Managing Diversity Flashpoints in Higher Education (review)

Colleges and universities in the United States are more culturally diverse now than ever before in the history of higher education, and this trend will likely continue in the future. Therefore, it is imperative for members of campus communities, namely students, faculty, and staff, to be able to communicate effectively across cultural differences.

The ability to work effectively with people from various cultural groups has been identified in recent literature as an important outcome of undergraduate education. Moreover, potential employers expect college graduates to work well with people different from themselves in the workplace.

Joseph Garcia and Janet Hoelscher provide an interesting and timely perspective on how to communicate effectively across cultural differences in Managing Diversity Flashpoints in Higher Education. Much of what they discuss is directly related to multicultural competence, which involves one’s knowledge, awareness, and skills in working effectively with people from various backgrounds.

In my experience teaching diversity courses and from the literature on multicultural competence, individuals have the most difficulty translating knowledge and awareness about people different from themselves into to good practice. Managing Diversity Flashpoints in Higher Education addresses this critical gap experienced by many in higher education settings by offering tools to help individuals work through difficult situations that involve some aspect of cultural identity.

The authors define a “diversity flashpoint” as a potentially explosive or awkward situation that centers around identity differences between the individuals involved. In short, it can be thought of as cross-cultural communication gone wrong. Appendix H in the back of the book contains several examples of flashpoint incidents that the authors have collected from campus constituents over the last several years as a part of their research on this topic. Other vignettes are interwoven throughout the book to illustrate how to work through such situations.

I was curious, however, about where the term “diversity flashpoint” originated. In my opinion, the term does not immediately communicate its meaning to readers. The authors’ definition has distinct elements (e.g., identity-based, potentially explosive communication) that could be captured more clearly using better descriptive terms. “Diversity” has a very broad range of meanings and is somewhat overused in higher education. Garcia and Hoelscher are specifically referring to cultural diversity and various aspects of one’s identity.

Chapter 2 highlights some of the key demographic trends and events that have influenced America’s cultural diversity, particularly the dependence on people from various cultural backgrounds to help build the country’s economic and political structure. They also discuss the role that higher education has (or hasn’t) played in educating diverse student populations and highlight implications of the “melting pot” phenomenon for higher education today. Certainly, immigration into the United States has not always translated directly into making the country an equitable and “diversity-friendly” place to live and learn.

In Chapter 3 the authors discuss a positive diversity climate by identifying characteristics such as aspects of daily life, safety, inclusion, and support. They use as examples four higher education institutions that embody two characteristics of a diversity-friendly climate: (a) a commitment to and public statements about the importance of diversity from upper-level administration; and (b) resource allocation based on the stated importance of diversity.

Chapters 3 and 4 on learning and communication cover key principles of learning theory and characteristics of communication necessary for effective communication in a general sense. The authors here could have made the discussion more relevant to cultural communication, setting a better context for the following chapter on dealing with diversity flashpoints. Nonetheless, they make the useful point that effective cross-cultural communication is a skill that can be learned. Building on self-efficacy theory (a person’s belief about his or her capacity to complete a task successfully), Garcia and Hoelscher suggest activities such as case studies, role plays, and facilitation to strengthen a person’s self-efficacy. They argue that people with a strong sense of self-efficacy will be most willing to...