Critical perspectives on diversity: State of the art and promising avenues for future research

Abstract

This paper makes a state of the art of the international critically oriented scientific research on diversity, a concept that has increasingly come to refer to socio-demographic identities including, among others, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and disability in work settings. While theoretically multifarious, critical approaches to diversity share a focus on the interlocking of socio-demographic identities with power dynamics. Such focus distinguishes them markedly from mainstream approaches aiming at understanding the dynamics of diversity in order to deploy it optimally to achieve organizational goals. After a brief discussion of the specificity of the notion of diversity, the author elaborates on the key theoretical tenets of critical perspectives on diversity and themes that are foundational of this tradition of research. She then identifies four avenues for future critically oriented diversity research starting from the main current debates in the field.