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The Enigma of Diversity: The Language of Race and the Limits of Racial Justice
Contributor(s): Berrey, Ellen (Author)
ISBN: 022624623X     ISBN-13: 9780226246239
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
OUR PRICE:   $29.70  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: May 2015
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Sociology - General
- Law | Civil Rights
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies - African American Studies
Dewey: 305.800
LCCN: 2014038398
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6" W x 8.9" (1.10 lbs) 352 pages
Themes:
- Ethnic Orientation - African American
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Diversity these days is a hallowed American value, widely shared and honored. That's a remarkable change from the Civil Rights era--but does this public commitment to diversity constitute a civil rights victory? What does diversity mean in contemporary America, and what are the effects of efforts to support it?

Ellen Berrey digs deep into those questions in The Enigma of Diversity. Drawing on six years of fieldwork and historical sources dating back to the 1950s and making extensive use of three case studies from widely varying arenas--housing redevelopment in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood, affirmative action in the University of Michigan's admissions program, and the workings of the human resources department at a Fortune 500 company--Berrey explores the complicated, contradictory, and even troubling meanings and uses of diversity as it is invoked by different groups for different, often symbolic ends. In each case, diversity affirms inclusiveness, especially in the most coveted jobs and colleges, yet it resists fundamental change in the practices and cultures that are the foundation of social inequality. Berrey shows how this has led racial progress itself to be reimagined, transformed from a legal fight for fundamental rights to a celebration of the competitive advantages afforded by cultural differences.

Powerfully argued and surprising in its conclusions, The Enigma of Diversity reveals the true cost of the public embrace of diversity: the taming of demands for racial justice.

Contributor Bio(s): Berrey, Ellen: - Ellen Berrey is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto and an affiliated scholar of the American Bar Foundation.