A Retrospective Analysis of Scholarship on Gender and Diversity in Public Administration
Year: 2009
Type: preprint
Abstract: At its heart, public administration is about life in community. In order to live up to the normative democratic ideal, the public service workspace must strive for a representative bureaucracy. This is because an ideal government reflects the constituency it serves. Accordingly, we focus on the themes of gender and diversity to comprehend their effect on policies, programs, and outcomes. This paper provides a retrospective analysis of the literature on gender and diversity to demonstrate how the focus on differentness has evolved over the past forty years. Topics are presented thematically and illustrate how the concept of diversity has adapted and expanded to include multiple dimensions such as age, religion, ethnicity, sexuality and physical ability. In the public management literature, the transition from exclusion to inclusion for women and minorities has been gradual, but has progressed from being thought of as a challenge to being treated as a benefit in the delivery of public services.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Authors: Mary E. Guy, Kristin Schumacher
Institution: University of Colorado Denver
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W126506068