| Abstract: | This paper explores a project to design and mount a unit on ‘managing diversity’. For its conceptual framework the unit draws on feminist theories of struggles for equity and social justice and the various policy approaches that workplace equality agents have correspondingly developed. Despite the emphasis on feminist theory, the paper makes no attempt to compare gender equity initiatives with strategies for managing diversity. Rather, some of the tensions are identified between the culturalist aims of the Managing Diversity movement and the redistributive goals that generated affirmative action and equal employment opportunities strategies; and it is suggested how an analysis of those tensions may promote increased student understanding of the topic. Secondly, it is assessed how a unit may juxtapose industrial relations and human resource management concepts to the benefit of curricula in both.In planning a new unit, moreover, it is not only the content which needs to be considered, but also the students' prior learning experience and the politics of persuading one's colleagues of the proposal's worth. Thus an account of these more pragmatic issues is integrated into the discussion. |
