Lost in the Diversity Jungle: Using the Diversity Compass for Early CareerScholars' Orientation in Research Communities

Professional socialization of early career scholars requires positioning within their fields of research. Positioning, however, is context-specific and often happens unconsciously or even accidentally. A more conscious approach to finding one's individual place in the respective research field is a challenging task, but important for further development within the community. Finding one's way through the research jungle is a difficult task in the field of diversity, a field known for its complexity and increasing number of scholars from very different fields. This paper draws on Krell and Sieben's (2007) Diversity Compass, which allows for positioning scholarly work. By operationalizing the framework's dimensions, i.e. the research objective and research process, five PhD research projects are analyzed with regard to their methodological positioning. Krell's diversity compass is adapted and transformed into a questionnaire, which is then used to reflect on one's positioning. These reflections are presented in the form of autoethnographic vignettes. The results show that the awareness of one's individual placing clarifies the interconnectivity between different specialized communities and therefore promotes future career opportunities.