Dal Multiculturalismo al Diversity

The article explains the several socio-historical steps that have brought U.S. society to shape the idea of diversity and diversity management. Implications for European and Italian society are discussed. U.S. Multicultural Education policies, although they remain an inspiration for many European policies, have not been completely satisfactory so far. They did not really improve the interactional level between different cultures, the number of which has largely increased within the country, due to a never ending process of “identitization”. “Multicultural”is the term we use to identify the presence, at the same time and in the same place, of people with different cultures. Besides, the adjective multicultural usually goes with education, at least in the U.S., meaning that is confined to the school system. “Intercultural” is usually considered to be as the following step of a multicultural society, when people of different cultures establish authentic relationships and a true exchange of ideas and behaviors. Intercultural communication has been the response to the training needs of organizations and corporations which needed to improve the effectiveness of communication between different cultures. Since the beginning of the Nineties a new trend has occured in the United States and it is now widespreading all throughout Europe: Diversity. It is not only training, it is not only education, it is a system which implies a new paradigm. It is important to understand the reasons why it developed in the U.S., to know the intellectual debate about it, and how is being implemented inside organizations. Some oganizations are importing this model in countries where the political and organizational background is completely different; can it work? What can we learn from U.S. recent history? Which kind of diversity can we use, or create in order to solve our problems?