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"As a journalist covering conflicts, human rights, and social affairs, I welcome Dr. Mona Weissmark’s new book, The Science of Diversity®, which explores issues around human diversity, social equality, and justice from a multidisciplinary approach.
At a time when our societies seem increasingly polarised and tolerance is scarce, diversity in media content and practice is a crucial factor in tackling stereotypes and misinformation about ethnicity and religion – about “the other”.
Dr. Weissmark draws on her fascinating work with the children of Nazis and the children of holocaust survivors to suggest ways in which we can dare to know “the other.”
Veronique Mistiaen,
Journalist and Lecturer
"In 2004 Dr. Mona Sue Weissmark published a landmark book titled Justice Matters: Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II. Now she is publishing an equally significant book on The Science of Diversity®, which explores this timely topic of diversity from a scientific viewpoint at the personal, interpersonal, and international levels. With half of the U.S. population projected to be a member of a racial minority by 2050, this book is critically important."
Michael Shinagel, Ph.D.
Dean of Continuing Education,
Emeritus Harvard University
"In this richly illuminating, vital, and important work, Dr. Mona Weissmark draws on salient threads from religious studies, biology, anthropology, and the social sciences to weave a unique tapestry of knowledge about diversity. By uniting the seemingly disparate strands of these disciplines, Dr. Weissmark places the age-old struggle of “us” versus “them” in much needed historical, cultural, and scientific context and does so in a way that incisively speaks to social justice issues of past and present."
Melita M. Garza, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Journalism,
Texas Christian University
THE SCIENCE
OF DIVERSITY®
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The Science of Diversity® (2020, Oxford University Press) uses a multidisciplinary approach to excavate the theories, principles, and paradigms that illuminate our understanding of the issues surrounding human diversity, social equality, and justice.
Weissmark, assembles a rich array of research from anthropology, biology, religious studies, and the social sciences, among other fields to write a scholarly diorama of diversity.
This book, designed to be accessible to readers, contextualizes diversity historically, tracing the evolution of ideas about “the other” and about “we” and “them” to various forms of social organization, from the “hunter-gather,” face-to-face, shared resource model to the anomie of megacities.
Moreover, The Science of Diversity® explicates the concept of diversity, parsing its meaning over time, place, and polity—from ancient Greece to the time of Trump, from biblical parables to United Nations pronouncements.
Nevertheless, the connecting threads weaving this multidimensional work together are pulled from the field of psychology, and these help provide an important structure to the ideas of diversity presented.
The book then brings these to the surface holistically, examining diversity on the individual, interpersonal, and international levels.
Most significantly, The Science of Diversity® is also prescriptive. Drawing on the author’s groundbreaking research work with the children of Nazis and the children of holocaust survivors, the book suggests that one potential antidote to ethnic strife lies in the pursuit of Kant’s mandate, sapere aude (dare to know), combined with the development of compassion.
To that end, the book explores the use of scientific thinking as one way we can dare to know “the other.”
Available for Purchase Now, from Amazon & Oxford Academic