Chapter 14: Studying Diversity with Purpose and Community

Today it is not unusual to learn of research on workplace diversity and race in the workplace being conducted by industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists. The annual conference of the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology now typically includes dozens of diversity presentations geared toward researchers and toward practitioners. Workplace diversity and anti-racism efforts in organizations are now areas identified as consistent workplace trends. Yet, this has not always been the case. As late as the mid-1990s, workplace diversity was a topic on the margins of I-O and deep study into the issue of race was somewhat taboo. My own career and program of research reflects the evolution of how I-O is coming to understand the significance of race. Therefore, this article provides an account of how learning about race outside of psychology provided me with the foundation to build a program of race research with the support of an interdisciplinary community of scholar friends. Specifically, I discuss how my lab’s work on racial identity, diversity resistance and ideologies, as well as work on women of color often involved translating and applying research on race and identity from other disciplines to workplace and career issues in order to advance I-O. The article concludes with recommendations for facilitating race research for the future.