Empathy or Antipathy? The Impact of Diversity

摘要

While the enormous costs of ethnic and class divisions are depressingly familiar (William Easterly and Ross Levine, 1997; Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, 1997; Paolo Mauro, 1995; James M. Poterba, 1997; Alberto Alesina et al., 1999), much less is known about the impact of various policies designed to ameliorate conflict between groups. Different countries have followed very different policies regarding ethnicity. Some, such as France, encourage mixing and assimilation. Others, such as Belgium, with its separate French and Flemish higher-education systems, seek to preserve the cultural identity of different communities. Much of the recent emphasis on diversity in U.S. schools and workplaces is motivated by the view that mixing between members of different groups will break down stereotypes and encourage development of deeper understanding and, with it, more empathetic attitudes toward other groups (Thomas F. Pettigrew and Linda R. Tropp, 2000). On the other hand, some argue that deliberate efforts to encourage mixing may actually inflame tensions and exacerbate conflict (Walter G. Stephan, 1978).