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IT STARTS... With Valuing Diversity

Diversity - The presence of a wide range of human qualities and attributes within a group, organization, or society.  The dimensions of diversity include, but are not limited to:  ancestry, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, physical and intellectual ability, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. 

Source:  Ministry of Education (2009).  Realizing the promise of diversity:  Ontario's equity and inclusive education strategy.  Retrieved May 5, 2017 from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/equity.pdf.

How to Promote Diversity

Diversity is more than just acknowledging and/or tolerating difference. Here is a conscious list of practices that one can take to value diversity:

  • Understand and appreciate the interdependence of humanity, cultures, and the natural environment.
  • Practice mutual respect for diverse identities and lived experiences.
  • Understand that diversity includes not only ways of being but also ways of knowing.
  • Recognize that personal, cultural and institutionalized discrimination creates and sustains privileges for some while creating and sustaining disadvantages for others.
  • Build alliances across differences so that we can work together to eradicate all forms of discrimination.

Source:  Queensborough Community College (2016).  Definition of diversity.  Retrieved May 5, 2017 from http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/diversity/definition.html

Resources

List of books written by multicultural authors.

Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion.

Diversity and Inclusion: A Beginner's Guide for HR Professionals.

Help children explore issues and concepts of diversity.

Glossary of Terms for shared understandings around equity, diversity, inclusion and awareness by the 519 Community Centre