Our presentation focused on the research our group conducted over a year within our own psychology graduate school, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Our cooperative inquiry research focused on six facets of assessing diversity - curricular review (through syllabus analysis), student course evaluations, a brief student survey, faculty interviews, re-analysis of a recent “cultural assessment” which included a section on diversity, and our own reflections both as researchers and as community participants.

We found a number of trends, a couple of which as a faculty I find particularly interesting. One is that syllabi do not tell the entire story - often faculty include additional, sometimes spontaneous, exercises or discussions which may include diversity but were not previously included in the syllabus, while at other times diversity discussions were planned but not carried out in the classroom. From a research perspective, syllabi are useful as a start but cannot be relied upon to demonstrate what is really happening in a classroom. Other data sources must be collected to provide a more complete picture.

A second interesting point was that we found two means by which faculty included diversity within the classroom. One way was for the faculty/instructor to intentionally make space for diversity issues or plan discussions/exercises focused on diversity. Another way faculty/instructors introduced diversity was to invite students with diverse perspectives to share their perspectives. Generally the students were of visibly diverse populations, usually of a a different race/ethnicity than the dominant makeup of the student population within the class. This second way of introducing diversity intersected with another finding that some students felt tired of holding the diversity flag, as it were. Thus, while inviting student sharing may help create an atmosphere of student participation, I now feel it is vital for faculty/instructors to intentionally create space for diversity issues through readings, assignments, and focused discussions rather than rely on spontaneous discussions or relying on students to teach diversity perspectives to fellow students. This seems like it should be intuitive and common sense, however it likely needs to be repeated.

A third finding was that the top 3 diversity areas mentioned in faculty syllabi were culture, race/ethnicity, and religion/spirituality. All other categories were mentioned much less. This is particularly interesting as the sex/gender topic, while 4th on the list, was not even close to the religion/spirituality topic and yet we have a large LGBT community.

There were other findings as well, but I’ll keep this post from getting too long by stopping here. Maybe it will whet your appetite for a future article on the topic.

However, I will note that we presented our findings to our community after completion of the research, and then we conducted interviews one year later with 6 top administrators in the school including the president, academic VP, and Chairpersons of the programs to learn how our research influenced change at the school and the feedback was quite positive. So, stay tuned!

If you are interested in the next NCORE, which will be held in San Diego, CA please visit the NCORE website. Proposals for presenting must be in by Dec. 15th, 2008 and the conference will be held May 26 - 30th. Hope to see you there!

However, when dealing with individuals in graduate schools, those conducting research, or those in the business field, it has been quite helpful to start with this simple triangle and then work into deeper issues of, for example, “am I *good enough* (whichever level you want to take that on) to succeed.” At other times we have found that intentional distractions, and even unintentional distractions, are really alternative ways of engaging the topic at hand.

Let me give an example. At one point a client was intent on completing a specific part of her project. The project was quite large, so she we had helped her to break down the project into manageable chunks in order to work toward her various goals. At one point she found that she felt absolutely stuck. And even with our accountability efforts in place, she wasn’t moving forward. On her next consulting visit we asked what she had been doing instead. As it turned out, she had watched 4 movies rather than complete the project. On the surface this would seem mere distraction - but I wanted to take it a bit further this time. After inquiring as to the *topic* of the movies and the *moral of the story* in each, the client was led to an epiphany. Every movie had the same basic topic, plot, and moral - and all of these had to do with her feelings of being stuck at this particular part of her project. After recognizing this consciously, and engaging in her own *plot* as compared to the characters in the movies, she was able to come to her own resolution and complete that part of her project.

Without going a bit deeper, she would not have likely recognized her connection with those protagonists in the movies nor would she have likely moved forward anytime soon.

In my experience writing my dissertation (a large research project I had to complete in order to graduate with my Ph.D.), there were times that I absolutely fought against the urge to write. I knew that I wanted to write, even that I had to write, but that didn’t help me write. I would either find other things to do, sit and stare at my screen, or write something small then edit it for several hours. These behaviors were entirely unproductive, and did not help me to get to the goal of having a completed piece of work.

During our consulting we have found several ways to overcome writers block. One of my favorites is doing a daily visualization, seeing a set of black bricks building a wall in front of you, each with the word “block” on it. Once the wall has been created, mentally destroy the wall - the way is up to you. Wrecking ball. Bare fists. Laser beams from your eyes. Or seeing it crumble and transform into a lush garden with a pathway in front of you. This practice can also be done by painting real wooden blocks black, then painting the word “block” on it. Build the wall and then break it down. This will instill in your own psyche the ability to break down internal blocks whenever you come up against them. Simple, and it will work for most types of blockages.

There are other exercises, and even a great number of additional resources on the web. Here are a few from a simple search:
10 Ways to Overcome Writer’s Blocks
http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writingroadblocks/a/writersblock.htm

A Creative Way to Get Ideas Down Before the Critic Smashes Those Good Ideas
http://timetowrite.blogs.com/weblog/2007/04/overcoming_writ.html

Good ol’ Wikipedia - With a Section on How to Overcome Writer’s Block
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer’s_block

For the article, just click the link above. For a direct link to Peter Reason’s personal website, including many of the articles he has written click here.

Just found this resource - a free, multilingual open-access journal on qualitative research. If you are looking for qualitative research articles, discussions, and debates from different countries, here is the place. Check it out.

Oh, and it’s FREE!

Cheers.
~Ryan

As some of you know, I have been teaching a Diversity Research Group at a local graduate school, helping train Ph.D. students how to conduct research. Within this class we are focusing on the topic of Diversity in Academia. Some of the key questions we are contemplating are: How does an institution of higher education promote diversity within student, faculty, and administration? How do faculty incorporate diversity into graduate training in psychology? In an institution that both differentiates itself from the normal US cultural standard and incorporates US cultural standards of education, how does one define diversity - i.e., diversity in which context? And how does an academic institution incorporate diversity into its topic area (in our case, psychology, and more specifically, transpersonal psychology)?

I am finding that as we address diversity within the classroom, academic institution, and within ourselves as a co-operative inquiry research group (see Peter Reason’s work here http://people.bath.ac.uk/mnspwr/) we are also addressing diversity within research. And I mean this several ways. First, I mean this as diversity in our approach to research technology. Our graduate school is not focused on the use of qualitative research software. However, we are finding that our work (and me as the instructor) leads us toward QDAS. And now this perspective is becoming more popular within the school - an instance of a minority position growing in the awareness of other researchers.

Second, I am referring to the diversity of/within our data. At this early stage in our research there seem to be many ways that faculty and students conceptualize diversity, and many different ways that faculty bring diversity into the classroom. While some include readings on a particular subject, others invite in guest speakers. Some have class discussions devoted (as per their syllabi) to topics of diversity, while others let diversity topics emerge from class discussion. Some types of inclusion are more overt and focused; others less so. Similarly, some faculty focus on race and ethnicity, while others on sex and gender, and still others on culture, abelism, or class. And this is just the in-class faculty aspect of higher education! It will be interesting to see the results, but for now I merely wish to bring to light the diversity of approaches to diversity.

Finally, I am referring to the diversity within our research group. Each co-researcher brings to the table some important element. And with the topic of diversity, we are finding that each voice becomes vital to speaking a particular element of the discussion at hand. While one person may be intimately aware of sex and gender issues, another may be intimately aware of abelism. As we discuss the research project, and how we will proceed, it has become vital that each of us speak up for that which we hold in our awareness, for none of us apart can hold it all simultaneously. Having a group that is able to do this has, I believe, allowed us to more soundly conceptualize how diversity affects the institution around us. Do we have it down pat yet? No. Is our conceptualization perfect? No. There are ultimately pieces that we are yet missing. However, the process of allowing the diverse voices within the research setting has raised important issues around our research topic, and this ultimately is why I am writing here today. I would like to encourage all researchers to open to serious discussions of diversity in research, beyond that of ethical obligations for IRBs or inclusion of minority populations as participants (which are both still very important).