier debates on the Norwegian notion of equality were often inconclusive because they failed to address this critical duality of meaning which lies at the core of the concept of likhet. To assume that likhet is only a matter of equality, and that it all boils down to envy is too simplistic. In this case, the question that needs to be addressed is: can envy account for the drive at cultural assimilation? Can it explain demands made by the masses to individuals who are neither richer nor more powerful? I am thinking for example of the kind of relations that have been observed between Norwegians and Saami in the Helgeland region (Henriksen, 1991). Here, Saamis’ claims to a different identity and a different experience are frequently met with the non-Saami majority’s counter-claim that there are no differences, cultural or otherwise, between the Saami and themselves. “When the Saami person insists that his or her identity is rooted in a Saami culture, s/he may be requested to specify what such differences consist of,” writes Henriksen (p. 410). This emphatic denial of difference is not perceived by Saami as an inclusionary device to integrate them within the warm embrace of a universal Norwegian Gemeinschaft. Rather, says Henriksen, they view it as “a lack of recognition by the encompassing Norwegian society of their cultural and social identities and their expression, and of what they perceive to be their legitimate rights” (p. 414); in other words, they view it as an attempt by the Norwegian majority to deny Saami their right to experience life in general and ethnic encounters in particular in a way that differs from the majority’s experience. When played out in relation to individuals and groups that are marginal, dominated, or simply in minority, the quest for likhet cannot be motivated by envy. Rather than “passion for equality,” therefore, it would be more accurate to describe this cultural trait as “antipathy for difference.” Such antipathy, I suggest, is grounded in a normative expectation of conformity in behavior, experience, and awareness, to an unquestioned cultural pattern embedded in, and structured by, daily practice, and with ramifications in all areas of social life. In this sense, equality (sometimes translated into Norwegian as likeverd, literally “equal worth,” but more commonly as likhet) rests on the fundamental requirement of cultural similarity (also known, as we have seen, as likhet): to be equal is first and foremost to be alike (see Gullestad, 1984, 1992). The opposite of likhet, ulikhet, can mean either difference or inequality. Most of the time it is conceptualized as both.2 Of course, the conceptual and sociological boundaries between equality and similarity are blurred everywhere, not only in Norwegian culture. Nor am I suggesting that Norwegian society is empirically devoid of inequality or that instances of anti-egalitarian behavior do not obtain in real life. Nonetheless, these empirical observations do not make the Norwegian normative discourse on equality-as-similarity any less real or any less compelling.

Details

Multicultural Challenge
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-064-7

Book part
Publication date: 28 August 2019

Michaël Privot

In this chapter, adopting a civil society perspective, the author is reflecting on the development of equality legislation in the European Union and its (lack of) impact on racial…

Abstract

In this chapter, adopting a civil society perspective, the author is reflecting on the development of equality legislation in the European Union and its (lack of) impact on racial equality at the workplace. Presenting the development of the European Network against Racism and its organization, he highlights the thought process that led anti-racist activists to depart from a purely legal approach to discrimination and inequality to engage in a constructive conversation with public and private employers about diversity management. Since 2009, this organization has been through a long cycle of learning and exploration of the challenges of racially and ethnically diversifying a workforce and articulating business cases to that effect, while seeking to remain faithful to its founding principles of inclusion and equality. The author touches upon a variety of issues emerging from the practice of its organization: the difficulties, sometimes reluctance of HR managers to confront racism, their quest for tools, the blockings around equality data collection, the ambivalent role of trade unions as well as post-modern tensions between standardization and individualization which lie at the heart of diversity management.

Details

Race Discrimination and Management of Ethnic Diversity and Migration at Work
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-594-8

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 16 February 2012

Vibeke Heidenreich

Why did Sweden and Norway arrive at different conclusions with regards to the introduction of corporate gender quotas? The chapter points to two decisive and interwoven…

Abstract

Why did Sweden and Norway arrive at different conclusions with regards to the introduction of corporate gender quotas? The chapter points to two decisive and interwoven explanations.

First, there is a question of varieties of capitalism – even within the Scandinavian model: The strong and traditionally socially responsible Swedish business life enjoyed more autonomy than their Norwegian counterpart, making it harder for the Swedish state to interfere in business life. In Norway, on the other hand, the state was a dominant capitalist itself whereas private owners in general were small and dispersed. Consequently, the capacity of the state to interfere in business life was larger, compared to Sweden.

Second, there is a matter of different cultures concerning gender equality and the attitudes towards state intervention: In Norway, an established gender quota tradition and rather positive attitudes towards state intervention created a moderate discursive climate in gender equality matters. A discursive tradition accepting women as a group as different from men as a group gave politicians a larger scope of action concerning gender equality measures directed at women only. In Sweden, the discursive climate was more hostile towards state intervention, and there was a less strong tradition for legally imposing gender quotas. In addition, Swedish feminists were active and conflict-oriented, thereby creating a polarized gender equality discussion in a public life traditionally oriented towards consensus-based solutions to political discrepancies.

Details

Firms, Boards and Gender Quotas: Comparative Perspectives
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-672-0

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 25 July 2022

Rachel Palmén and Maria Caprile

This chapter discusses the relevance of a community of practice (CoP) for a reflexive gender equality policy and reflects on the different approaches taken within TARGET. It is…

Abstract

This chapter discusses the relevance of a community of practice (CoP) for a reflexive gender equality policy and reflects on the different approaches taken within TARGET. It is based on the literature on CoPs and structural change as well as on experiences in transferring this approach to the context of implementing gender equality plans (GEPs) within different types of research organisations. While the notion of the CoP was coined in the 1990s, literature on gender and such communities remained scarce until a recent wealth of research looked at the role played by inter-institutional CoPs in advancing structural change in research organisations. In this chapter, we examine whether and how an institutional CoP approach has been a useful vehicle for gender equality plan development and how the different configurations of internal and external stakeholders within the CoPs have impacted GEP implementation.

Details

Overcoming the Challenge of Structural Change in Research Organisations – A Reflexive Approach to Gender Equality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-122-8

Keywords

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