Diversity as a Dominant Social Value

Over the past half-century, sociologists working across subfields and analytic levels have documented the downstream implementations of diversity as a dominant social value. We synthesize this research, paying special attention to scholarship examining five key analytic contexts: class, taste, interactions, organizations, and cultural objects. The literature suggests that, despite persistent hierarchies of valuation and worth, a “conspicuous openness to diversity” has become particularly institutionalized among organizations and elites, operating as a foundational schema. We conclude with three directions for future research: exploring both historical and contemporary backlashes to diversity on the local and global scale, the impacts of diversity as a dominant social value for both non-elites and those who are cast as visible evidence of diversity, and the underlying mechanisms behind conspicuous openness to diversity, given well-documented gaps between discourse and action.