Teaching Tips for Faculty: Assessing Diversity and Incivility on Campus
Eros DeSouza, Ph.D.
Illinois State University
Climate assessment regarding diversity, harassment, and incivility
represents a burgeoning area of research related to workplace incivility (Andersson
& Pearson, 1999; Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001; Lim & Cortina,
2005). Sexual harassment includes three types of behaviors: gender harassment,
unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion (DeSouza & Fansler, 2003).
Incivility is defined as ambiguous behaviors that are rude and discourteous
(Andersson & Pearson, 1999), including both active and passive forms of
mistreatment (Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002). These constructs may represent one
aspect of an organization’s climate, which is related to important employee attitudes
and behaviors in an increasingly diverse workforce.
Previous research on mistreatment of faculty members by students has
focused on sexual harassment (e.g., DeSouza & Fansler, 2003). A recent study by
DeSouza (2011) expanded mistreatment from students toward faculty members to
include general uncivil behavior (without overt reference to gender and
race/ethnicity), and other behaviors to which individuals of stigmatized groups
(e.g., women and racial/ethnic minorities) are often exposed, and which the target
may perceive as constituting sexual and/or ethnic harassment. Specifically, DeSouza
investigated incivility, sexual harassment, and ethnic harassment simultaneously
when the targets were faculty members and the perpetrators were students, using a
behavioral approach that clearly included participants’ negative evaluation of their
harassing experiences. The sample consisted of 257 full-time faculty members (90%
White and 53% women) from a medium-sized state university in the Midwestern
USA.
DeSouza (2011) reported that 72% of the total sample had experienced some
type of mistreatment from students during the past 2 years. Of these, 96% reported
having experienced incivility, followed by sexual harassment (31%), and ethnic
harassment (11%). These phenomena are not isolated, suggesting that sexual
harassment and ethnic harassment are linked to incivility. Moreover, the findings
showed that these behaviors were linked to negative job outcomes for both men and
women, which may ultimately affect the quality of teaching as professors may
experience burnout and leave the institution.
DeSouza, Berube, and Schneider (2007) assessed university staff’s
experiences of workplace incivility and linked their perceptions to turnover
intentions. A random sample of 220 staff (173 non-minority and 47 minority) and
98 faculty (59 non-minority and 39 minority) completed an anonymous survey. The
staff included three groups: administrative (n=52), professional (n=94), and clerical
(n=74). DeSouza et al. found a significant interaction between ethnic minority status
and job group, with racial/ethnic minority respondents in the clerical group
reporting more incivility than their non-minority counterparts. For the other job
groups, minority employees reported less incivility than non-minorities. The
authors also used moderation analysis, which indicated that at lower levels of
incivility, clerical workers reported the greatest intent to leave; as incivility
increased, all job groups showed similar intentions to quit. These findings suggest
that job type or group may be an even more important predictor of incivility
experiences and the impact of such experiences on turnover intentions. Such climate
assessment merits attention by university administrators interested in determining
where additional training efforts should be focused to combat incivility.
Informal observations and reports indicate that incivility is also present on
Latin American campuses. Cross-cultural research on incivility is necessary to
identify risk and protective factors across student and faculty groups, based on
sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, and disability.