you’ve probably already seen/read about the latest case of politically correct researchers discovering that Diversity Doesn’t Work. if not, see here: The Paradox of Diverse Communities. or steve sailer: Dr. Vibrant notices diversity v. community trade-off.
i’ve just read the original research paper — The (In)compatibility of Diversity and Sense of Community [pdf] — and it is MUCH funnier than any of us might’ve predicted! it would’ve been absolutely hilarious, except for the fact that these people take themselves seriously and keep trying to foist diversity onto the world.
first of all, in case you didn’t know (i didn’t), these people studying the dynamics of communities — the ones who like to promote diversity — are known as “community psychologists.” no, really. who on EARTH hires a community psychologist? besides universities, that is. real, actual communities? doubt it. some governmental agencies? probably (i dread to imagine). waste of taxpayers’ money. (judging by their own research results!)
secondly, their goal really IS to promote diversity — even though, as their research keeps showing, Diversity Doesn’t Work. apparently, it’s part of the mission statement of the american psychological association‘s society for community research and action (scra). unfortunately, the scra’s mission statement doesn’t seem to be accessible to non-members [link to the pdf]. but here from the “(In)compatiblity” paper:
“Fostering respect for diversity is important for community psychologists and is embedded in the mission statement of the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA), Division 27 of the American Psychological Association. Specifically, one of the goals of SCRA is ‘to promote … greater inclusion for historically marginalized groups, and respecting all cultures’ (SCRA 2010, p. 13). To this end, community psychologists aim to encourage contexts that facilitate respect for diversity, and view these contexts as promoting individual and collective wellbeing (Prilleltensky 2001).”
never mind that they, themselves, keep finding that Diversity Doesn’t Work.
anyway…
from this latest piece of research:
“[W]e simulated social network formation in 500 neighborhoods that varied in their level of integration, each time computing the resulting network’s clustering coefficient (steps 2–5, the integration loop). Figure 4 plots each neighborhood’s opportunity for residents to develop a respect for diversity (as measured by its level of residential integration) and its capacity to foster a sense of community (as measured by its residents’ personal network density). A very clear, albeit somewhat non-linear, negative correlation between diversity and sense of community emerges (r = -0.85, p.001; step 6). Neighborhoods with the greatest opportunity for residents to develop a respect for diversity (i.e. highly integrated neighborhoods) have the least capacity to foster a sense of community. Likewise, neighborhoods with the least opportunity for residents to develop a respect for diversity (i.e. highly segregated neighborhoods) have the greatest capacity to foster a sense of community. This finding suggests that, the values of community psychology notwithstanding, it is not possible to simultaneously promote respect for diversity and sense of community in a typical world where relationship formation is driven by homophily and proximity.”
“…the values of community psychology notwithstanding….” heh!
here is figure 4:
since these results made the researchers very, very sad, they decided that simulating “social network formations” just 500 times (what they did in the first round) wasn’t enough, so they went for twenty million+ (yes, 20 MILLION PLUS!) simulations, figuring, i guess, that they’d find that diversity does work somewhere! from the paper:
“Perhaps it is possible to simultaneously promote diversity and sense of community in a slightly different worlds where behavioral tendencies toward homophily and/or proximity are weaker, or stronger, or even reversed. To consider this possibility, we repeated the analysis shown in Fig. 4 using different levels of homophily and proximity. Specifically, we examined diversity and sense of community in 500 simulated neighborhoods varying in their level of integration (steps 2–6), for every level of homophily between -5 and 5 (in increments of 0.05; step 7) and every level of proximity between -5 and 5 (in increments of 0.05; step 8). This required slightly more that 20 million separate simulations (i.e. 500 neighborhoods 9 201 levels of homophily 9 201 levels of proximity) and approximately 6,000 processor-hours to complete….
“The findings illustrated in Fig. 5 confirm that the negative relationship between diversity and sense of community observed in Fig. 4 is not simply an artifact of the particular combination of behavioral tendencies toward homophily and proximity (i.e. bH = 2.5 and bP = 2.5) we initially examined. All points in the upper-right quadrant of Fig. 5 are dark, indicating that all combinations of homophily and proximity yield a negative relationship between diversity and sense of community. That is, in any world where individuals exhibit at least some tendency to form relationships with similar others (i.e. bH[0) and at least some tendency to form relationships with nearby others (i.e. bP[0), diversity and sense of community are negatively related. It is important to note that all studies of human social networks have observed behavioral tendencies toward both homophily and proximity, while none have found worlds where one or both of these behavioral tendencies was missing. Thus, while the findings illustrated in Fig. 4 suggest that diversity and sense of community are negatively related *in a typical world*, those illustrated in Fig. 5 suggest this negative relationship would persist *in all reasonably likely worlds*.
in other words, Diversity Doesn't Work. not even in imaginary worlds, let alone the real world. here is figure 5:
_____
"the community-diversity dialectic." that's sad community psychologist-speak for "reality."
more and more, politically correct social researchers -- like putnam [pdf] and now these guys — are discovering that Diversity Doesn’t Work, and they’re finding it hard to express their disappointment. their hurt feelings. the phrase “community-diversity dialectic” was coined in this paper: Reconcilable Differences? Human Diversity, Cultural Relativity, and Sense of Community.
they’re all still trying to spin diversity as something workable, of course — all of these researchers who keep finding that Diversity Doesn’t Work. primarily because diversity is important to them — they don’t seem to give a sh*t about what the members of various communities think or how they feel. again, from the “(In)compatiblity” paper:
“Over 30 years ago, Rappaport (1981) noted that ‘the most important and interesting aspects of community life are by their very nature paradoxical’ (p. 20). Such is the case for two of community psychology’s core values: promoting contexts that are likely to increase respect diversity and promoting contexts that are likely to increase a sense of community (Townley et al. 2011). Results of our model suggest that this community-diversity dialectic can result from common behavioral tendencies toward homophily and proximity. Moreover, given the universality of these behavioral tendencies, it is unlikely that community psychologists can shift them sufficiently to simultaneously promote respect for diversity and sense of community. However, through divergent reasoning, community psychologists can seek a contextually-appropriate balance between these two opposing goals that are near and dear to our field.“
right. ok. so…the goal of community psychology seems to be to make community psychologists feel better — i.e. to achieve goals that are “near and dear” to THEM — and NOT to … you know … actually HELP COMMUNITIES.
honestly.
previously: the “happiest, healthiest” community in the u.s.
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