Causes Of Diversity Essay

Name: Jez (13) Class: 410

Diversity is socially defined as all of the ways that people are culturally different from one another. Culture plays an essential role in daily life, and includes more than just race or religion; cultural groups may share ethnicity, or nationality, for instance, but can still arise from cleavages of other factors as well, such as ability and disability, political views, religious affiliation, socioeconomic class, and gender. This essay will be exploring if conflict is unavoidable when there is diversity in a nation-state, as well as focusing on the case studies of Sri Lanka and Singapore.

Many disagreements and social problems leading to conflict, be it violent or nonviolent, minor or major, personal or public, has stemmed from differences in culture. These differences can range from mindset and values to lifestyle and practices. With diversity in a nation-state also

Diversity can lead to discrimination when people, especially the majority group, adopt a generalised attitude and prejudgment towards minority groups, and view themselves as superior. When this prejudice is acted upon, minorities face oppression and discrimination – apart from limiting the opportunities available to them, this is also severely disadvantageous in day-to-day life. In turn, intergroup relations will become strained, which will ultimately cause segregation.

An example of mainly violent conflict due to diversity in a nation-state is the unrest in Sri Lanka caused by tension between different ethnic groups, namely the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Tamils currently make up 74.9% and 11.2% of the population respectively, and even right now, inequality between these two groups is still a severe