To think diversity now just means not white?

[diversity101]

We live in a suburb that is known for being very diverse. We don't live in UK (in Australia). We were looking for day care centres for our dd that claimed to be diverse and where shocked at the lack of diversity. The children there were at least 90% from Chinese backgrounds. On the day we inspected one place there was only one white child and one Indian child.

How on earth is that diverse?

We ended up settling on a childcare run by my workplace. It has a great mix of different backgrounds and they celebrate a range of holidays from Christmas, Diwali, Eid, and Lunar New Year, and they bring in elders from the local Aboriginal community to teach them some of the local language. The one we choose doesn't advertise as being diverse.

It feels like around here diverse has lost all meaning and just means not white.

To me in this context, diversity probably also means socio-economic diversity of the families.

Yes. It's a bit of a lazy manner of speaking, IMO.

I also would have picked the second nursery.

If 90% of the children are from the same background then of course it's not diverse.

Well not in terms of ethnicity anyway but perhaps in other ways.

And no, I don't think 'diversity now just means not white', as I live in an area that's hugely populated by white Eastern Europeans.

This aspirational idea of "diversity" is a sort of magical concept where all the children are lovely shades of golden brown and every child looks good next to Your White Child in photos. Reminiscent of a Bennetton ad from the 90s. Funnily enough "diversity" doesn't extend to Brayden, Chardonnay and Jaxton from the wrong-side-of-the-tracks.
I don't want to be snide (okay maybe I do, a bit) but if you want your child to be exposed to different ideas and cultures then travel widely and read them lots and lots of books.

(Just finished listening to Nice White Parents podcast on spotify, which is why I'm pushing back).

I think diversity would mean at least proportional representation.
Is the first nursery in an area with lots of Chinese people?

Yes you’re right. In that context, “diverse” is being used as an inaccurate euphemism for “non-white”, which isn’t sayable in polite society.

It also concerns me slightly when “diverse” is claimed, but disability, sexuality and culture are ignored and skin colour is the only issue.

“Diverse” (as a one word term) should mean truly diverse in all senses. Otherwise don’t use the word.

Diversity should be about a lot more than race and ethnicity.

I'm also from Australia and I swear every kindergarten, school ect. claims to be diverse even if there's only one non white child. From what I've heard, this is the same in the US as well.

I love the kindergarten my children go to because it is actually diverse. Much like the childcare centre you decided on, they learn and celebrate all kinds of holidays. Recently just did NAIDOC week.

Would you have been so bothered if it had been 90% white and the rest from other ethnicities?

I do however think that diversity should come down to what they teach rather then the race, religion ect. of students because they can't really help who chooses to go there and who doesn't but they can make it an inviting and educational place for all.

@theonlywayisup33

Would you have been so bothered if it had been 90% white and the rest from other ethnicities?

Did you not read the OP? I don’t think she is being racist.

She is pointing out the racism of using “diverse” to describe a setting which is almost entirely made up of children of the same - non-white - ethnicity.

@festivebug

I do however think that diversity should come down to what they teach rather then the race, religion ect. of students because they can't really help who chooses to go there and who doesn't but they can make it an inviting and educational place for all.

The word for that is “inclusive”, isn’t it?

@GroundAlmonds Oops! Yes, that's what I meant.

@GroundAlmonds You dont think the OP is being racist?
Well we don't know for sure. I have seen a lot of false platitudes here before.
If it had 90% white and 10% other races, I wonder if that would have satisfied the OP's diversity quota.

@theonlywayisup33 no I would not feel comfortable if the centre was 90% white babies as that wouldn’t reflect the world just outside of the centre’s doors

And I would like there to be some economic diversity as well, though grated with the high cost of childcare fees that can be hard to archive

I mean, how often do nurseries change their marketing? Maybe it was more diverse two years ago and a group of ethnic Chinese families started raving about it in their community which changed the makeup.

It's all relative. Diversity doesn't really mean diversity in the literal sense - it usually has a focus on a particular "race" which is of significance in that area. I'm not sure how useful it is. If you're in certain parts of Sydney then yes, there will be a huge number of Chinese kids. I'm in a small country town in North Queensland and there are a lot of Indigenous kids at my DC's daycare, a lot of white kids, and I don't think there are any Chinese kids there at all. My DC is probably very exotic because she's half Vietnamese, half Welsh. Maybe if you'd come and looked around our daycare you would have thought she was Chinese. In this town diversity basically means mixing the white kids and the Indigenous kids. I don't think they really give much thought to any other "race". I don't give it much thought either, to be honest.

I'd be more concerned about them learning to be kind and make friends with other children.

That’s a good point - are you sure the children are all Chinese or are they a mix of Asian backgrounds? Makes a very big difference. I would consider a day care with - mix of Chinese, Korean, and Filipino kids to be diverse.

It feels like your definition of diverse is quite narrow if you’re just taking it to mean racially diverse. It also applies to gender, ability, income, socio-economic background. The nursery may have used it incorrectly, may not have, we don’t know. But that doesn’t change the meaning of the word and I’m not sure this is a very widely-encountered issue?

If you live in the area near the nursery aren’t you kind of used to seeing lots of Chinese and other Asian families around? I live in Sydney and my kids school has loads of Chinese families as well as other ethnicities but this wasn’t a surprise because I live here and see the number of Asian families around here.
And tbh you can tell the best schools as they all have a high number of Chinese families!

Would you have been so bothered if it had been 90% white and the rest from other ethnicities?

Would anybody have described this as diverse though?

Also, 'equal representation' is not usually representative of the actual split in the population. So if we had equal numbers of Inuits as other ethnicities in tv shows etc, it would actually be odd.

@Guineapigbridge

This aspirational idea of "diversity" is a sort of magical concept where all the children are lovely shades of golden brown and every child looks good next to Your White Child in photos. Reminiscent of a Bennetton ad from the 90s. Funnily enough "diversity" doesn't extend to Brayden, Chardonnay and Jaxton from the wrong-side-of-the-tracks. I don't want to be snide (okay maybe I do, a bit) but if you want your child to be exposed to different ideas and cultures then travel widely and read them lots and lots of books. (Just finished listening to Nice White Parents podcast on spotify, which is why I'm pushing back).

💯

I have encountered the most diversity in more blue collar jobs to be fair. Because you have senior management (usually graduates) interacting with skilled tradesman who are more often 'working class', and the latter job can also usually be done by people without particularly good written english.

When I worked at a large solicitor I don't think there was anybody without a degree and certainly nobody whose spoken English wasn't fluent.