The concept of diversity encompasses a broad range of qualities and characteristics that distinguish people from one another. Diversity is used broadly to refer to demographic characteristics including, but not limited to, sex, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, ability status, age, national origin, religious beliefs, and education. Diversity is important for a number of reasons.
Cultural diversity is a central feature of community psychology. It derives from a general psychological focus on the naturally occurring diversity among people within a context and between groups of people who are a part of different contexts. Implicitly, most theories and practices of psychology have inferred ordinal distinctions among people in a context and
The workforce of the United States continues to grow more diverse. Employment equity legislation has made organizational diversity an issue of legal, ethical, and strategic interest. Data reported in 2005 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) indicate an increase in the percentage of people of color in the private sector from 27% in 1998
Early in the history of the psychology/counseling profession, few efforts were made to “recruit” culturally diverse persons; rather, diverse persons, typically through grassroots and organizational efforts, sought entry into psychology despite major resistance. This was especially true during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, as time has passed, especially within the last 3
The term diversity refers to all human characteristics that make people different from one another. These differences may be represented by visible characteristics, such as gender, race, ethnic background, and age. However, these differences may also be represented by nonvisible characteristics, such as education, functional background, organizational tenure, socioeconomic background, and personality. Diversity in the
As a response to the shifting population demographics in the United States, issues related to diversity have received increased attention in recent years. The word diversity simply means difference, but the term is most commonly used to refer to differences among people. The ways in which individuals may differ from one another are considerable. Some
In the early 1970s, the field of vocational psychology began to focus on diverse factors related to career development. Recent trends indicate a sustained increase in the vocational psychology and career development literature pertaining to diversity issues since the early 1990s. These shifts have been fueled in part by the changing demographic patterns in society