Date of Award
2026-05-22
Degree Name
PhD Education for Social Justice
Dissertation Committee
Sarina Chugani Molina, EdD, Chairperson; Zulema Reynoso, PhD, Committee Member; Kimmie Tang, EdD, Committee Member
Keywords
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training, Required workplace training, Racialized organizations, QuantCrit (quantitative critical research), Microaggressions and microaffirmations, State government/public sector, Street-level bureaucracy, Social justice education, Mixed methods research, Racially marginalized employees, Mandatory diversity training, Anti-racism training, Workplace equity, Institutional decoupling, Bureaucratic compliance, Scripted curriculum, Government employees, Public administration, Employee experiences, Racial equity in the workplace, Adult learning/workplace learning
Abstract
Mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training is a common element institutional DEI initiatives in their response to dismantling racial inequity in government organizations; yet, the lived experiences of racially marginalized participants remain critically underexamined—particularly in government settings, where the bureaucratic structures implementing these trainings are themselves racialized. This research was conducted during one of the most politically hostile environments for DEI work in recent memory. Federal executive actions in 2025, specifically the “Bondi memo,” directed entities subject to federal antidiscrimination laws to cease DEI practices, creating immediate chilling effects that directly impacted this study and reminded us that the obligation to name what is happening inside these training spaces becomes more urgent, not less, when the establishment works to suppress that inquiry.
I came to this research as a street-level bureaucrat—a state government equity and belonging professional who has personally navigated the microaggressions and discrimination in the workplace. That positionality is not a bias to be neutralized; it shaped every methodological decision. It extended beyond data collection into action, I presented findings directly to government decision makers, documenting their responses as the study’s final phase. Guided by the theory of racialized organizations and QuantCrit, this convergent parallel mixed methods study examined the experiences of participants in a required DEI training mandated for approximately 76,000 state employees in a Pacific Northwest government system. Document review revealed that the training began in 2019 as an ambitious, social-justice-grounded set of recommendations spanning five content areas and potentially 40 hours of instruction. By 2023, it had been compressed through bureaucratic revision into four scripted modules of 2 to 2.5 hours, focused solely on race and racism. That compression is not background; it is evidence.
Three questions guided this inquiry: What are the patterns of reported microaffirmations and microaggressions related to DEI training across racially marginalized and nonmarginalized participants? How do racially marginalized individuals experience required DEI training in state government agencies? How do institutional decision makers respond when presented with these findings? Quantitative survey data (N = 132) were collected using the researcher-developed Racial Microaffirmation and Microaggression in Training Scale (RMMTS), along with semistructured interviews with 10 racially marginalized participants and three facilitators, document review of training materials, and a formal presentation of findings to state government executives.
Three themes illuminate a persistent and patterned discordance between institutional intention and participant impact. First, microaggressions were statistically significantly more likely to occur for racially marginalized participants across 9 of 16 statements, whereas microaffirmations were statistically significantly more likely to occur for nonmarginalized participants across 7 of 8 significant statements. The same training produces divergent realities along racial lines. Second, the bureaucratic setting of the training reveals how a script-based curriculum stripped facilitators of the autonomy to respond to harm as it unfolded, failing every element of social justice education it claimed to embody. Third, the act of institutionalizing nonaction names how completion metrics substituted for accountability, measuring the reach of the training while remaining incurious about its impact. Decision makers, when presented with these findings, largely pivoted to posttraining applications rather than interrogating the training itself, a deflection that is itself a finding.
Findings demonstrate how bureaucratic structures reproduce the very inequities they aim to dismantle, and recommend centering those most impacted in training design, facilitation, and evaluation. Something is not always better than nothing when the something causes harm it does not acknowledge, redistributes comfort along racial lines it claims to address, and substitutes compliance for accountability. The people who trusted this research with their truth deserve better, as do the communities they serve.
Document Type
Dissertation: Open Access
Department
Learning and Teaching
Digital USD Citation
Barto, Marika, "Elevating Voices: Exploring the Impacts and Experiences of Required Workplace DEI Training" (2026). Dissertations. 1097.
https://digital.sandiego.edu/dissertations/1097
Copyright
Copyright held by the author
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND License.
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