Meeting Challenges in US Education: Striving for Success in a Diverse Society

This book lays out a vision for how we should theorize about justice in a diverse society. It shows how free and equal people, faced with intractable struggles and irreconcilable conflicts, might share a common moral life shaped by a just framework. The book argues that if we are to take diversity seriously and if moral inquiry is sincere about shaping the world, then the pursuit of idealized and perfect theories of justice—essentially, the entire production of theories of justice that has dominated political philosophy for the past forty years—needs to change. Drawing on recent work in social science and philosophy, the book points to an important paradox: only those in a heterogeneous society—with its various religious, moral, and political perspectives—have a reasonable hope of understanding what an ideally just society would be like. However, due to its very nature, this world could never be collectively devoted to any single ideal. The book defends the moral constitution of this pluralistic, open society, where the very clash and disagreement of ideals spurs all to better understand what their personal ideals of justice happen to be. Presenting an original framework for how we should think about morality, this book rigorously analyzes a theory of ideal justice more suitable for contemporary times.

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Expanding a Conversation: Is How We Live as a Culturally Diverse Society Congruent With Our Underlying Assumptions, Methodologies, and Theories Regarding Change?

The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science ◽

10.1177/0021886309357540 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 55-72 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Christopher Anne Easley

Keyword(s):

Culturally Diverse ◽

Ethnically Diverse ◽

Intervention Strategies ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Change Processes ◽

Diverse Populations ◽

Contextual Framework ◽

Diverse Society ◽

Discourse Strategies ◽

Diverse Cultures

Our world is very culturally and ethnically diverse. Although there is so much beauty in the diversity of our world, the multiplicity of cultures can be very challenging when working to evoke change. Therefore, in an effort to better serve the realities of our environment, this article examines the question, “Is there a need for a different awareness on the part of researchers and/or intervention strategists when working to evoke change within diverse cultures, organizations, and/or communities?” And, equally important, how do we gain this awareness as we engage in change processes? Within the contextual framework of this question, this article also discusses the consequences that can and do emerge when one uses intervention strategies that may be grounded in generalized theory and practice when working within culturally and ethnically diverse populations. It concludes with a posit that suggests the need to evoke a more culturally sensitive approach to change, which is built on the use of discourse strategies that address the individualities of the environments, giving privilege to the diversity and culture.

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More than lost in translation? An exploratory study of social workers’ experiences working with Vietnamese wives in Taiwan

International Social Work ◽

10.1177/0020872809359749 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 53 (3) ◽

pp. 327-338

Author(s):

Su-Chen Hung ◽

Wen-Shan Yang ◽

Pei-Chih Yen

Keyword(s):

Social Work ◽

Social Workers ◽

Cultural Differences ◽

Exploratory Study ◽

Culturally Diverse ◽

Work Practice ◽

Social Work Practice ◽

Cross Border ◽

Diverse Society ◽

Lost In Translation

This article identifies the cultural differences and language barriers faced by Taiwanese social workers when working with families of cross-border marriages, and discusses the importance of adopting a multicultural approach in social work practice in order to cater to the urgent needs of an increasingly culturally diverse society.

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Legitimizing Transformation without Calling it Change:Tajdīd, Iṣlāḥ, and Saudi Arabia’s Place in the Contemporary World

Contemporary Review of the Middle East ◽

10.1177/2347798915577717 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2 (1-2) ◽

pp. 55-70

Author(s):

Sean Foley

Keyword(s):

Saudi Arabia ◽

Political System ◽

New Technologies ◽

Social Institutions ◽

Advanced Technology ◽

The West ◽

Contemporary World ◽

The People ◽

Diverse Society ◽

Oil Revenues

For decades, many scholars have contended that Saudi Arabia is a fixed political system, where a conservative monarchy uses advanced technology, oil revenues, and religion to dominate the people. Such a system is often portrayed as inherently unstable, a seemingly never-ending series of collisions between an unchanging traditional political structure seeking to hold on to power at any cost and a dynamic modernity—a view encapsulated in a phrase expressed at virtually every public discussion of the Kingdom in the West: ‘you must admit that Saudi Arabia must change’. Ironically this phrase confirms what this article argues is a secret to the success of Saudi Arabia in the contemporary era: the ability to legitimize transformation without calling it change. No society is static, including Saudi Arabia. Throughout the Kingdom’s history, the defining social institutions have repeatedly utilized Tajdīd (Revival) and Iṣlāḥ (Reform) to respond to new technologies and the changing expectations of a diverse society. While Muslim scholars are most often entrusted to arbitrate this process, ordinary Saudis use this process to guide their actions in the various social spaces they encounter both at home and abroad. Critically, this process reflects the response of King Abdulaziz and the founders of the third Saudi state in the early twentieth century to the factors that had brought down previous Saudi states in the nineteenth century.

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