When questioned about diversity, 13 percent of the participants offered responses that dealt with equality, equal opportunity and fairness. When probed further, 34 percent expressed a concern that diversity could create cultural conflict. That fear was a recurring theme throughout the report.
“If you have too much diversity then you have to change the Constitution, you have to take down the Statue of Liberty, you have to take down those things that set this country up as it is,” said a 58-year-old Black woman from Boston. “This is the only country in the world where if you’re born here you’re a citizen, so you have to change that.”
Hartmann says some of the confusion about the meaning of diversity stems from its generally vague definition. Several of the given definitions seem to contradict each other, he says. Wikipedia, for example, provides varying definitions of diversity as a person (diverse by virtue of race, gender, sexuality, etc.) and their interaction within a community.
The real task, says Hartmann, is not “to define what the word really means but trying to understand all of the challenges of social and cultural differences and not to pretend that talking about it makes those challenges go away.”
The research was presented at the sociology department’s research workshop and at the annual meeting of the American Sociology Association in Montreal, and will be published in the forthcoming issue of the American Sociological Review Project.
- Margaret Kamara
There are currently 6 comments on this story.
Click here to post a comment.
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
