930 Forums
=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: on June 19, 2007, 10:20:00 am
-
For decades, students of American society have offered dueling theories about how encountering racial and ethnic diversity affects the way we live. One says that simple contact ?? being tossed into a stew of different cultures, values, languages and styles of dress ?? is likely to nourish tolerance and trust. Familiarity, in this view, trumps insularity. Others argue that just throwing people together is rarely enough to breed solidarity: when diversity increases, they assert, people tend to stick to their own groups and distrust those who are different from them.
But what if diversity had an even more complex and pervasive effect? What if, at least in the short term, living in a highly diverse city or town led residents to distrust pretty much everybody, even people who looked like them? What if it made people withdraw into themselves, form fewer close friendships, feel unhappy and powerless and stay home watching television in the evening instead of attending a neighborhood barbecue or joining a community project?
This is the unsettling picture that emerges from a huge nationwide telephone survey by the famed Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam and his colleagues. ??Diversity seems to trigger not in-group/out-group division, but anomie or social isolation,? Putnam writes in the June issue of the journal Scandinavian Political Studies. ??In colloquial language, people living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ??hunker down?? ?? that is, to pull in like a turtle.?
In highly diverse cities and towns like Los Angeles, Houston and Yakima, Wash., the survey found, the residents were about half as likely to trust people of other races as in homogenous places like Fremont, Mich., or rural South Dakota, where, Putnam noted, ??diversity means inviting a few Norwegians to the annual Swedish picnic.?
More significant, they were also half as likely to trust people of their own race. They claimed fewer close friends. They were more apt to agree that ??television is my most important form of entertainment.? They had less confidence in local government and less confidence in their own ability to exert political influence. They were more likely to join protest marches but less likely to register to vote. They rated their happiness as generally lower. And this diversity effect continued to show up even when a community??s population density, average income, crime levels, rates of home ownership and a host of other factors were taken into account.
It was not a result that Putnam, the author of the much-discussed 2000 book ??Bowling Alone,? was looking for when he sat down six years ago to examine the mass of data he had collected. He was hoping to build on his earlier work, which described a precipitous decline in the nation??s ??social capital,? the formal and informal networks ?? bowling leagues, parent-teacher associations, fraternal organizations, pick-up basketball games, youth service groups ?? that tie people together, shore up civic engagement and forge bonds of trust and reciprocity. Now he wanted to find out more about how social capital varied regionally and over time.
But the diversity finding was so surprising that Putnam said his first thought was that maybe something was wrong with the data. He and his research team spent five years testing other explanations. Maybe people in more diverse areas had less political clout and thus fewer amenities, like playgrounds and pothole-free streets, putting them in a misanthropic mood; or maybe diversity caused ??hunkering down? only in people who were older or richer or white or female. But the effect did not go away. When colleagues who heard about the results protested, ??I bet you haven??t thought about X? ?? a frequent occurrence, Putnam said ?? the researchers went back and looked at X.
The idea that it is diversity (the researchers used the census??s standard racial categories to define diversity) that drives social capital down has its critics. Among them is Steven Durlauf, an economist at the University of Wisconsin and a critic of Putnam??s past work, who said he thinks some other characteristic, as yet unidentified, explains the lowered trust and social withdrawal of people living in diverse areas. But without clear evidence to the contrary, Putnam says, he has to believe the conclusion is solid...(Read more) (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17wwln-idealab-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
-
you seem to be very diverse, dupek. very very diverse.
-
from the new york times? MEDIA BIAS = CENSORSHIP
-
Even a stopped clock is correct twice per day.
-
Surly, you seem to be the most isolated person on the board. How does that fit into the rubric of that article?
-
Originally posted by They call me Doctor Doom.:
Surly, you seem to be the most isolated person on the board. How does that fit into the rubric of that article?
I'll cram your PC-er-than-thou ass into a rubric if you don't watch it!
-
Originally posted by Surly Bonds:
Originally posted by They call me Doctor Doom.:
Surly, you seem to be the most isolated person on the board. How does that fit into the rubric of that article?
I'll cram your PC-er-than-thou ass into a rubric if you don't watch it! [/b]
http://www.cnsspectrums.com/aspx/articledetail.aspx?articleid=1094 (http://www.cnsspectrums.com/aspx/articledetail.aspx?articleid=1094)
-
<img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y25/team_dupek/CagleJihad-1.gif" alt=" - " />
Dr.Doom: winner of the prestigious Judge Elihu Smails award for "Most Sharing & Caring" bboardie.
-
Originally posted by Surly Bonds:
Even a stopped clock is correct twice per day.
The correct quote would be,
"Even a broken clock is right two times a day."
Just trying to help you diversify your cultural palette . . . .
-
Originally posted by TheDirector217:
Originally posted by Surly Bonds:
<img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y25/team_dupek/cf2c3bcb.jpg" alt=" - " />
The correct quote would be,
"Even a broken clock is right two times a day."
Just trying to help you diversify your cultural palette . . . . [/b]
I liked my own better. And why are you such a busybody? Mind your own beeswax.
-
Surly, you seem to be the most isolated person on the board. How does that fit into the rubric of that article?
-
Originally posted by _Sexy Fitsum_:
Surly, you seem to be the most isolated person on the board. How does that fit into the rubric of that article?
Did you think that up yourself?
-
I had one of those rubric cubes when I was a kid, but I never could get all the colors to line up properly.
-
Hmmm... posting racially-charged topics on a predominantly vanilla message board.
Somebody's got a case of 'Daddy Doesn't Love Me'. :roll:
Love Me Daddy! (http://www.aish.com/spirituality/odysseys/Forgiving_My_Father.asp)
-
Who said anything about race? You said race.
I dare you to quote me posting something about race, because you can't
-
Originally posted by ggw?:
I had one of those rubric cubes when I was a kid, but I never could get all the colors to line up properly.
Did you try peeling the little square stickers off and crazy gluing them back on in the proper places?
-
Originally posted by Surly Bonds:
Did you think that up yourself?
what? no cramming of PC ass?
-
Originally posted by Surly Bonds:
Who said anything about race? You said race.
I dare you to quote me posting something about race, because you can't
Surly Bond 007 wins again! Aaaaaawright! High Five! Wooooooo hooooo. The man in the clever cage is made of awesomite! Yeah!
-
My cat's name is AWESOME-O.
-
U of M study finds that Americans couch feelings about race in the 'happy talk' of diversity-speak
According to a new study by researchers in the University of Minnesota's sociology department, Americans are generally positive -- even optimistic -- about the word 'diversity,' but when asked, even those working in the field of race relations have trouble describing diversity's value and stumble when giving real life examples.
The desire to appear color-blind leads most Americans to prefer the standardized language of diversity-speak when addressing issues of race, rather than the other way around. The researchers conclude that American diversity-speak is a sort of 'happy talk,' an upbeat language in which everyone has a place, everyone is welcome and even celebrated.
The study takes its conclusions from a telephone survey of more than 2,000 households across the country and nearly 150 hour-long interviews with adults from a wide range of backgrounds living in Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles and Minneapolis/St. Paul.
The study found a majority of Americans -- cutting across race, class and gender lines -- value diversity, but their upbeat responses to the term contradict tensions between individual values and fears that cultural disunity could threaten the stability of American society. Also regardless of race, Americans' definition of diversity places white people at the neutral center and all other groups of people as outside contributors.
"The public debates and talk-show lamentations about immigration and political correctness leave many Americans to assume there's a big divide in the country between those who value diversity and those who reject it," said Doug Hartmann, associate sociology professor, who coauthored the study with graduate student Joyce Bell. "The fact is, most Americans value diversity - but they see it as a benefit with the potential cost of cultural disunity and social instability."
The study also found that most Americans use platitudes when describing diversity. "The topic of race lies outside the realm of polite conversation," said Bell. "Everyone in the study -- regardless of race, political affiliation and even level of rhetorical ability -- had real trouble talking about the inequities and injustices that typically accompany diversity in the United States."
Diversity-Speak = 'Happy Talk' (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-06/uom-uom061907.php#)