Building inclusive PA classrooms: The Diversity Inclusion Model

Article
Teaching Public Administration
Building inclusive PA
2021, Vol. 39(1) 84–106
ª The Author(s) 2020
classrooms: The Diversity
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DOI: 10.1177/0144739420937762
Inclusion Model
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Michelle D Evans
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA
Hillary J Knepper
Pace University Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, USA
Abstract
Normative management behaviors have resulted in the patterns of today—a lack of equity
in leadership positions and policies that are less favorable toward women. Meanwhile,
public service values, such as respect, equity, diversity, and inclusiveness, are central foci
among the professional standards and norms within the public administration field, its
academic discipline and related curricula. Consequently, public administration educational
programs are uniquely situated to espouse these values in their core curricula, as well as
enact and reinforce them through inclusive pedagogical practices. This paper has two aims.
First, to introduce the Diversity Inclusion Model, which provides a framework for
examining diversity and inclusion in course design and syllabi to identify areas of
improvement. Second, to apply the Diversity Inclusion Model to gender equity and
inclusion to develop more gender-inclusive, acculturated learning experiences that
reinforce gender equity in the classroom. This may subsequently inform the practice of
public administration to re-shape professional norms and create better gender equity.
Keywords
Diversity, equity, gender, inclusion model, pedagogy, acculturation
Introduction
Normative values arise organically from their environment; consequently, the voices,
lessons, and perspectives that have emerged over time in public administration have
done so from historically mono-cultural, Eurocentrist, male-dominated perspectives and
Corresponding author:
Michelle Evans, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Department of Political Science and Public Service,
615 McCallie Avenue, Chattanooga, TN 37403-2504, USA.
Email: michelle-evans@utc.edu; Telephone: 423-425-5370

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Evans and Knepper
85
scholarship (Bondy et al., 2015; Feeney et al., 2019; Lane, 2014; Samanta, 2015). The
effects of these male-dominated normative values in public administration have evolved
out of the “masculine assumptions” upon which organizational behavior, theory, power,
and processes have been applied; subsequently, “each generation of MPA graduates enters
the workforce wearing blinders that causes them to perpetuate unequal power dynamics”
(Bishu et al., 2019: 145). What are the epistemological implications of these masculine
assumptions and how do they affect the classroom? Following Young’s (2000) advice to
examine processes and communication for inclusion barriers, this article uses pedagogy in
a new way to identify and disrupt gender equity barriers. The authors have developed the
Diversity Inclusion Model and introduce it here. This model was developed as a tool for
academics to critically examine pedagogical choices and communication methods that
may be creating hidden roadblocks to diversity and inclusion, which in turn may con-
tribute to the exclusion of diverse perspectives. In this study, the Diversity Inclusion
Model is applied to gender equity. The model supports pedagogical self-examination to
develop more respectful, inclusive classroom environments. The goal of this model is to
identify patterns and deficits that reinforce classroom inequity and exclusion, and which
may have repercussions beyond the classroom. This paper has two aims. First, to introduce
the Diversity Inclusion Model, and second, to apply the model to gender equity and
inclusion to develop more gender-inclusive, acculturated learning experiences that rein-
force gender equity in the classroom. This article is presented as follows: first some
background is presented; next, the literature review discusses pedagogy and gender
inclusion. The next section introduces and explores the Diversity Inclusion Model, using
the gender frame. The article concludes with recommendations for the classroom.
Background
Normative management behaviors have resulted in the patterns of today—a lack of
equity in leadership positions and policies that are less favorable toward women (Bishu
et al., 2019; Burnier, 2005; Elias and D’Agostino, 2019; Sabharwal, 2014; Thomas et al.,
2018). Surprisingly, women themselves may not even realize the depth of the problem.
The concept of misrecognition accounts for why even women may not recognize
oppressive workplace behaviors given these behaviors are so deeply normative and
societally entrenched (Bourdieu, 2001 cited in Powell and Sang, 2015).
Within the frame of gender equity, women have been making progress, but there is
still much work to be done, as the well-known statistics indicate. Women account for
nearly 51% of the US population (US Census Bureau, 2018) and 57.1% of the overall US
workforce (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019, December). Many public administra-
tion degree holders work in the public and nonprofit sectors, where 44% of the federal
workforce are women (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2011). How-
ever, women comprise only 35.4% of federal senior executive positions (US Office of
Personnel Management, 2017), and 43% of nonprofit board membership or 24% of chief
executive positions of large nonprofits (Shankie, 2015). Meanwhile, only 34–36% of
faculty in public administration programs are women (Feeney et al., 2019; National
Science Foundation, 2015; Primo, 2013; Scutelnicu and Knepper, 2018). This is despite

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Teaching Public Administration 39(1)
women making up nearly 79% of students enrolling in public administration graduate
programs (Okahana and Zhou, 2017), up 2% over the 2013 graduate enrollment report
(Gonzales et al., 2013), and about half of all public administration doctoral degrees being
earned by women (National Science Foundation, 2019).
For public administration, these statistics indicate an opportunity to reflect upon the
gendered classroom experience. Do classrooms perpetuate certain normative manage-
ment behaviors with their reliance on Eurocentric male-dominated theorists? What
implications does this hold for those management practices that are reinforced in the
workplace? To increase gender equity in practice, examining the inclusion of women’s
scholarship and perspectives in the public administration classroom becomes essential.
At best, it could be argued that course reading materials have been gender neutral, which
constrains the opportunity to understand how “gendered processes are manifested and
how such processes produce unequal outcomes for men and for women” (Bishu et al.,
2019: 145). How, then, can classrooms fully embrace inclusion to drive greater equity
not only in the classroom, but ultimately in workforce environments? Perhaps by
recognizing current classroom deficits and then disrupting them. Indeed, some argue the
need for public administration programs to graduate reflexive managers, those who are
trained and able to question assumptions, cultural norms, and practices (Pedersen and
Tangkjær, 2013; Quinn, 2013). This ability of reflexive managers, to think deeply and
critically, in this case hinges upon them recognizing and questioning dominant man-
agement practices that are comprised of male-dominated gender norms.
What are the roles and expectations of professors teaching a public administration
course? Where does their primary loyalty lay—education, public administration, or
teaching students to actively pursue reflexive management? What considerations should
they consider when designing their courses and syllabi? What teaching style do they
want to undertake, and how do they appropriately communicate this? How do they
incorporate the sometimes endless barrage of educational recommendations, university-
mandated policies, and department policies, which can make preparations feel like
putting together a jigsaw puzzle? How do instructors think about, much less apply, the
answers to these questions when preparing each semester can cause stress and trepida-
tion, even for experienced professors? More important, particularly within public
administration education, how are these course preparation efforts integrated with public
service values, such as equity, diversity, and inclusion? As Lopez-Littleton and Blessett
(2015) note, public administration classrooms must become leaders in building inclusive
and diverse spaces, capable of meeting the needs of the changing US citizenry.
Rosenbaum (2014) echoes this sentiment in citing inclusion of diverse voices in the
classroom as one of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
(UN/DPADM) markers of excellence in education and training for public administration.
Literature review: pedagogy and gender inclusion
The central purpose of public administration education, particularly at the graduate level,
is to educate and train future public sector leaders and managers and to expose them to
professional social norms (National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and

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Administration (NASPAA), 2014). Public service values, such as respect, equity, diver-
sity, and inclusiveness, are central foci among the professional standards and norms within
the public administration field (American Society for Public Administration (ASPA),
2013; NASPAA, 2014), as well as core components of our democratic system in the
United States. ASPA identifies strengthening social equity...