Do you have much diversity within your friendship group?

[FiloPasty]

Just wondering really, I’m in a friendship group of 12 of us that started at a nursery Book club, we’re all now at a variety of mostly independent schools but some state schools.
Overall despite different upbringings we are pretty well matched and I wondered if this caused different issues elsewhere

Not really. Majority of my friends are middle class-ish, white British women.

What do you mean? Are you at school?

I've got different groups of friends which have arisen from different parts of my life. One group, from living in a particular neighbourhood in my early 20s, is very ethnically diverse, although almost 100% heterosexual, and professionally homogenous with pretty much everyone working in the arts or related fields.
My professional and collegial network, many of whom have become really good friends over the years, is again ethnically diverse, but almost exclusively made up of women from a working class background.
The friends I have made through parenting (nursery, school, classes and clubs) is much less diverse; probably reflective of now living in predominantly 'white British' suburb where I'm in a minority.

@Dancingbea that’s what I thought too? Are you teenagers or teachers??

Yes my dd goes to an expensive private school. I have a few friends through there. Haven't seen them lately.

I had a fun career for 23 years sadly have lost touch with some of those friends due to my current circumstances.

I currently live in a refuge and have made friends with women I have absolutely nothing in common with

Other than leaving abuse....

Which occurs in many ways.

Most of my friends are similar to me in that we tend to have the same level of education and similar jobs (teaching, healthcare, academia, civil service etc). Most of my friends are either white or black and the black ones I have met and become friendly with mainly through going to church. Other friends are from university or I have met through my children either as babies or at school. All of my friends have DC at state schools.

Ethnically diverse? Yes, very.

Class/professional background? Much less so.

Other types of diversity - to varying degrees. I do have gay friends and friends who have disabilities but not many in either category. Ages, a reasonable spread.

I do have a mix of men and women amongst my friends, but all of my closest friends are female.

Couldn’t be more diverse if I tried. We have obviously lots of things in common even if we speak different languages or come from all over the place. So no, diversity has never been a problem as where there is more diversity there tends to be more tolerance.

Have small group of school friends I've known 28 years, selective school so mix of working and middle class, and same now. Some in v good jobs down to me who's a WC SAHM. We find our commonality. Mostly white British.

Small group of Uni friends, all WC I'd say and still are. All have kids similar age coincidentally so that's resecured our connection. All white British.

Friends from volunteering is widely diverse, in terms of EVERYTHING. Age, background, jobs, lifestyle, culture. But for various reasons it is predominantly white and European (something they're looking into to change)

School Mom's all WC backgrounds, more diverse culturally altho predominantly white British but for example one of my friends moved from India 3 years ago.

Random friends from various jobs are wc but more diverse in terms of ethnicity and background.

Very few men.

No very little diversity in my friendship group. All my close friends are old school friends or people from my local area. I still live where I grew up and is a predominantly white area with very few ethnic minorities.

My group of friends from school is very diverse, though we are all girls. 3 aren't white, I'm white but not British, 2 are white and English. Mixture of class backgrounds. We all went to uni, and have similar middle class life styles as adults, all but one of us have DC.

I'm very similar to my 2 best mates from uni, all white WC, "did well at school" types. They both have really good careers now, I have a more standard office job but I had DC1 fairly early (28).

School mums are very diverse in terms of nationality but probably all fairly MC due to the catchment area.

Not really. I don't really have one friendship "group" but a selection of different friends. We're all working class. Most are white women. One is a gay man. One is a mixed race woman and one Black woman. A couple went to university, most of us didn't.

School friends - all similar race and class backgrounds (I went to two schools, the first in another country and that was not diverse in that I was one of a handful of white kids in the whole school, one of whom was my brother)

Uni friends, current friend group through DCs school, current workplace friends - diverse racially but not by class background

The only time I have been in a group with very diverse class backgrounds was my training contract group in the city when I trained as a solicitor - but then it wasn't diverse ethnically.

School friends: all white and working class (grew up in a town that was mainly white).

Uni friends: a mix of working class and middle class, but again, all white. Looking back I can see that although my uni was fairly diverse, my course and the society I joined (where I made most of my friends) where both mainly white.

Work colleague friends/ other friends: mix of backgrounds, but again, almost all white.

Mum friends: mainly middle class (think I am the only one with a ‘working class’ background), and mainly white British/ white European.

The last two reflect the fact that I moved from a town that was mainly white with few ethnic minorities to a small city that is also mainly white, and the fact that my DD goes to a school in a middle-class area.

I moved here for work, but now I wonder if subconsciously I was looking for somewhere similar to my home town, despite really wanting to get out of my home town!

Not really but then the area I live in isn't especially diverse. The only mix I can see is that half of us are locals and half new to the area.

Yep.

I have friends that went to private schools, have PhDs and earn (to me) staggering amounts of money - 70K upwards.

I have friends that went to state school, didn’t go anything past GCSEs and are either self employed, work in trades or in offices. Or they went to Uni but don’t earn more than 30K.

I’m the friend that’s finally at Uni aged 35, single parent with 3DC, went to private school but couldn’t be arsed past A Levels and have worked NMW jobs till I sacked it off for Uni.

Ethnically diverse - also yes.

All of my friends are white, straight and largely middle class.

I’d love a diverse group, but it just hasn’t happened.

@YouWereGr8InLittleMenstruators

I've got different groups of friends which have arisen from different parts of my life. One group, from living in a particular neighbourhood in my early 20s, is very ethnically diverse, although almost 100% heterosexual, and professionally homogenous with pretty much everyone working in the arts or related fields. My professional and collegial network, many of whom have become really good friends over the years, is again ethnically diverse, but almost exclusively made up of women from a working class background. The friends I have made through parenting (nursery, school, classes and clubs) is much less diverse; probably reflective of now living in predominantly 'white British' suburb where I'm in a minority.

Yes same here. The group of friends I had at school and the ones I have made since moving back are all fairly similar i suppose but the area isn't diverse. Friends from uni are from a range of backgrounds (socially and culturally).

My group of friends are racially mixed - white, Indian Australian, Malaysian Australian, Chinese Australian but apart from skin colour we are very homogenous. All middle class professionals in long marriages with children.

My group of friends from childhood (who I am still friends with) are all white, straight and middle class but that’s probably because we grew up in a very white middle class semi rural area.

What do you mean by 'diverse'? For example I have a friend who has mainly friends who are black or have Asian or Eastern European heritage. However all of them are from her time at a very expensive private school in London or from Oxford. All of them have very very privileged middle/upper class backgrounds and continue to have extraordinarily privileged lifestyles. In that way her friendship circle is distinctly not diverse.

Is diversity not also about diversity of thought, experience, background and age?

I have to admit that the vast majority of my friends are fellow Jews. DH is mixed race, but everyone else is mostly white. A range of classes though. Some crazy rich, others less well-off.

@FiloPasty

Just wondering really, I’m in a friendship group of 12 of us that started at a nursery Book club, we’re all now at a variety of mostly independent schools but some state schools. Overall despite different upbringings we are pretty well matched and I wondered if this caused different issues elsewhere

Are you a child???

Depends what you mean by diversity really. I mean our friends are ethically diverse, and from a few different countries. But our close friends are overwhelmingly well educated wealthy professionals, there’s no socio-economic/class diversity which I think is a shame, the kids are growing up with a bizarre view of “average”.

Quite mixed backgrounds/ races / cultures. Common denominator for us is being LGBT

My groups of friends are made up of those I went to school with 45 years ago, those I worked with in a job I started when I was 16 and another group made up of women met when we all knew the same person and started socialising together. We're all from similar backgrounds, all working class and no one went to private school. A few went to Uni but the rest of us started work as soon as we left school. Some are single, some married, not many have children.