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The challenge of diversity. (English) Zbl 0885.01036

Dean, Nathaniel (ed.), African Americans in mathematics. Proceedings of the second conference for African-American researchers in the mathematical sciences held at DIMACS, Piscataway, NJ, USA, June 26–28, 1996. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. DIMACS, Ser. Discrete Math. Theor. Comput. Sci. 34, 169-182 (1997).
This study draws the attention on the unequal conditions promoted nowadays in this branch of special scientific and applicative interest. The main idea of diversity refers to the acceptance of the differences manifested in appearance, dress, language, religion, etc. A special position – in the world of mathematics – is held by women and minorities (by which the author refers to Hispanics, Native Americans, African Americans). In spite of the affirmative actions already established for assuring an equal access to all rights of society (education and jobs, especially), the results are far from being satisfactory. There are provided several statistical data on the number of Bachelor’s, Master’s, PhD positions – hardly encouraging. This becomes even more important, if considering that, by the year 2000, one sixth of the workforce will be the representative of a minority. The programs launched by the Mathematical Association of America (such as the SUMMA Program) are also discussed.
For the entire collection see [Zbl 0872.00023].
Reviewer: C.Irimia (Iaşi)

MSC:

01A80 Sociology (and profession) of mathematics
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