Working with Groups in the Workplace
Our culture has generally considered white, heterosexual, able-bodied males as the norm against which to judge others. As our communities, jobs, and families are composed of a wider variety of people, we need to work toward a new cultural sense of normal that includes women and men of color, who are gay, lesbian or bisexual, who have disabilities, and others who do not fit the common norm. Discrimination is common, unconscious, and often considered acceptable.
In shaping a new vision of the future, it is important for all of us to increase our understanding of people who differ from this norm. Our society is like a tossed salad filled with a variety of vegetables. If we allow ourselves to see human differences, including color, sexual orientation, gender, ability, and class the way we look at the different vegetables in a salad, we can celebrate diversity and enjoy living and working among people different from ourselves.
Celebrating Diversity provides a useful way to face the complex cultural, political, and humanitarian challenges that lie ahead. Its exercises examine various minorities groups to provide participants with a better understanding of their own biases, myth-shattering information, and an opportunity to abandon their prejudices and conditioning. They help participants become more comfortable with those unlike themselves and build bridges between differences, allowing workshop members to discover what they have in common by providing tools for better communication among diverse people.
Sections include:
• Icebreakers
• Myths
• Attitude Adjustment
• Resources including a section on how to use this book most effectively.
Also available: Reproducible Worksheet Masters on CD (only available with purchase of book)
