Retooling Career Systems to Fight Workplace Bias: Evidence from U.S. Corporations

Abstract

Abstract The civil rights movement spurred U.S. companies and universities to implement antidiscrimination programs. Beginning in the early 1960s, employers adopted anti bias training as their first line of defense against bigotry. Even then, there was substantial evidence that this approach was unlikely to lessen bias. In this essay, we discuss social science research on the effects of antibias training, as well as research on systemic approaches to reducing institutional discrimination based on insights from contact theory. As sociologist Samuel Stouffer and psychologist Gordon Allport, the progenitors of contact theory, might have predicted by the end of World War II, we find that interventions to change career systems to maximize intergroup contact can promote workplace equity.