equality and diversity in work place 1000worda

Contents

Item	Page(s)
General assessment instructions and guidance	2
Coursework assessment 1 brief	6
Assessment 1 guidance and assessment criteria	7
Coursework assessment 2 brief and essay questions	11
Assessment 2 guidance and assessment criteria	13
Deferral / referral assessment arrangements	20
Deferral / referral assessment brief	20

Assessment (general)

The assessment on this module consists of two coursework assignments, each of which must be completed by students individually. The assessments are detailed below, and any further guidance will be given on the Moodle site and in the classes. The two assessments must be submitted by Turnitin submission online via the relevant dropbox link on the module Moodle site by the deadlines stated. For further guidance on online Turnitin submission we refer you to the Online Submission Guidance, which you should be able to find on the Assignment Submissions section of the Moodle site.

Assignment 1, worth 25% of overall module mark, designed to assess learning outcome 3: Essay. ‘Seeing equality and diversity’: A Visual Analysis. Total word limit for this piece of work is 1,000 words: see section on ‘Word limits in assessed coursework’ below for details of what is included in, and excluded from the word count you must state. Deadline: Monday 22nd March 2021, 23:55 Greenwich Mean Time by electronic submission. Further details on assignment 1 can be found on pp. 6-10 of this document.

Assignment 2, worth 75% of overall module mark, designed to assess learning outcomes 1 and 2: Critical essay. Answer any one question from the list of possible topics below. Total word limit for this essay is 3,000 words: see section on ‘Word limits in assessed coursework’ below for details of what is included in, and excluded from the word count you must state.

Deadline: Friday 21st May 2021, 23:55 British Summer Time by electronic submission.. Further details on assignment 2 can be found on pp. 11-20 of this document.

Detailed guidance on coursework assessments

Instructions and information applying to both coursework assessments 1 and 2

Commenting on draft student coursework pre-submission

The purpose of assessment is for tutors to be able to evaluate your own skills and your knowledge and understanding of the module’s content, as evidenced by the work that you hand in. Tutors are here to help you in your studies. However, a balance must be struck so that everyone can be certain that what is being marked remains clearly your own work (please also see separate guidance on plagiarism and allied matters).

What help you can expect tutors to provide

Tutors can answer general queries about how to approach an assignment, interpretation of questions, relevant content, matters of style and English usage, referencing, appropriate reading, etc. Tutors can give guidance about what measures students might take to generally improve work. We can review a written draft of coursework once and provide general comments, especially in the face to face assignment surgeries. Any such drafts should really be in a form you’d regard as substantially complete.

What you cannot expect tutors to do

While we are happy to comment face to face on written drafts in general terms, it isn’t reasonable to expect us to provide a ‘distance tuition’ email commentary service on assignment drafts. Tutors cannot provide detailed comments or suggestions on assignments, give repeated feedback on successive changes to the same assignment, etc. Our role is not to ‘coach’ you through assignments, but to provide you with sufficient analytical and critical tools in the subject to give you sufficient capacity to tackle assessments yourself. Tutors cannot give any indication of possible mark or classification for draft work, including whether a piece of draft work might be passable or not, or what detailed changes might be desirable to maximise the chances of achieving any particular mark or grade.

Submission hand in arrangements

Students are required to submit their coursework assignment to Turnitin via the link on the module Moodle site Students are encouraged to submit drafts through the Turnitin student checkpoints prior to the submission deadline.

There are mark penalties for late hand in – see “Late Submission of Coursework” above. (Corruption of computer files is not an adequate excuse for late hand in, as work should be adequately backed up.)

PLEASE NOTE that the deadline for submission is 11.55pm UK local time on the submission date – this means that your assessment must be fully uploaded by 11.55pm. Assessments uploaded at 11.55pm or later will be marked as late. Students should submit in advance of the final deadline wherever possible. Computer uploading delays and other IT difficulties are not accepted as extenuating circumstances (with the exception of Covid-19-related circumstances, as explained in the extenuating circumstances criteria for 2020-21).

If there is a problem with Moodle at the time of submission students should email their coursework to [email protected] with the following details:

Student Number

Module Name / Module number

Course name that you are studying

Screenshot of the error

Word limits in assessed coursework: what counts and what doesn’t

For the avoidance of doubt, the stated maximum word limits provided for particular items of assessment are supposed to be just that: the maximum. There is no unofficial ‘plus or minus 10% leeway’. The word count includes everything from the start of the text of your answer to the end of the text that precedes the beginning of your reference list in APA 7th format. The word count excludes the title, the statement of your word count that you should include underneath your title, your list of references at the end of your work, and any footnotes you have used. Use the word count facility in Word to determine your word count for this block of text. Your reference lists do not count as part of the word count, but in-text citations inevitably do.

For assignment 1 specifically, the visual analysis essay, you must credit the source of the image that you include. You should do this underneath the image itself; the image should be placed directly at the front of your work, underneath the title and your word count. This statement of credit for the image source does not count as part of your official word count and can therefore be excluded from it.

Please do not use footnotes any more than is absolutely necessary. Certainly, do not use excessive footnoting as an ingenious device to attempt to get around the word limits, as we will penalise this if we suspect it. Examiners are free to disregard footnotes that contain inappropriate information or information that should belong in the main text.

Please state an accurate, actual word count for your assignment, not the intended maximum, because this would be misleading. It is an assessment offence to state an inaccurate or misleading word count, or not to include one at all. Failure to state a word count will result in a penalty. A falsely stated word-count is an assessment office which may result in a penalty, including the reduction of the mark to 0%. If we suspect that you have falsely stated your actual word count, it is easy for us to check against your electronic submission, and we are likely to do so, in such circumstances. Coursework that is over the stated word limit will also result in a penalty on the original mark awarded.

Referencing requirements

Students must reference all sources using the APA 7th edition. Guidance on this method of referencing can be found at www.referencing.port.ac.uk . Reference should be made to the primary source, except when the primary source can no longer be obtained. Poor citation of sources will result in a loss of marks.

Referencing is required to give intellectual credit to your source, help your reader recover your source easily and to avoid being accused of plagiarism.

Students are reminded that the University will not tolerate academic dishonesty in any form. This is cheating.

Formatting

The work should be word processed. Font size should be between 11 and 14 and ‘easy to read’ e.g. Calibri, Arial, Times New Roman. Line spacing should be between 1.5 and 2 with (approx.) 4 cm margins all round. The Header must include the student number and the Footer must include a page number.

Electronic copy of Work

Students should retain an electronic copy of their coursework, so that it may be checked by a member of staff should a member of staff feel the need to do so. Tutors are entitled to request an electronic copy of coursework if they have any doubt about the accuracy of the stated word count and/or any suspicion of plagiarism. Failure to send an electronic copy of the coursework to a member of staff who has asked for a copy may result in a penalty.

If any student has a query about any of the above matters and wishes to obtain clarification or further information please contact your module co-ordinator or personal tutor.

Feedback

Marking will be done in accordance with the marking criteria stated for each assessment and the University of Portsmouth generic grading criteria for UG level 6. Link to Grade Criteria (Levels 4–8) – General criteria applicable to essays, reports and aspects of projects and dissertations:

http://www2.port.ac.uk/departments/services/dcqe/storeddocuments/filetodownload,171073,en.pdf

Instructions and information applying to coursework assessment 1 specifically: ‘Seeing equality and diversity’: A Visual Analysis essay

This is an individual assignment and carries 25% of the module mark. It covers learning outcome 3 for the module: collect and synthesise relevant information related to equality and diversity issues.

The aim of this short essay assignment is to get you think about where our understandings of difference come from. Our exercise in the introductory workshops in teaching weeks 1 and 2 highlighted how we make assumptions about people’s characteristics based on a stock of social and cultural ‘knowledge’ and this has implications for how we might act and think in a workplace setting. This assignment continues that idea by asking where does that ‘stock’ come from? In particular this assignment focuses on one important source, the images of people at work that circulate in mass news, entertainment and social media.

What you are required to do:

1. Find an image online that portrays something about equality and diversity at work to you. Copy or download the image and paste it into a document. Directly underneath, add the reference for the source where you found it.

2. After your chosen image, write 1000 words critiquing how it portrays equality and/or diversity issues at work. Prompts to help you do this are given below. References are not included in the word count.

3. Upload your document, preferably as a Word file, through the link on the module Moodle page by the deadline: Monday 22nd March 2021, 23:55 Greenwich Mean Time.

Guidance/ FAQs

· Your work will be graded using the marking criteria below – please familiarise yourself with the requirements and ask if you are unsure.

· You should include academic references to support your discussion, based on the material introduced in the module so far and the materials on visual analysis provided for you. Work that includes references to your own, additional research into the topics raised, will be graded more highly (see criteria below).

· The lecture in teaching week 4 gives further advice on this assignment. There are further resources in the ‘Assessments and support materials’ section of the module Moodle site, and also an explanatory video about the assignment from Sam Warren.

· You can choose any image you like. What’s important is that it ‘speaks’ to you about some kind of equality/ diversity at work (E&D) issue – positively or negatively, it doesn’t matter.

· The image must connect to something related to the workplace. It’s OK to choose an image that address an E&D issue outside the workplace, but you must clearly show how this affects factors to do with work and/or the management of organisations.

· You will find it easiest to Google for terms such as ‘sexuality in the workplace’, ‘gender quality at work’, ‘ethnicity and the workforce’ and so on – pick something from the module topics that interests you and see what you find.

· Make sure you visit the actual site, or report / article, where the image appears in its original setting – this is what you should include as the source, not the search engine.

· It could be a photograph, cartoon, meme, drawing, graphic, for example.

· It could show people at work, or be an image that was included in a report or story about E&D at work issues.

· You can take it from any media source, for example: broadcast news site such as BBC, broadsheet or tabloid newspapers, images circulated on Facebook, something you have found on a company’s website, or the documents available there, a stock photo from an image-house such as Getty images, even a still from a YouTube movie – be creative!

Some thinking prompts for assignment 1

Why did you choose this image as representing something about E&D at work?

What particular features of the image are generating your assumptions?

Framing?

People? Gaze?

Objects?

Do you think this image reinforces or challenges stereotypical assumptions?

What opinions could a viewer draw from this image in relation to E&D at work?

Who is likely to see this image?

Submission deadline: Monday 22nd March 2021, BY 23.55 UK local time (Greenwich Mean Time for ‘on time’ submission, assignment 1).

10 working days after this date (deadline for late submission) is Tuesday 6th April 2021, no later than 23:55 UK local time (British Summer Time for late submission, assignment 1).

20 working days after this date (target for return of marks and feedback for assignments submitted within original deadline) is Tuesday 20th April 2021. Please note that, as the marking period straddles the Easter break, we will keep you informed if we anticipate any delay.

Indicative assessment criteria for assignment 1

Grade	Criteria
80+	Exceptionally insightful analysis showing highly advanced level of understanding. Likely to be based on a novel choice of image and/or E&D context, with extensive additional reading and research to support sophisticated points made either about the way the image is ‘working’ on the viewer, the dimension of E&D discussed, or both.
70-79	Distinctive and insightful analysis showing excellent understanding. Likely to be based on a novel choice of image and/or E&D context with significant additional academic and policy reading and research to support thoughtful points made either about the way the image is ‘working’ on the viewer, the dimension of E&D discussed, or both.
60-69	Logical and relevant analysis showing good to very good understanding. Strong choice of appropriate image and/or E&D context with some additional academic and policy reading and research to support relevant points made. Likely to emphasise the dimension of E&D discussed, but include some awareness of how the image is ‘working’ on the viewer.
50-59	Solid analysis showing adequate to good understanding. Appropriate choice of image, but likely to be from a more ‘obvious’ source. Draws from only readings provided on the module and/or uses additional academic and policy readings in incorrect or superficial manner. May show limited awareness of how the image is ‘working’ on the viewer and/or a ‘common sense’ understanding of the E&D dimensions discussed.
40-49	Limited analysis but enough to show threshold understanding with some errors. Image may lack relevance or appropriateness, with little or no supporting academic and policy evidence used (either from the module or elsewhere). Likely to be limited to describing the image and/or simplistic awareness of E&D dimension discussed.
26-39 (FAIL)	Little or no analysis, showing misunderstanding of task and/or topic. Image may be inappropriate or irrelevant. No serious attempt to use supporting evidence, either academic, policy or popular sources.
25 and below (FAIL)	No serious attempt at assignment, or task and/or topic misunderstood

These criteria are in addition to the generic university criteria relating to scholarship (e.g., presentation and referencing) which can be found from the link above.

Instructions and information applying to coursework assessment 2 specifically: the critical essay

This is an individual assignment and carries 75% of the module mark. It covers the following learning outcomes for the module:

1. Critically evaluate theoretical and conceptual perspectives of equality and diversity.

2. Apply knowledge and understanding of equality and diversity issues in the workplace.

You should prepare an essay (3000 word maximum) that answers ONE of the following eight questions. Your essay should cover the main theoretical positions relevant to the issue, include a wide range of correctly referenced academic research and policy evidence relevant to the argument you are putting forward, and provide a reasoned, well-argued conclusion that sums up your answer to the question as set. As befits work of a Level 6 standard, we are looking for well evidenced critique and not poorly substantiated assertion. Popular sources from internet sites and ‘opinion’ statements are not what is required and will be penalised. You are advised to write using correct, precise terminology to maximise the ‘professional impact’ and persuasiveness of your writing.

Additional essay guidance for assignment 2 is available below, and you should also look at an accompanying video of essay guidance presented by Sam Warren, which you can find in the ‘Assessments and support materials’ section of the Moodle site. Specific ideas on particular essay titles are likely to be posted on the module Moodle site, in the ‘Assessments and support materials’ section. If there are still any further questions after this, please ask a tutor.

Bibliography is not included in the word count, but in-text citations are. There is no 10% margin on length – please state your word count clearly on your assignment.

For electronic submission of this assignment, you will be asked to first join a particular group, depending on the question title you’ve answered, before you can actually submit your essay. Please allow a bit of extra time for this step. More information about this will be given on the assignment submission section of the module Moodle site.

Assessment 2 essay questions

Choose any ONE title. Please ensure you include the full title of the question you are answering at the head of your answer.

1. Account for the existence of a disability pay gap. With reference to appropriate theories, to what extent do you think it will be more difficult to close the disability pay gap than the gender or ethnic pay gaps?

2. Why has ‘modern slavery’ become a concern for business organisations and governments? To what extent is it reasonable to expect business organisations to be the primary party responsible for eradicating modern slavery from their supply chains?

3. Critically evaluate the ‘diversity management’ paradigm as a means of achieving greater equality of opportunity in organisations, with reference to appropriate examples of different equality strands and theories.

4. Age discrimination in organisations disproportionally affects older workers rather than younger workers? Evaluate to what extent available evidence suggests this is true?

5. Critically assess the efforts of employing organisations to promote the effective inclusion of LGBT+ staff.

6. What is it about the nature of contemporary work and organisations that enables lookism as a form of discrimination? Critically evaluate the case for lookism to be made unlawful.

7. How far do you agree with the view that managerial efforts to promote equality, diversity and inclusion are of little use in reducing discrimination and disadvantage at work? You must draw on at least two areas of disadvantage, as covered in the module, in your answer.

8. Critically evaluate whether, and in what ways, the Covid-19 pandemic and associated increase in homeworking has improved, or exacerbated equality and diversity at work. Exemplify with at least two topics covered in the module in your answer.

Submission Date: Friday 21st May 2021, by 23:55 UK local time (British Summer Time for assignment 2)

10 working days after this date (deadline for late submission) is Monday 7th June by 23:55 UK local time (British Summer Time for assignment 2).

20 working days after this date (target for return of marks and feedback for assignments submitted within original deadline) is Monday June 21st. Please note that, as this is the University’s peak marking period, if we anticipate any delay to this you will be kept informed.

Further guidance on the essay brief (from Sam Warren)

So now let’s look at that essay brief again, important things highlighted in red, numbered and further explained below:

‘You should prepare an essay (3000 word maximum[endnoteRef:1]) that answers ONE of the following eight questions (see below). Your essay should cover the main theoretical positions relevant to the issue1, include a wide range of correctly referenced academic research2 and policy evidence3 relevant to the argument you are putting forward, and provide a reasoned, well argued conclusion4 that sums up your answer to the question as set5. As befits work of a Level 6 standard, we are looking for well evidenced critique6 and not poorly substantiated assertion7. Popular sources from Internet sites8 and ‘opinion’ statements9 are not what is required and will be penalised. You are advised to write using correct, precise terminology10 to maximise the ‘professional impact’ and persuasiveness of your writing.’ [1: Please note 3000 words is the maximum. There is no +/- 10% margin for this assignment]

Guidance on the numbered, red sections above:

1. Your essay should include theory. This includes ‘broad’ theories of equality of diversity and more specific theories relevant to your chosen question.

a. Broad theories include (but are not limited to) – e.g., social justice vs. business case; equality of input vs. equality of output; long and short diversity agendas; intersectionality and so on. Your essay should identify which of these positions you are aligning yourself with. You will find literature on these topics in your core textbook’s early chapters (Kirton and Greene) and any other textbook on equality and diversity. See also the early lectures of the unit.

b. More specific theories: I won’t list here as there would be too many, but one example related to lookism might be ‘aesthetic labour’. You will find these kinds of theories discussed in all the journal articles you will be reading to gather evidence for your argument, and of course in the lecture slides and materials for the topic.

The important point to note here is that you should not just include statistics, government reports, case examples and so on – you should discuss the ideas and theories that try to explain why these things have occurred and continue to occur.

2. A wide range of academic research ideally means that you read at least two or three articles on each point you want to make – or at very least don’t draw all the evidence for your point from one source. The reason we insist on this is that otherwise you are just paraphrasing another person’s viewpoint and that means you will struggle to develop a critical take on what you are discussing. For a good 2:1 grade, we would expect to see a minimum of around 1.5 - 2 pages of references for a 3000 word essay. Good quality articles are those published in academic, peer reviewed publications – there are some listed in the unit handbook, others have been referenced during lectures and seminars and generally you’ll be fine with anything you find through the library databases (e.g., Ebsco, Business Source Complete, Scopus etc.) and where you have selected ‘academic articles’ and/or ‘peer reviewed publications’ from the advanced search box. That said, do pay attention to where and when the piece was published – if it was in The Journal of Icelandic Mountain Managers in 1986 it may not be the most applicable evidence for a point you are making about inequality in UK/ Europe in 2019.

You should know what correctly referenced means by now, but common errors include not stating page numbers in text for direct quotations, and including the search engine in the full reference at the end of the essay – this is not necessary for a published article or book (even if you read parts of the book on Google Books) – just reference the piece as if you had it in your hand in hard copy.

3. Policy evidence is also important to show what is happening ‘on the ground’ so to speak. Policy can be formed by government (e.g. law, and ACAS guidance), pressure groups – e.g., best practice documents on Stonewall (LGBTQ rights organization) or by employers/ industry groups such as the CIPD.

4. What we mean by a reasoned, well argued conclusion is that you need to do more than just explain about all the issues relating to the topic and then sum them up at the end. You need to decide on what your answer to the question is going to be (also see point 5 below) and then set about developing an argument that leads to that end point. Imagine you are having a conversation with someone and you are trying to convince them that your answer is the best one. What reasons would you give for your points? How would you come back on any counter-arguments they put forward?

This does not mean you only put forward one perspective, or ignore other positions that say something different to your argument. The best way to convince someone you are right is to ‘shoot down’ their objections and counter-arguments along the way. In an essay that means recognising that alternative positions to yours exist, but then explaining why they can be disregarded, are not relevant, can be overcome, etc. and therefore your argument is still valid.

5. Make sure you answer the question as it has been set, don’t ‘go off on one’ writing about what you would prefer to write about, rather than sticking to what the question is asking you to do. Make sure you understand exactly what the question is asking you to do – come and talk to one of us if you’re not sure – please!

6. By Level 6 you should be very used to using evidence for your critical points. You should not make statements without providing a reason why they are valid and then supporting that reason with some evidence why the reader should believe you. So, the statement I just wrote should really read something like:

You should not make statements without providing reasons why they are valid, because otherwise the statement is really just your own view on something, and why should your view be convincing or authoritative? Providing good reasons is a vital step in turning an ‘opinion’ into an argument, according to Collins (2015) and the final stage in the process is providing evidence so the reader can see for themselves, ‘…that this is not just your opinion, but is a view that is supported by others’ published research and statistics’ (Agriwal 2009: 56.)

7. Poorly substantiated assertion is the opposite of well reasoned critique and evidence. It just means that you have stated something with little or no evidence and so it reads as just you asserting your opinion.

8. The internet is an amazing source of, and access point for, information. However, you need to be discerning about what you use. Popular internet sites that are generalist business or study sites, consultancy websites, the first thing that came up when you googled for a term, etc. are not usually good sources of information because they are not necessarily persuasive or authoritative. Sites like netMBA, businessballs.com, and so on are lazy places to find (often incorrect or over simplified) information. You pay a lot of money for your degree so use the library databases to find academic articles!

9. By opinion statements we just mean statements that start ‘I think that…’ or ‘In my opinion…’. Please see points 6 and 7 above to remind yourself why opinion is not appropriate. BUT yes, we do want your views on the topic! Remember that your ‘opinion’, when stated along with reasons why it is valid, and supported by evidence for those reasons is no longer your opinion, but your position on a topic (see point 6 above!).

10. Please do not write in over-casual, ‘common sense’ language. Use the correct terms and precise words for the issues you are describing so that we a) can understand what you mean and b) can see that you understand what you mean. Every field has its own language so that it can adequately and precisely describe its elements. If you don’t use the right words, then you can’t show us that you really understand the details of your topic – and that is what is needed for the higher mark bands.

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Indicative assessment criteria for assignment 2

	80% +	1st class (70-79)	2:1 (60-69)	2:2 (50-59)	3rd (40-49)	Borderline fail (35-39)	Clear fail (35 or less)
Application	Comprehensive synthesis of theoretical arguments with practical/ policy implications for a range of stakeholders	Excellent explanation of practical/ policy implications for a range of stakeholders	Practical/ policy implications clearly and appropriately discussed. May focus on limited range of stakeholders	Adequate recognition of practical/ policy implications of material discussed. Likely to be limited in scope	Some recognition of practical/ policy implications but may be some misunderstanding and limited in scope	Very limited or ‘common sense’ statement of practical/ policy implications	No practical/ policy implications mentioned
Use of theory	Sophisticated and thought provoking theoretical underpinning for arguments coherently	Insightful use of theory to underpin arguments coherently	Good to very good, solid use of appropriate theory, logically applied	Solid use of theory, may be less well integrated into argument in places	Theory mentioned but in a disconnected manner	Very limited or superficial mention of theory	No theoretical material included
Range of sources	Skilful use of excellent range of theory and research from appropriate academic journal articles to support all major points. Likely to include significant independent research	Skilful use of excellent range of theory and research mostly drawn from academic journal articles to support all major points. Likely to include a fair degree of independent research	Good to very good range of academic theory and research used to support majority of major points. At top end, will include some independent research	Some use of theory and/or research to support most points. Tending toward text-book and non-academic ‘popular’ sources	Limited theory and research used to support points, and/or drawn from exclusively non-academic ‘popular’ sources	Very little/ no evidence used to support points	Little or no evidence apparent
Critical evaluation	Outstanding synthesis of competing perspectives on / complexity of subjects discussed	Excellent discussion of range of perspectives on/ complexity of subjects discussed	Good to very good discussion of two or more views on subjects discussed	Limited discussion evident, writing will be descriptive in character, (paraphrasing sources)	Very limited discussion, points stated and/ or references included with little explanation	Work largely consists of unsubstantiated assertion	Little or no evaluation or discussion
Understanding and insight	Exceptionally good understanding of topics shown, with thought provoking ideas put forward	Excellent understanding of topics demonstrated with interesting ideas introduced	Competent to very good knowledge of topic areas shown with sensible ideas expressed	Solid understanding of core of topics shown, with ideas tending towards lay interpretation	Basic understanding evident and some relevant ideas but simplistic	Subject matter not understood and/or no relevant ideas included	Considerable misunderstanding evident
Presentation and referencing	Comprehensively and correctly referenced and professionally presented	Almost no errors in referencing, presentation to an excellent standard	Well referenced with good to very good presentation	Some errors in referencing and/ or acceptable presentation	Referencing of minimum acceptable standard. Presentation basic	Incorrect or lack of references, poor presentation	Inadequate or no referencing and very poor presentation

These criteria are in addition to the generic university criteria relating to scholarship (e.g., presentation and referencing) which can be found from the link above.