Diversity as seen in

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

and

political studies Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

is the degree of differences in identifying features among the members of a purposefully defined group, such as any group differences in racial or ethnic classifications, age,

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

, philosophy, physical abilities,

socioeconomic Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their l ...

background,

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...

mental health Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental hea ...

, physical

health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...

, genetic attributes,

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...

behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...

or attractiveness. When measuring human diversity, a

diversity index A diversity index is a quantitative measure that reflects how many different types (such as species) there are in a dataset (a community), and that can simultaneously take into account the phylogenetic relations among the individuals distributed a ...

exemplifies the likelihood that two randomly selected residents have different ethnicities. If all residents are of the same ethnic group it is zero by definition. If half are from one group and half from another, it is 50. The diversity index does not take into account the willingness of individuals to cooperate with those of other ethnicities.

International human rights

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities affirms to "respect difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as human diversity and humanity" for protection of human rights of persons with disabilities.

Ideology

Political creeds which support the idea that diversity is valuable and desirable hold that recognizing and promoting these diverse cultures may aid

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

between people of different backgrounds and lifestyles, leading to greater knowledge, understanding, and peaceful coexistence. For example, "Respect for Diversity" is one of the six principles of the

Global Greens Charter The ''Global Greens Charter'' is a document that 800 delegates from the Green parties of 72 countries decided upon a first gathering of the Global Greens in Canberra, Australia in April 2001. The first part contains six guiding principles, whereas ...

, a

manifesto A manifesto is a published declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus or promotes a ...

subscribed to by Green parties from all over the world. In contrast to diversity, some political creeds promote

cultural assimilation Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially. The different types of cultural ass ...

as the process to lead to these ends.

Use in American academy

This use of ''diversity'' in this sense also extends to American

academy An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...

, where in an attempt to create a "diverse student body" typically supports the recruitment of students from historically excluded populations, such as students of

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

background as well as women in such historically underrepresented fields as the sciences.

Business and workplace

Corporations make commitments to diversity in their personnel both for reasons of brand halo and competitive advantage, but progress is slow.

Gender in Politics

Historically, women have been underrepresented in politics compared to men. Women's rights movements, such as

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

, have addressed the marginalization of women in politics.

Race in Politics

United States

In American politics, white men have often been represented more compared to people of color. There has only been one black president,

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

. All U.S. presidents, except Obama, have been white men. In other sections of U.S. politics, the amount of people of color represented has gradually increased each year since the 20th Century.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Linguistic controversies Affirmative action Identity politics