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Scholarship claims that diversity undermines trust and cooperation. Critiques focus on studies’ inability to discern diversity’s causal effects. In fact, most studies are unable to distinguish diversity (i.e., mixture) and marginalized group share (e.g., percentage Black). The authors argue for preserving this distinction and identify obstacles to doing so. First, homogeneously disadvantaged communities are acutely underrepresented in North America and Europe, the settings of most diversity research. The second issue, a case of the ecological fallacy, concerns our inability to infer associations between individual outcomes and diversity from associations between macro-level outcomes and diversity. Much diversity research would be better served by using group share measures that align with the in-group/out-group theories they draw on to motivate research and explain findings. The authors clarify the data and analytic requirements for research that seeks to draw conclusions about diversity per se. Practically, the distinction between diversity and marginalized group share is also relevant for policy. 

We explore what people mean by “diversity” when they use the term to describe real communities. “Diversity” can refer to multiple differences—ethnoracial, economic, and so on. It may also refer to multiple dimensions of the same difference, that is, heterogeneity or group representation. Analyzing a survey of Chicago-area residents, we ask: (1) When people describe a community as diverse, on which kinds of differences are they drawing? (2) Within each relevant difference, are evaluations of diversity predicted by heterogeneity, the share of specific groups, or both? Findings suggest that respondents associate diversity primarily with a community’s ethnoracial attributes and secondarily with its economic attributes. Within ethnoracial attributes, both heterogeneity and the share of disadvantaged ethnoracial groups, especially Blacks, predict assessed diversity. Within economic attributes, income inequality predicts assessed diversity, albeit negatively; the representation of poor people does not. Qualitative responses reveal varied understandings of diversity while confirming the dominance of ethnoracial attributes. 

The term “diversity,” although widely used, can mean different things. Diversity can refer to heterogeneity, i.e., the distribution of people across groups, or to the representation of specific minority groups. We use a conjoint experiment with a race-balanced, national sample to uncover which properties, heterogeneity or minority representation, Americans use to evaluate the extent of racial diversity a neighborhood and whether this assessment varies by participants’ race. We show that perceived diversity is strongly associated with heterogeneity. This association is stronger for Whites than for Blacks, Latinos, or Asians. In addition, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians view neighborhoods where their own group is largest as more diverse. Whites vary in their tendency to associate diversity with representation, and Whites who report conservative stances on diversity-related policy issues view predominately White neighborhoods as more diverse than predominately Black neighborhoods. People can agree that diversity is desirable while disagreeing on what makes a community diverse. 

Immigration and globalization have spurred interest in the effects of ethnic diversity in Western societies. Most scholars focus on whether diversity undermines trust, social capital, and collective goods provision. However, the type of prosociality that helps heterogeneous societies function is different from the in-group solidarity that glues homogeneous communities together. Social cohesion in multiethnic societies depends on whether prosocial behavior extends beyond close-knit networks and in-group boundaries. We identify two features of modern societies—social differentiation and economic interdependence—that can set the stage for constructive interactions with dissimilar others. Whether societal adaptations to diversity lead toward integration or division depends on the positions occupied by minorities and immigrants in the social structure and economic system, along with the institutional arrangements that determine their political inclusion.