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Equality, Opportunity and Difference: The Limits of the Diversity Paradigm

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The Changing Politics of Gender Equality in Britain
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Abstract

In recent years there has been a growing tendency for equal opportunities to be reframed, if only rhetorically, in the language of diversity. This reframing has, in turn, given rise to divergent reactions. For some, notably human resources managers in the private sector, diversity provides the means to legitimise equal opportunities, transcending old debates about the relative claims of different, more or less disadvantaged, groups and building a business case for action. For others, diversity represents the submerging of the equal opportunities project in individualism and its eventual disappearance in the day-to-day exigencies of the ‘bottom line’.

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© 2002 David Mason

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Mason, D. (2002). Equality, Opportunity and Difference: The Limits of the Diversity Paradigm. In: Breitenbach, E., Brown, A., Mackay, F., Webb, J. (eds) The Changing Politics of Gender Equality in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522572_5

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