The Downside of Diversity
Charles Nelson,
Explorations in Learning,
Aug 06, 2007
The proposal that diversity results in less civic engagement - reported here, from a (very biased) Boston.com story (on a site that blocks access after four pages) - sounds dire, but should be discounted. The conclusion is obtained, not by actually measuring civic engagements in diverse cities (such as, say, Toronto) but rather by surveying people. So now we know that Americans think that diversity in their community would reduce civic engagement. But we knew that already. Here's a more interesting proposal: diversity in a community results in less of an emphasis on collaboration (a group phenomenon) and more of an emphasis on cooperation (a network phenomenon). So you might get, say, less voting and charity work, but more political activism and community networking.
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