Topic 2006:
"The Role of Public Administration Institutions in Promoting Constructive Diversity Management"
This year, Working Group IV focused its attention on the role of and the manner by which public administration schools and institutes promote constructive multi-ethnic diversity and its management. This was done by examining the nature of the challenges faced in terms of multi-ethnic diversity management by the region’s governments and the preparation which public administration students receive in order to face these challenges.
The working group received two quite different types of papers. The first group of papers focused on various national and institutional perspectives in terms of the training of future and current civil servants. Particular attention was addressed in them as to how issues of multi-ethnic diversity and diversity management are dealt with in the various schools and institutes of public administration. Studies from Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine were presented. A second group of papers focused on the various policy challenges involved in the integration of diverse groups into society in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine, and in Hungary and Kyrgyzstan.
In analyzing the gap between the practical challenges facing the various countries, and the preparation needed to meet those challenges, the working group focused on a number of issues related to making public administration institutions and schools more sensitive to the diverse environments in which they operate and the need to integrate them more directly into their communities.
The Working Group also found that there were a variety of ways in which public administration schools could more effectively address issues of diversity management. In most instances, schools and institutes had no courses in diversity management and in no instances were such courses a part of the core curriculum. Furthermore, the Working Group concluded that the problem could not be solved simply by adding a course to the core curriculum but really needed to be addressed in a variety of already existing courses. Indeed, in many instances, little concern was shown about the need to have diverse student bodies and faculty. In essence, there was a need to “mainstream” diversity.
The working group also developed an integrated framework of principals of good practice for diversity and diversity management in public administration institutes and schools. The working group concluded that it would encourage NISPAcee to work with the public administration schools and institutes in the region to encourage good practice on their part in the area of diversity management.
At its final session, the working group agreed that it was necessary to continue to:
(1) carry out research on developing recommendations on how to integrate diversity management into the curriculum of public administration schools and institutes in order to ensure that civil servants were able to engage in, and encourage, effective governance in diverse communities.
(2) collect additional information on best practices for integrating effective diversity management into the curriculum and teaching in schools and institutes of public administration.
(3) develop a catalogue of the available resources in the region with regard to teaching and training in diversity management.
(4) continue to assess the diversity climate in the schools and institutes of public administration within the region through the use of questionnaires that assess the demand for, and the availability of, information and course work on diversity management on a country by country basis in the region.
Call for Papers 2006