SOCIAL SCIENCES

Belonging Without Othering: How We Save Ourselves and the World

Stanford Univ. Apr. 2024. 448p. bibliog. ISBN 9781503638846. $30. SOC SCI

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Powell and Menendian are the director and assistant director, respectively, of the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. Their book identifies and addresses social inequity and issues related to several diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The two argue that “othering”—stigmatizing, marginalizing, or perceiving others to be threats because of their differences—is at the core of inequality. Historical and current examples—the Jim Crow era, the Troubles in Ireland, violent conflict, antisemitism, the Myanmar genocide crimes, the George Floyd protests, the movements of Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Stop the Steal, and more—are presented in seven dense, academically written chapters that run from 15 to 47 pages each. Their sources range from Karl Marx’s 1844 work about his theory of alienation to contemporary NPR and CNN broadcasts. Powell and Menendian believe the solution to othering is belonging, their term for communal inclusion and acceptance of individual differences. There are thorough endnotes that include citations and sidebars. Occasionally, there are also footnotes that provide extended explanations and more.

VERDICT Will appeal to readers researching DEI. This interdisciplinary work for think tanks, academics, faculty, and graduate students is most useful as a treatise.

Reviewed by Laurie Selwyn , May 10, 2024

1 COMMENT

undefined says

2023-06-21 18:15:32

Is it possible to get the Mean and Standard Deviation values you used across the key metrics for the LJ 2022 star ratings of libraries in the $10M-$29.9M with a LSA of 100k-250k? If I use the posted data for star libraries reported, using your formulas, I don't get anywhere near the same scores. I assume it is because I am using a small sample of 13 libraries to calculate the Mean and StdDev.

For example if I calculate the Mean & StdDev for the libraries in the $10M-$29.9M category with a LSA of 100k-250k (13 libraries) and use that for the calculations
(((Lib data -Peer Pop Mean) / Peer Pop StdDev) +8) *100 I get a Score of 1,551 for Naperville instead of the 2,669 in the report. I do sum the scores for each category before I add the 8 as shown below

Naperville Public Library

Physical Circulation 22.52
Minus Physical Circulation Mean 11.73
= 10.79
Divided by Physical Circulation StdDev 6.98
score for circulation = 1.551

Circ Score 1.55 Em Score -0.05 Visit Score 2.71 Prog Attnd Score 1.09 Comp Use Score 1.82 Wi Fi Session Score 0.39 ER Score Raw 2.14 Score Sum 7.51 + 8 = 15.51 x100 = 1551

And so on for each key category. The results for each category are added up, 8 is added and that sum multiplied by 10 as per your 7 Step "Score Calculation Algorithm"

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David Hayden

Posted : 2023-06-21 18:15:32

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