Barriers to Inclusion: Social Roots and Current Concerns

Abstract

A working knowledge of the roots of, and barriers to, diversity, equity, and inclusion within organizations is essential to creating a more inclusive community, both in and beyond the academy. Structural inequalities arise and are reproduced at multiple levels simultaneously, each reinforcing the other: socially through interaction, culturally through ideas, values, and representations, and institutionally through formal rules and procedures as well as informally through taken-for-granted norms and practices. This chapter focuses primarily on the socio-cultural and cognitive factors identified by scholars as important barriers to achieving a diverse, inclusive academic community. Identity exclusion, stereotyping, and implicit bias, among other barriers, play a role, and, together with inequitable distribution of opportunities and resources, produce and reproduce racial and gendered inequalities. Identifying barriers to inclusion and understanding how they shape behavior is critical to eliminating them.