Tracking POD's Engagement with Diversity: A Content Analysis ofTo Improve the Academyand POD Network Conference Programs From 1977 to 2011

Abstract

This study examines the degree to which sessions from the annual Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network Conference and articles from To Improve the Academy engage questions of diversity. The titles and abstracts of 3,946 conference sessions and 560 journal articles were coded for presence and type of diversity. A significant variation in inclusion of diversity over time was found for the conference sessions (p < .001) but not the journal articles. Overall, the findings suggest that the organization has been inconsistent in its scholarly engagement with diversity and should work to encourage more regular engagement with diversity by its members.

Educational Development as Pink Collar Labor: Implications and Recommendations

“…Educational development, a field composed of varied “practices designed to enhance the academic performance of an institution of higher education” (Candy, , p. 17), has long offered critical analyses of identity and diversity in the profession, especially in terms of race (Stanley & Ouellett, ; Gillespie & Robertson, ; Grooters, ). Yet educational developers have not turned analytical attention to issues of gender with the same degree of focus.…”

Identity, Intersectionality, and Educational Development

“…), as well as studies that span national contexts (McDonald and Stockley ; Baume and Popovic ). Literature critically exploring our personal identities typically considers individual stories (e.g., Kinash and Wood ; Kensington‐Miller, Renc‐Roe, and Morón‐García ; Gravett ) or diversity at the national network level (such as Stanley and Ouellett ; Grooters ), although recently Sutherland (, 209) has argued that “we need to reflect on the roles we play and the identities we carry (and have imposed on us)” in educational development.…”

Ableism, Accessibility, and Educational Development: A Disability Studies Perspective

“…Yet little has been written about disability or disability studies, specifically, in educational development publications. In a review of two decades of To Improve the Academy , for example, Grooters () discovered that disability was “addressed in fewer than 1% of articles coded”; the same was true for presentations at the annual POD Network conference. Others (e.g., Davis ) have noted the general exclusion of disability from conversations about identity and diversity.…”