Barriers to Diversity in Film – A Research Review – Aug 07

multiple languages. A diverse workforce will aid negotiation and
communication.
Diversity is also about good public relations and ‘inclusivity’ is argued
to be good for business. It is more about ‘getting the right people for
the job on merit’ and the ‘business benefits of a more diverse
workforce’ (Cabinet Office 2001). Diversity policies, which are couched
in business terms, have to be underpinned by a set of more
fundamental rights-based principles (Fredman 2002). Public changes
on ethical and social responsibility have persuaded companies that a
rights-based approach may also be good for business.
Equal opportunity policies led to disappointment with a failure to
progress under-represented groups (Cockburn 1991) and, together
with a backlash against such policies has been argued as a key reason
for their demise (Faludi 1992). Diversity policies, which include policies
on sex, ‘race’, religion, sexual orientation, disability and age have
been introduced for several reasons and have had more success.
Within the public sector, there have been gains in recruitment in the
civil service, the police force and in the employment of teachers.
Within the private sector, banks and retail organisations were some of
the first private sector organisations to institute changes in
employment, and these showed changes in composition of the
workforce, by racial and ethnic origin (Business in the Community
http://www.bitc.org.uk/index.html; Metcalf and Forth 2000). These
gains in recruitment could be partly attributed to demographic,
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