{"id":14079,"date":"2011-02-19T11:44:03","date_gmt":"2011-02-19T17:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/?p=14079"},"modified":"2011-02-18T14:47:55","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T20:47:55","slug":"diversity-sociological-tsunami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/02\/19\/diversity-sociological-tsunami\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversity: Sociological Tsunami"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Wow, this is a sociological tsunami. By Michael Jones at Boston Globe<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.<\/p>\n

But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam \u2014 famous for \u201cBowling Alone,\u201d his 2000 book on declining civic engagement \u2014 has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe extent of the effect is shocking,\u201d says Scott Page, a University of Michigan political scientist.<\/p>\n

The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm large-scale immigration causes to the nation\u2019s social fabric. But with demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward greater diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling social changes that Putnam\u2019s research predicts.<\/p>\n

\n

His findings on the downsides of diversity have also posed a challenge for Putnam, a liberal academic whose own values put him squarely in the pro-diversity camp. Suddenly finding himself the bearer of bad news, Putnam has struggled with how to present his work. He gathered the initial raw data in 2000 and issued a press release the following year outlining the results. He then spent several years testing other possible explanations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

When he finally published a detailed scholarly analysis in June in the journal Scandinavian Political Studies, he faced criticism for straying from data into advocacy. His paper argues strongly that the negative effects of diversity can be remedied, and says history suggests that ethnic diversity may eventually fade as a sharp line of social demarcation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving aligned himself with the central planners intent on sustaining such social engineering, Putnam concludes the facts with a stern pep talk,\u201d wrote conservative commentator Ilana Mercer, in a recent Orange County Register op-ed titled \u201cGreater diversity equals more misery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 \u201cIt would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity,\u201d he writes in the new report. \u201cIt would be equally unfortunate if an ahistorical and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that addressing that challenge is both feasible and desirable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow, this is a sociological tsunami. By Michael Jones at Boston Globe. IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger. But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1732],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-issues"],"yoast_head":"\nDiversity: Sociological Tsunami<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wow, this is a sociological tsunami. By Michael Jones at Boston Globe. 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