{"id":2398,"date":"2019-08-02T13:57:20","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T13:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/?p=2398"},"modified":"2021-01-07T15:57:34","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T15:57:34","slug":"what-you-cant-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinking.is.ed.ac.uk\/melissa\/2019\/08\/02\/what-you-cant-see\/","title":{"rendered":"you can’t be what you can’t see"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the new images from our online learning collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Racial and ethnic diversity is a challenge for the Scottish HE IT sector. In Scotland in 2017 95.6 percent of the population identified as white. The next highest ethnic group was Asians with 2.6 percent.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Jackie Kay thinks Scotland is \u2018decades behind in attitudes to race<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

Skills Development Scotland<\/a> highlight the\u00a0 business drivers:<\/p>\n

‘Getting race equality right in the UK is worth \u00a324bn per year to the UK economy -1.3%of GDP. Employers with more diverse teams also have 35% better financial results.There are persistent unemployment rate gaps, with some ethnic minority groups experiencing employment rates which are twice as high as their white counterparts.\u00a0 <\/em>In 2016\/1only 1.7%of Modern Apprentices in Scotland identified as BME’<\/em><\/div>\n

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Student interns work with us over the summer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In ISG we take an intersectional approach to\u00a0 addressing the multiple factors, gender, race, religion, class, sexuality, and disabilities which shape the experience of our staff. Ethnicity is also a complex category. I had to google ‘do Jews count as minority ethnic?’ and there’s a whole discipline around collecting data.<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are some of the things we have done:<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have employed an intern\u00a0 (Dominique ) who is an expert in gender and race issues and how those combine to reinforce inequality. She has advised us on how to ensure that our gender equality initiatives also include race, age and class considerations.<\/p>\n

In our recruitment, we have changed the language and images we use to\u00a0 communicate what it is like to work in ISG.\u00a0 We have also changed where we advertise, making more use of LinkedIn and the new Equate Scotland jobs<\/a> board and the university careers service. As a result our new workers, and particularly our student interns appear to be a much more diverse group than the longer standing staff. Our interns are a pipeline to bringing new diversity<\/a> into digital jobs.<\/p>\n

We make sure that the images we use in BITs magazine and in other ISG promotional materials\u00a0 reflect the diversity of our staff and discourage the use of ‘stock’ images to do so. We have also changed the images we use to promote use of technology and online learning, ensuring that the images on our websites reflect the demographics we know we have in our community. We are exploring how we can make more use of positive action images collections such as JopWell<\/a><\/p>\n

A report from the Scottish Government’s independent adviser on race equality in Scotland in 2017<\/a> recommended actions for those with the aim of working towards achieving the goal of parity in employment for minority ethnic communities in the workplace.<\/p>\n

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Distribution of non-white ethnic backgrounds in Scotland in 2017* \u00a9 Statista 2019m Source: Scottish Government<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘It is generally accepted that for public services to be effective and relevant for all communities in Scotland, the public sector workforce should reflect the community it serves. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that by 2025 its own workforce will reflect at every level the minority ethnic share of the population. According to the 2017 staff diversity data published in the Scottish Government’s Equality Outcomes and Mainstreaming Report, BME<\/acronym> staff currently comprise 1.6 % of the civil service in Scotland, an increase of 0.2 % since 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n

The position set out in the CRER<\/acronym> report of March 2014 is that just 0.8% of staff in all Scotland’s Local Authorities are from BME<\/acronym> backgrounds despite making up 4% of the general population in Scotland. In Glasgow City Council the proportion of the workforce from a BME<\/acronym> background is less than 2% although the BME<\/acronym> population is 12%.<\/em><\/p>\n

Given that the Public Sector employs 20.7% of the workforce in Scotland, accelerating action to tackle the diversity deficit in the Scottish Public Sector and meet the Scottish Government’s equality outcomes is, I suggest, a matter of some urgency.’<\/em><\/p>\n

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One of the new images from our online learning collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

People of colour make up 9.7 per cent of the total staff numbers at University of Edinburgh and suffer structural disadvantage in pay as we can see by looking at the gender pay gap.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

BME staff are more likely to report a culture of bullying, racial stereotyping and microaggression (Advance HE\/Fook et al, 2019; Rollock 2019). We have held staff development sessions on:<\/p>\n