As in many fields of study, there is no universal agreement on definitions in diversity and inclusion work. There is no one professional association considered the primary association in the field to establish agreed-on definitions. There is no single discipline to provide a primary home. For practical purposes, only one definition of diversity and one definition of inclusion will be described in this entry.

[Page 268]The following definitions come from Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks: Standards for Organizations Around the World by Julie O’Mara, Alan Richter, and 80 expert panelists. The rationale for providing these definitions in this entry is that the expert panelists come from a variety of diversity dimensions, approaches to the work, regions of the world, and so forth. A consensus process was ...