{"id":47932,"date":"2022-09-26T16:50:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T14:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/?p=47932"},"modified":"2025-11-20T14:21:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T12:21:48","slug":"complex-diversity-the-three-levels-of-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/complex-diversity-the-three-levels-of-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"Complex Diversity: The Three Levels of Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gain a deeper understanding of diversity with Ameeta Jaga, Convenor on the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/products\/uct-leading-diversity-and-inclusion-at-work-online-short-course\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leading Diversity and Inclusion at Work<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> online short course from the University of Cape Town.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Complex Diversity: The Three Levels of Analysis | UCT\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4nFdJHm1dFU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Diversity in business isn\u2019t a one-size-fits-all solution, or simply a once-off campaign. Incorporating true diversity in the workplace requires a much deeper analysis of the multi-layered context responsible for inequality, bias, and discrimination.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-transcript\">Transcript<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Doing diversity work requires us to engage with a particular history, race, class, gender, and other intersectionalities to understand how social relations are produced in the dynamics of the labour market.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Focusing on the interplay of these three levels when developing an approach to diversity management helps take into account the multi-layered context responsible for the inequalities and power differences that infiltrate the workplace.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, let\u2019s look at race and gender. The macro-national level takes into account the significance of national structures, institutions such as laws, social organization, religious structures, gender, and race. This level determines which form of social identity becomes salient in both society and the workplace.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The meso-organizational level considers the organizational processes, rituals, and routinized behaviours at work that established the rules of organizational-level gender and race relations. It includes approaches to diversity which mediate employment opportunities according to individual abilities and contextual circumstances.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the micro-individual level we consider issues related to individual power, motivation, and agency to effect change, all of which are gendered and racialized phenomena.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These levels interact such that individual beliefs and attitudes are generally enmeshed in broader societal traditions and organizational norms to create unique arrangements of gendered organizations. For example, jobs that are then gender-stereotyped and women receiving lower salaries than men, in the same way that individual choices and orientations are not the key determinants of career success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I draw on Ijeoma Oluo\u2019s writing on race to think about how these levels interact in my own life. Yes, I studied and worked hard to be the first one in my family to get an undergraduate degree and then postgraduate degrees but achieving this is not only due to my own efforts. Some of the advantage I experienced because of having a degree can be ascribed to certain social groups. Like my privilege based on my physical ability, English as my first language, my sexual orientation, being a registered citizen of my country, and that I didn\u2019t have to drop out of university to support my family. These are arbitrary social categorizations of advantage that helped me be successful. So thinking that anyone can do this if they just worked hard enough is flawed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These advantages set you up with a status that is not fully earned and on a hierarchy that places others below you. When we believe that our success is truly of our own and not because of systemic structural inequalities, we then perpetuate the same advantage and disadvantage on others, maintaining unfair systems that have impacts on people\u2019s lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Too often diversity efforts are focused at one level, such as diversity training at the organizational level for business benefits. The inclusion of multiple levels of analysis allows for an examination of diversity and equal opportunity as a negotiated process, which is socially and historically embedded.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gain a deeper understanding of diversity with Ameeta Jaga, Convenor on the Leading Diversity and Inclusion at Work online short course from the University of Cape Town. Diversity in business isn\u2019t a one-size-fits-all solution, or simply a once-off campaign. Incorporating true diversity in the workplace requires a much deeper analysis of the multi-layered context responsible [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":47996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[122,127],"article-format":[],"class_list":["post-47932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career-advice","tag-business-management","tag-career-advice"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.2 (Yoast SEO v26.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Complex Diversity: The Three Levels of Analysis - GetSmarter Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gain a deeper understanding of complex diversity with Ameeta Jaga, Convenor on the Leading Diversity and Inclusion at Work online short course from the University of Cape Town.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/complex-diversity-the-three-levels-of-analysis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Complex Diversity: The Three Levels of Analysis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gain a deeper understanding of complex diversity with Ameeta Jaga, Convenor on the Leading Diversity and Inclusion at Work online short course from the University of Cape Town.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/complex-diversity-the-three-levels-of-analysis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"GetSmarter Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-09-26T14:50:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-20T12:21:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/getsmarter_understanding_diversity_as_social_responsibility_blog_1500x844.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"844\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aaminah Allie\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"GetSmarter Staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/complex-diversity-the-three-levels-of-analysis\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/getsmarter_understanding_diversity_as_social_responsibility_blog_1500x844.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/getsmarter_understanding_diversity_as_social_responsibility_blog_1500x844.jpg\",\"width\":1500,\"height\":844},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/complex-diversity-the-three-levels-of-analysis\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Blog\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<meta property=\"og:video\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4nFdJHm1dFU\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:video:type\" content=\"text\/html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:video:duration\" content=\"229\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:video:width\" content=\"480\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:video:height\" content=\"270\" \/>\n<meta property=\"ya:ovs:adult\" content=\"false\" \/>\n<meta property=\"ya:ovs:upload_date\" content=\"2022-09-26T14:50:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"ya:ovs:allow_embed\" content=\"true\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Complex Diversity: The Three Levels of Analysis - 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