Problems of studying cultural diversity in Russia

On March 25 Ekaterina Zibrova (PhD, ECOPSY Consulting consultant, Associate member of the Science Slam Russia Association for the Promotion of Science and Innovation, D&I expert) took part in the "Culture matters" research seminar with the report "Problems of studying cultural diversity in Russia".

Diversity is considered in modern science, in addition to an important humanistic component, as a socio-cultural factor of economic development, creativity, and innovation. Diversity is studied by scientists and practitioners at the intersection of such disciplines as - labor psychology, organizational psychology, economics, management, social and cross-cultural psychology. It is important to note that interest in the study of this topic is growing: every year there is more and more research, the subject expands from the three criteria of a culture of diversity (gender, ethnicity, age, and their mixed analysis) to sociocultural experience, including religion, sexual orientation, educational level, etc. others. Along with the high interest of researchers, there is a growing demand from organizations to incorporate diversity into their corporate practices. This trend is beginning to spread to the Russian business culture. However, are we ready for this? What work needs to be done now to continue the development of the trend and promote the spread of the idea of ​​studying diversity in Russian science and practice? At the seminar, the topic of diversity was examined from the point of view of organizational psychology. Three possible problems of studying the culture of diversity in Russia were proposed for consideration: approaches to the study of diversity, the use of possible theoretical models of organizational development applicable to the phenomenon under study, and an analysis of approaches to managing diversity in practice. A presentation was made of part of the results of a pilot study of organizational diversity models (analysis of associations and testing of the Russian-language version of the Diversity Perspective Questionnaire (DPQ)).