Paradoxes of Intersectionality: Theorizing Inequality in the Dutch Police Force through Structure and Agency

Organization ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendy Boogaard ◽  
Conny Roggeband
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Ethnic Inequality ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Organizational Identities ◽  
Intersecting Identities ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Minority Officers

While gender and ethnic inequality have been extensively studied in the context of organizations, research into how the intersection of these and other identity categories (re)produces inequality in organizations is still scarce. In this article, we examine inequality from an intersectional perspective in the context of a diverse and multifaceted organization: the Dutch police force. Using data collected through direct observation and focus groups, we analyse how organizational inequality is (re)produced and called into question by drawing on intersecting gender, ethnic and organizational identities. The analysis on the findings through an intersectional lens sheds light onto two paradoxes. The first paradox points to the fact that, by deploying more positive identities to empower themselves, individuals can de facto contribute to reproducing inequalities along those same identity axes. The second suggests, on the contrary, that acknowledging female and ethnic minority officers’ specific valuable competences calls into question inequality along gender and ethnicity within the executive police force. In analysing our material, we approach individuals as agents reflecting and engaging with intersecting identities and the unequal power relations deriving from them. We show that, while they occasionally openly challenge inequality derived from one’s social identity, they often actually reproduce it in order to preserve their own individual power.

Trials of loyalty: Ethnic minority police officers as ‘outsiders’ within a greedy institution

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 354-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abby Peterson ◽  
Sara Uhnoo
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Police Culture ◽  
Police Organization ◽  
Security Officers ◽  
Minority Officers ◽  
New Recruits

In this article we interrogate how ethnicity interfaces with the police culture in a major Swedish police force. While addressing administrative levels, in particular police security officers’ screening of new recruits, we focus on the role that loyalty plays in defining how ethnicity interacts with mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion in the structures of rank-and-file police culture. The police authorities, perceived as ‘greedy institutions’, demand and enforce exclusive loyalty. We argue that ethnic minority officers are rigorously tested as regards their loyalty to their fellow officers and to the police organization, and the demands made on their undivided loyalty and the misgivings as to their unstinting loyalty act as barriers to inclusion in the organization.

Founding Family Ownership and the Selection of Industry Specialist Auditors

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fei Kang
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Family Firms ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Founding Family ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Dual Class Shares ◽  
Dual Class ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Industry Specialist

SYNOPSIS This study examines how family firms' unique ownership structure and agency problems affect their selection of industry-specialist auditors. Using data from Standard & Poor's (S&P) 1500 firms, the results show that family firms are more likely to appoint industry-specialist auditors than non-family firms, which suggests that family firms have strong incentives to signal the quality of financial reporting. Additional analysis indicates that due to the potential entrenchment problems, family firms with family member CEOs or with dual-class shares have even a higher tendency to hire industry-specialist auditors to signal their disclosure quality.

scholarly journals ’We weren't checked in on, nobody spoke to us’: an exploratory qualitative analysis of two focus groups on the concerns of ethnic minority NHS staff during COVID-19

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. e053396
Author(s):  
Jehanita Jesuthasan ◽  
Richard A Powell ◽  
Victoria Burmester ◽  
Dasha Nicholls
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Healthcare Workers ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Individual Risk ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Healthcare Staff ◽  
Cross Sectional

ObjectiveTo gain exploratory insights into the multifaceted, lived experience impact of COVID-19 on a small sample of ethnic minority healthcare staff to cocreate a module of questions for follow-up online surveys on the well-being of healthcare staff during the pandemic.DesignA cross-sectional design using two online focus groups among ethnic minority healthcare workers who worked in care or supportive roles in a hospital, community health or primary care setting for at least 12 months.ParticipantsThirteen healthcare workers (11 female) aged 26–62 years from diverse ethnic minority backgrounds, 11 working in clinical roles.ResultsFive primary thematic domains emerged: (1) viral vulnerability, centring around perceived individual risk and vulnerability perceptions; (2) risk assessment, comprising pressures to comply, perception of a tick-box exercise and issues with risk and resource stratification; (3) interpersonal relations in the workplace, highlighting deficient consultation of ethnic minority staff, cultural insensitivity, need for support and collegiate judgement; (4) lived experience of racial inequality, consisting of job insecurity and the exacerbation of systemic racism and its emotional burden; (5) community attitudes, including public prejudice and judgement, and patient appreciation.ConclusionsOur novel study has shown ethnic minority National Health Service (NHS) staff have experienced COVID-19 in a complex, multidimensional manner. Future research with a larger sample should further examine the complexity of these experiences and should enumerate the extent to which these varied thematic experiences are shared among ethnic minority NHS workers so that more empathetic and supportive management and related occupational practices can be instituted.

scholarly journals Perspectives on Precision Health Among Racial/Ethnic Minority Communities and the Physicians That Serve Them

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 137-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa G. Rosas ◽  
Catherine Nasrallah ◽  
Van Ta Park ◽  
Jan J. Vasquez ◽  
Ysabel Duron ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Racial Ethnic ◽  
Precision Health

 Background: In order for precision health to address health disparities, engagement of diverse racial/ethnic minority communi­ties and the physicians that serve them is critical.Methods: A community-based participatory research approach with mixed methods was employed to gain a deeper understanding of precision health research and practice among American Indian, African American, Latino, Chinese, and Vietnamese groups and physicians that serve these communi­ties. A survey assessed demographics and opinions of precision health, genetic testing, and precision health research. Focus groups (n=12) with each racial/ethnic minority group and physicians further explored at­titudes about these topics.Results: One hundred community mem­bers (American Indian [n=17], African American [n=13], Chinese [n=17], Latino [n=27], and Vietnamese [n=26]) and 14 physicians completed the survey and participated in the focus groups. Familiarity with precision health was low among com­munity members and high among physi­cians. Most groups were enthusiastic about the approach, especially if it considered influences on health in addition to genes (eg, environmental, behavioral, social fac­tors). Significant concerns were expressed by African American and American Indian participants about precision health practice and research based on past abuses in bio­medical research. In addition, physician and community members shared concerns such as security and confidentiality of genetic information, cost and affordability of genetic tests and precision medicine, discrimina­tion and disparities, distrust of medical and research and pharmaceutical institutions, language barriers, and physician’s specialty.Conclusions: Engagement of racial/ethnic minority communities and the providers who serve them is important for advancing a precision health approach to addressing health disparities.Ethn Dis. 2020;30(Suppl 1):137-148; doi:10.18865/ed.30.S1.137

scholarly journals Explaining the visible and the invisible: Public knowledge of genetics, ancestry, physical appearance and race in Colombia

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 886-906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernesto Schwartz-Marín ◽  
Peter Wade
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Physical Appearance ◽  
Genetic Ancestry ◽  
Public Knowledge ◽  
Authoritative Knowledge ◽  
Mechanistic Explanations ◽  
Genetic Essentialism ◽  
Genetic Science ◽  
Using Data

Using data from focus groups conducted in Colombia, we explore how educated lay audiences faced with scenarios about ancestry and genetics draw on widespread and dominant notions of nation, race and belonging in Colombia to ascribe ancestry to collectivities and to themselves as individuals. People from a life sciences background tend to deploy idioms of race and genetics more readily than people from a humanities and race-critical background. When they considered individuals, people tempered or domesticated the more mechanistic explanations about racialized physical appearance, ancestry and genetics that were apparent at the collective level. Ideas of the latency and manifestation of invisible traits were an aspect of this domestication. People ceded ultimate authority to genetic science, but deployed it to work alongside what they already knew. Notions of genetic essentialism co-exist with the strategic use of genetic ancestry in ways that both fix and unfix race. Our data indicate the importance of attending to the different epistemological stances through which people define authoritative knowledge and to the importance of distinguishing the scale of resolution at which the question of diversity is being posed.

Diversity in emergency management scholarship

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
DeeDee M. Bennett, PhD
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Management ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Response And Recovery ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Racial Ethnic

Women and racial/ethnic minorities have long been underrepresented in the field of emergency management. This is true for both practice and research. The lack of women and racial/ethnic minorities in the profession and their perceived absence in research or scholarly study may have impacts on the effectiveness of response and recovery efforts as well as the broader scientific knowledge within the field. Historically, women and racial/ethnic minority communities have disproportionately experienced negative impacts following disasters. Earlier related studies have pointed to the underrepresentation as a contributing factor in community vulnerability. The scarcity of women in practice and as students in this field has been particularly evident in the United States. Using data from a recent survey of emergency management programs nationwide, this article reviews the concerns in research with regards to women and ethnic minority communities during disasters, efforts to increase representation of these groups in the field, and discusses the implications for practice, policy, and future research. The findings show that women have a strong presence in emergency management programs nationwide, and while specific data on racial and ethnic minorities are lacking, the observed increases reported in this article encourages further study.

Students Focus on What They Want

2002 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Davis
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Learning Experiences ◽  
Ethnic Minority Group ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Student Opinion ◽  
Low Expectations ◽  
The Common ◽  
Local Students

As part of a consultation exercise conducted by LTSN Engineering, three focus groups have been facilitated to provide a snapshot of student opinion on learning and teaching in engineering subjects. The three institutions visited were a campus university and two city universities, one postand one pre-1992. The pre-1992 institution had a high proportion of local students from an ethnic minority group. Although there were some local differences, there were some comments that were repeated during all three sessions. This paper will report the results of the focus groups, identifying the common themes that were of importance to the students within their own learning experiences, including methods that helped them to learn. It is interesting to note that the students had fairly low expectations and identified easy to implement activities.

Football Players’ Popularity on Twitter Explained: Performance on the Pitch or Performance on Twitter?

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice Vergeer ◽  
Leon Mulder
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
Football Players ◽  
Premier League ◽  
Twitter Account ◽  
Using Data

This study tested football players’ performance on the pitch against their performance on Twitter as explanations for Twitter popularity. Guided by network theory, social-identity theory, and basking in reflective glory and using data of all players of all teams in the Dutch premier league (“Eredivisie”), the multilevel models show that players with a Twitter account were more popular when they scored more goals, were non-Dutch, were on loan at another club, and were networkers actively following others on Twitter. The findings also show that context matters. Players under contract with a successful club receive an automatic bonus: Irrespective of their performance on the pitch or on Twitter, they automatically acquire more followers on Twitter. Players in general do not need to put a lot of effort into communicating on Twitter because sending tweets is unrelated to having more followers. Advertisers’ best options to reach larger and homogeneous audiences through football players are to choose attackers, scoring players, those out on loan, and foreign players, as well as players from successful teams in general. The study also identified which player characteristics do not add to a larger audience reach, such as tweeting behavior and experience on Twitter.

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