ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the social and cultural dimensions of development with a recognition of how experiences and definitions of development vary between and within social and cultural groups. It starts by considering how some theories see cultural factors as obstacles to successful development, and how development can involve an evolution in social structures. Most of the chapter deals with how development theories and practices have engaged with social and cultural diversity focusing particularly on ethnicity, gender, religion, disability, sexuality and age, as well as how dimensions of identity intersect. Postcolonialism is also discussed as an approach to understand the social and cultural contexts within which concepts of development are shaped and the power relations this reveals.
