Diversity is praised as good for business and for promoting creativity but when organizational theorist Viktorija Kalonaityte studied diversity work at a Swedish adult education school, the school wanted to make everyone as “Swedish” as possible.
That means protecting women from 'honor killings' and teaching in Swedish.
In Sweden, diversity is largely about integration policy and the public sector rather than just being corporate policy in places lke America. Viktorija Kalonaityte recently defended her doctoral dissertation at the School of Economics, Lund University in Sweden and her thesis addressed identity and diversity work at a municipal school for adults. The school she studied views itself as working actively with diversity in line with a municipal diversity plan but Kalonaityte says that the diversity plan often collides with people’s understandings of what things should be like at a Swedish workplace.
Do societies want to assimilate or integrate?
If you see a woman assaulted on at a school for adults in Sweden and you try to help, you may be hurting Swedish diversity.
“Their interpretation of diversity deviates dramatically from the municipal plan and various notions of what diversity should mean. For example, the school wanted to assimilate instead of integrating its students of foreign backgrounds. There is a feeling that these students belong to another world and are drastically different. The school’s self-image touts that it should safeguard women from honor-based cultures and helplessness. Women are regarded as passive and helpless.”
The municipal school for adults sets out to model “a proper Swedish workplace” but the teachers are part of the “other” and even though prayer and other religious practices are banned from the school, the teachers allow the students to go off and pray and the teachers’ staff development days are planned to coincide with religious holidays.
Several teachers are even learning Arabic in order to understand their students better so the teachers and the routines are altered. This poses a problem in terms of the school’s Swedish self-image.
“The school wishes to retain its Swedishness, but it is not able to mediate perfect Swedishness to its students. For instance, the school brought in Swedes from outside to speak more perfect Swedish than its own teachers. When they wanted to show a real Swedish workplace, they had to take the students on a field trip.”
Viktorija Kalonaityte maintains that organizations that work with diversity should bear in mind that they change when they work with people. Employers cannot maintain control in the same way, because other languages are used and new ideas enter the picture. The researcher says we need to have a more open approach to diversity plans.
“Speak instead with everyone who represents diversity in the workplace and see what happens. Employers like to view themselves as good, fair, and humane. But sometimes it’s better to ask people what makes them feel good and what needs they have, instead of assuming that only management knows how change should take place and that only individuals of foreign background need to change.”
The dissertation is titled 'Off the Edge of the Map: A Study of Organizational Diversity as Identity Work' and it was publicly defended last spring at the Lund University in Sweden.
That means protecting women from 'honor killings' and teaching in Swedish.
In Sweden, diversity is largely about integration policy and the public sector rather than just being corporate policy in places lke America. Viktorija Kalonaityte recently defended her doctoral dissertation at the School of Economics, Lund University in Sweden and her thesis addressed identity and diversity work at a municipal school for adults. The school she studied views itself as working actively with diversity in line with a municipal diversity plan but Kalonaityte says that the diversity plan often collides with people’s understandings of what things should be like at a Swedish workplace.
Do societies want to assimilate or integrate?
If you see a woman assaulted on at a school for adults in Sweden and you try to help, you may be hurting Swedish diversity.
“Their interpretation of diversity deviates dramatically from the municipal plan and various notions of what diversity should mean. For example, the school wanted to assimilate instead of integrating its students of foreign backgrounds. There is a feeling that these students belong to another world and are drastically different. The school’s self-image touts that it should safeguard women from honor-based cultures and helplessness. Women are regarded as passive and helpless.”
The municipal school for adults sets out to model “a proper Swedish workplace” but the teachers are part of the “other” and even though prayer and other religious practices are banned from the school, the teachers allow the students to go off and pray and the teachers’ staff development days are planned to coincide with religious holidays.
Several teachers are even learning Arabic in order to understand their students better so the teachers and the routines are altered. This poses a problem in terms of the school’s Swedish self-image.
“The school wishes to retain its Swedishness, but it is not able to mediate perfect Swedishness to its students. For instance, the school brought in Swedes from outside to speak more perfect Swedish than its own teachers. When they wanted to show a real Swedish workplace, they had to take the students on a field trip.”
Viktorija Kalonaityte maintains that organizations that work with diversity should bear in mind that they change when they work with people. Employers cannot maintain control in the same way, because other languages are used and new ideas enter the picture. The researcher says we need to have a more open approach to diversity plans.
“Speak instead with everyone who represents diversity in the workplace and see what happens. Employers like to view themselves as good, fair, and humane. But sometimes it’s better to ask people what makes them feel good and what needs they have, instead of assuming that only management knows how change should take place and that only individuals of foreign background need to change.”
The dissertation is titled 'Off the Edge of the Map: A Study of Organizational Diversity as Identity Work' and it was publicly defended last spring at the Lund University in Sweden.
