ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to present a summary of the concepts underpinning equality and diversity policies. Over the period since the 1990s there have been changes in the meanings attached to equality. Early policies were founded on a ‘sameness’ model, and in the UK, policies were firmly connected to the legislation enacted in the 1970s. ‘Equal opportunities’ (EO) became the most common label for organizational policies, even though, as we discuss later, EO became a ‘catch-all’ for a range of distinctly different types of equality policy. The chapter offers a summary of the critiques of traditional EO that set the scene for the emergence of the diversity concept. Diversity management (DM), as a policy approach, was founded on a ‘difference’ model and emerged in the mid-to late 1990s in the UK. As Kaler (2001: 51) has pointed out, there are difficulties in determining the precise relationship of DM to the older concept of EO; whether ‘diversity’ should be considered as a new and different concept or one that builds on the older concept. Does DM pursue different ends by different means, or do EO and DM overlap to the extent that DM can be seen as pursuing the same ends by different means? Finally, the chapter considers the present state of theorizing on equality and diversity, together with future prospects. We believe it is important to understand how traditional
concepts of equality live on in contemporary DM policy and practice, even if the label and rhetoric have changed. Thus, the chronological account presented below should be read as outlining dominant thinking on equality and diversity in the different periods, but we will show that the theoretical approaches are interconnected.
