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Baber Strengths And Weaknesses

Decent Essays

Assumptions Baber (2014) repeatedly conveys assumptions or biases rooted in issues of power, privilege, and a lack of genuine interest by institutional leaders to directly address racial and ethnic disparities in STEM. This rhetoric is reflected in his findings from diversity program administrators, but presented without counterbalance from institutional leaders. Given the elimination of a greater institutional perspective, one can assume the opinions of institutional leaders and other policy makers whose practices were arguably under attack would likely be in conflict to Baber’s work and therefore, deemed inconsequential. In addition, Baber (2014) purported STEM diversity initiatives primarily focus on enrollment and completion numbers, with little or no investment in acknowledging impeding institutional or community norms. Such acknowledgement would ideally transform behaviors to enhance student success and the …show more content…

These assumptions and biases do not necessarily hinder the study, given its focus, but do constitute its limitations, which are presented in the concluding findings, strengths and weaknesses section …show more content…

The narrowly tailored participant group of diversity program affiliates as the primary data source generally supports Baber’s assumptions and findings. In utilizing interest-convergence, Baber states the findings considered three patterns that emerged from the data: a) the emphasis on compositional diversity or “increasing the numbers”, b) a cost-benefits approach toward diversity or “doing more with less”, and c) emphasizing benefits for faculty from majority populations or “what’s in it for me?” (p. 260-265). A table providing a breakdown of the number of participants by institutional pseudonym was the only visual aid used in this

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