Barriers to participation: challenges faced by members of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in entering, remaining, and advancing in the ADR field.

• Author: Volpe, Maria R.

INTRODUCTION

Since the 1970s, the alternative dispute resolution ("ADR") field has gained visibility and acceptance. (1) As the field has evolved, ADR scholars and practitioners, slowly but increasingly, have started to pay attention to the racial and ethnic mix of the practi

tioners in the field. (2) Like many other fields, the availability and presence of a diverse workforce makes good business sense. In fact, diversity has become one of the cornerstones of good business practice. (3)

For ADR, addressing the representativeness of its practitioners is particularly crucial for a number of reasons. (4) First, ADR as a field champions inclusion? Second, like in many other fields where clients need to trust practitioners, there is growing recognition among ADR practitioners that the pool of individuals providing services should, as much as possible, reflect the demographics of the population they serve. (6) Third, it is important that parties feel that they can trust the neutral third party conducting their ADR process, especially since many ADR processes bring participants together behind closed doors and the discussions involve matters of crucial importance to the livelihood or identity of the parties involved. (7) Fourth, the ADR field is highly unregulated with no universal standards of practice. (8)

Given the importance of the many factors that challenge ADR, there is a heightened obligation to ensure that parties feel comfortable with the professionals administering and conducting the process. Studies show that individuals involved in dispute resolution processes feel more comfortable when they share some aspect of their identity with those guiding the process. (9) Increasingly, dispute resolution professionals have begun emphasizing the importance of addressing identity-based concerns by writing about their own experiences. (10) The present reality is that the dispute resolution field does not include sufficient representation of practitioners from all racial and ethnic groups. (11)

This Essay focuses on the exploratory research we conducted on barriers to participation in ADR experienced by members of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. Those who served as the subjects of this research are involved in ADR in and around New York City, an urban area with a very diverse population. (12) Part I discusses the methodology used to collect data. Part II examines the myriad challenges faced in conducting the research. Part III presents the study's preliminary findings. Part IV delineates some of the remedies identified by our research participants. Part V suggests questions for future research. Finally, Part VI considers the significance of the study's findings.

Overall, there has been a dearth of research regarding the barriers that prevent greater participation of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in the ADR field. (13) This lack of research may be attributed to the newness of the field and to the fact that researchers have not yet empirically addressed the issue of under-representation. (14) An equally compelling explanation is that there is something inherent in the makeup of the dispute resolution field that makes it difficult to conduct the necessary research. (15)

1. THE "BARRIERS TO PARTICIPATION" RESEARCH STUDY: METHODOLOGY

   The Barriers Research Study, conducted in New York City, examined factors affecting participation, or lack thereof, by underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in the "supply" side of the dispute resolution field, which includes practitioners, educators, administrators, and trainers. (16) The study used an exploratory, inductive, and qualitative approach. (17) The researchers gathered ten groups of three to seven individuals for meetings at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. These two to three hour sessions took place over the course of one year from June 2005 to June 2006. In December 2006, all research participants convened for a final gathering. (18) In total, the researchers interviewed fifty people who have been involved in dispute resolution work as educators, mediators, arbitrators, facilitators, trainers, ombuds persons, and administrators. The research participants were chosen based on information about their status as members of underrepresented groups. (19)

   The researchers used open-ended questioning and follow-up discussions in order to explore and further develop hypotheses about barriers to supply-side participation. (20) The researchers recorded the meetings and transcribed the audio tapes. The research team analyzed the transcripts to identify themes in the comments that addressed or refined the team's hypotheses, or suggested alternative hypotheses. (21) The researchers who guided small group meetings also elicited participants' views on how and to what extent barriers to participation could be reduced.

   Lastly, at the end of all of the small group sessions, the researchers invited all of the participants to a large group gathering where the research team shared its preliminary findings. There, participants had an opportunity to provide the researchers with additional insights and to network with other participants. (22)

   The research team framed its study as an inquiry into the validity of the following three hypotheses. First, underrepresented racial and ethnic groups still face discrimination and injustices that are perceived as requiring more aggressive, adversarial methods of addressing concerns. The result of this discrimination and injustice is that individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups with a public interest orientation are less likely to find dispute resolution work meaningful and justifiable. (23) Second, underrepresented racial and ethnic groups still face an unequal economic playing field, and therefore cannot afford to devote substantial time to pro bono, volunteer, or low-paying work that is typical for the dispute resolution field. As a result, the participation of under represented groups in the ADR field is compromised. (24) Third, because of different social or cultural traditions and orientations, core assumptions about human behavior that permeate work in mainstream North American conflict resolution processes do not resonate with underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. (25) For example, there may be differences in views about the relative importance of characteristics such as rationality versus emotion and expressiveness, autonomy versus belonging and community, linear versus cyclical development, structure versus flow, and the material versus the spiritual. (26) As a result of these differences, ADR practitioners from underrepresented groups are pressured to utilize processes based on mainstream premises, which may be substantially different than those processes these practitioners would otherwise employ. This dissonance between the values or cultural orientation of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and the mainstream discourage their participation. (27)

   In addition to the aforementioned hypotheses, the research team discussed with the participants a wide range of topics, including how dispute resolution was managed in their countries of origin, what they focused on while conducting training programs, and how they used their skills in other settings. While this Essay will not analyze the project's findings in depth, the validity of the second and third hypotheses were confirmed by the data. The first hypothesis was not central to the work of the research participants involved in the project. Thus, their comments related to this hypothesis tended neither to confirm nor negate its validity.

2. CHALLENGES IN RESEARCH

   Many of the challenges experienced while conducting the study are similar to those experienced by other researchers conducting qualitative analysis in a wide range of contexts. Among the myriad challenges were creation of research instruments, access to subjects, representativeness of subjects, determination of sample size, coding of data, validity and reliability of data, accuracy of transcripts, and managing biases. Additionally, for small, local research efforts such as this study, there are always concerns about "generalizability" of the data. In our study, the research participants were drawn from a large urban area, and may not have been a truly representative sample of ADR practitioners generally. (28) In short, researchers must be cautious when presenting the findings of qualitative research and should carefully avoid any overly broad, sweeping statements when drawing research-based conclusions.

   Central to the success of this research project was the ability of a six-member, ethnically and racially diverse research team to manage a wide range of challenges presented by the composition of the team and the complexity of the study. The researchers learned how to work together as a diverse team--to employ appropriate language; to bring together diverse groups of research subjects; to have frank, open discussions about the most sensitive topics involving race, ethnicity, and other potential barriers; and to keep reminding themselves and others that this was primarily a research project rather than an action-oriented social change effort. (29)

   1. Broad Challenges Inherent in ADR Research

      The nature of the ADR field presents a wide range of challenges to researchers. (30) For a variety of reasons, there is no way to readily and easily access research subjects in the dispute resolution field. Partially, this problem stems from the newness of the field and the incompleteness of efforts to develop academic infrastructure for knowledge acquisition and sharing. It can also be attributed to the inaccessibility of scholars, experts, and future practitioners. Other challenges resulted from the nature of the field that has emerged through private and informal processes often provided by volunteers in small, low budget programs. Unsurprisingly...