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As individuals who use their privilege to reduce prejudice, educate others about social justice, and actively stop discrimination, faculty allies can play a vital role in transforming universities to be more equitable, diverse, and inclusive. However, discrepancies persist in how faculty define privilege and communicate allyship. Drawing from standpoint theory, we examined discursive divergences in how 105 full-time faculty defined and experienced privilege and how they enacted allyship in the workplace. Participants tended to conceptualize privilege as a set of advantages and lack of structural barriers for people based on their group membership(s). Discursive differences emerged regarding the degree to which faculty participants perceived privilege to be un/earned and rooted in structural power, and some participants took ownership of their social privilege while others discursively elided it. When asked to identify specific ally actions, participants often described broad behaviors that aimed to help individuals in interpersonal contexts but did not address actions aimed at dismantling inequitable power structures, revising biased policies, and transforming toxic organizational cultures. Our findings highlight the need for trainings that clarify conceptualizations of privilege and help faculty translate their understanding of allyship into communicative actions that stop discrimination at interpersonal and institutional levels.
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An introduction to ally skills for natural history collections professionals
Natural science collections are, by their nature, collaborative and cumulative and benefit from the inclusion of diverse people with varied experiences and backgrounds. Yet many of us recognize that our workplaces, and STEM at large, are not welcoming to all, even after decades of efforts. It is increasingly clear that one of the challenges is that we lack training in turning our shared values into action. Allyship - the action-driven practice of leveraging privilege or power to make meaningful change in eradicating oppression - is one such strategy for implementing change. In this paper, we introduce allyship skills as a framework for actions to effect this change, discuss both preemptive and responsive allyship efforts, and share some simple daily actions you can take to get started.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2027654
- PAR ID:
- 10336302
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of natural science collections
- Volume:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 2053-1141
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 3-11
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/e2yrv
