E.T. Chuck wrote:3) Diversity: do you have any specific strategy, a best practice, or a general team philosophy that welcomes girls/women and others from non-Caucasian or non-Asian demographic backgrounds? What works best in this case?
Chris Frankel wrote:E.T. Chuck wrote:3) Diversity: do you have any specific strategy, a best practice, or a general team philosophy that welcomes girls/women and others from non-Caucasian or non-Asian demographic backgrounds? What works best in this case?
Why should this be an issue at all? Why not just concentrate our efforts into making the game as enjoyable and enriching as possible for the kids who do want to play and helping them get the most of it, regardless of what demographic they fit? Treating the game as some sort of social welfare experiment only takes attention from away from the more important priority of encouraging the players who do show up and are interested in competing.
Dolemite wrote:Who cares if a team has four men, or four women, or four whites, four asians, or four blacks, as long as that's the best team your school can produce?
Bruce wrote:Dolemite wrote:Who cares if a team has four men, or four women, or four whites, four asians, or four blacks, as long as that's the best team your school can produce?
The issue is this (I think): if there's something about quizbowl that "scares away" members of certain demographic groups, then many schools are not fielding the best team that they can produce, because there's some player out there who's not on it because of gender or something.
Dolemite wrote:Fair enough. I just don't get the "I shouldn't be doing this because my (race/gender/whatever) doesn't do this kind of stuff" mentality that these hypothetical people have. I suppose it is out there though, unfortunately.
E.T. Chuck wrote:2) Retention
Just wondering, do any of your veterans help "mentor" your new members during novice-only practices? Are there any specific things you do to build a sense of belonging with new members?
E.T. Chuck wrote:Well, just as importantly, if someone walks into practice and sees no one who looks "like them," is that a disincentive to participate? If a girl walks into a team practice where there are only boys, is that intimidating?
ekwartler wrote:Perhaps you're right, minorities have inferiority complexes and think they're not smart enough for quizbowl. What should we do about that, though? Reassure them?
ekwartler wrote: Incidentally, the reason we can't integrate the Honda Challenge teams into ACF/NAQT is because they're explicitly forbidden (or perhaps were, are they no longer?) from participating in any other form of quizbowl. But the "Honda Challenge is racist" thread is long gone.
David Riley wrote:Re minorities in quiz bowl: A friend of mine has surmised that one of the reasons for a lack of such in quiz bowl is that there are few relevant questions: American and Western European-biased questions abound, but how often are there substantial questions about African-American, African, or other history and culture?
ImmaculateDeception wrote:I know anything I'm running will always have substantial questions in all those areas.
E.T. Chuck wrote:...how do you publicize your practices at school? ...what type of publicity has worked best for you?
E.T. Chuck wrote:...how many students do you keep after 1 month? How do you avoid attrition and maintain retention?
E.T. Chuck wrote:...do you have any specific strategy, a best practice, or a general team philosophy that welcomes girls/women and others from non-Caucasian or non-Asian demographic backgrounds? What works best in this case?
E.T. Chuck wrote:What are the qualities that you see in students who stay in quiz bowl? I'd like to compare the answers between high school and college team recruitment.
Get distracted by other activities?
wwellington wrote:My guess would be that this is the main issue. HS players of both genders find other things to do in college, and maybe it's just more noticeable with girls because there are fewer of them to begin with.
sabine01 wrote:I've played a fairly good (but small) Morehouse team at UTC tournaments (they were quite friendly guys and quite well-received)...
Though I wonder what became of them? Perhaps they were faced with the same problems other circuit teams generally ran into as far as recruitment/retention was concerned?
~Tricia~
Bruce wrote:wwellington wrote:My guess would be that this is the main issue. HS players of both genders find other things to do in college, and maybe it's just more noticeable with girls because there are fewer of them to begin with.
Most colleges are majority female these days, are they not?
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