8. Multiculturalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 154-175
Author(s):  
Monica Mookherjee

This chapter studies multiculturalism. The term ‘multiculturalism’ can refer to the fact of cultural diversity and may also describe the coexistence of different kinds of cultural group within a country. Multiculturalism emphasizes status, as well as economic inequalities. Thin multiculturalism views all cultural differences as disagreements between groups that agree on liberal values. This view may underestimate the extent of conflict between cultures. Meanwhile, thick multiculturalism appreciates that some cultural differences occur between liberals and non-liberals. While the solution to cultural conflicts in thick multiculturalism is often a modus vivendi, the question is whether this solution treats non-liberal minority cultures fairly. Defenders of cultural rights hold that governments should recognize that all citizens deserve equal opportunities for developing self-respect and autonomy. However, by respecting cultural rights, a government risks supporting injustice against individuals within groups.

Author(s):  
Dariya Logvinova

This article examines the impact of poly-ethnicity on political communities, by focusing on the symbolic aspect of citizenship. What are the symbolic ‘anchors’ that frame and define sentiments of belonging in a democratic polity? How do we evaluate such criteria in the light of the challenge of poly-ethnicity? Such questions are explored through a comparative conceptual assessment of the Canadian policy of multiculturalism and the Quebec’s model of interculturalism. Keywords: Сitizenship, self-identification, constitutional state, migration policy, migrant, integration, cultural diversity, minority cultures, interculturalism, multiculturalism


Author(s):  
René Pawera ◽  
Monika Lavrovičová ◽  
Lucia Húsenicová

An important element of the management of modern companies and organizations is the proper use of diversity management and equal opportunities, aimed at eliminating discrimination in the labor market. The paper summarizes the starting points for these processes in the labor market. It describes the tendencies of the development of the solved problem in the context of the labor market conditions of the Slovak Republic. Key words: labor market inequality, equal opportunities management, diversity management


Author(s):  
Harvey Siegel

`How should public education in democratic states deal with the cultural diversity brought about by contemporary globalization? My suggestion is that key to democratic public education is the obligation to foster in students the skills and abilities, and attitudes and dispositions, needed to participate fully in democratic decision-making. Of central importance are the abilities and dispositions required for critical thinking and rational argumentation: evaluating arguments of others, constructing arguments of one’s own that might rationally persuade one’s fellow citizens, etc. Without these abilities and dispositions, full participation in democratic decision-making is impossible. But fostering them is problematic when students are members of cultures in which argumentation is frowned upon. In this paper I address this tension, and argue that while respecting cultural differences is of the first importance, in democracies it cannot override the requirements of democracy itself. When these two clash, the requirements of democratic participation must take precedence.


2021 ◽  
pp. 106939712110245
Author(s):  
Marina M. Doucerain ◽  
Andrew G. Ryder ◽  
Catherine E. Amiot

Most research on friendship has been grounded in Western cultural worlds, a bias that needs to be addressed. To that end, we propose a methodological roadmap to translate linguistic/anthropological work into quantitative psychological cross-cultural investigations of friendship, and showcase its implementation in Russia and Canada. Adopting an intersubjective perspective on culture, we assessed cultural models of friendship in three inter-related ways: by (1) deriving people’s mental maps of close interpersonal relationships; (2) examining the factor structure of friendship; and (3) predicting cultural group membership from a given person’s friendship model. Two studies of Russians (Study 1, n = 89; Study 2a, n = 195; Study 2b, n = 232) and Canadians (Study 1, n = 89; Study 2a, n = 164; Study 2b, n = 199) implemented this approach. The notions of trust and help in adversity emerged as defining features of friendship in Russia but were less clearly present in Canada. Different friendship models seem to be prevalent in these two cultural worlds. The roadmap described in the current research documents these varying intersubjective representations, showcasing an approach that is portable across contexts (rather than limited to a specific cross-cultural contrast) and relies on well-established methods (i.e., easily accessible in many research contexts).


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 394-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pontus Strimling ◽  
Seth Frey

Unpredictable social dynamics can dominate social outcomes even in carefully designed societies like online multiplayer games. According to theories from economic game theory and evolutionary anthropology, communities that are otherwise identical can spontaneously develop emergent cultural differences. We demonstrate the emergence of norm diversity in comparable populations distributed across identical copies of a single multiplayer game world. We use 2006 data from several servers of World of Warcraft to analyze how social contracts about resource distribution converge within independent communities, while varying across them. We find wide-ranging diversity in the norms that communities consider standard, fair, and common, even where these norms are unenforcable and players face large incentives to deviate from them. By documenting how designed societies come to differ in undesigned ways, we present emergent cultural diversity as a distinguishing feature of human sociality and a major challenge for game designers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-91
Author(s):  
Dewi Arum Widhiyanti Metra Putri ◽  
Kwartarini Wahyu Yuniarti ◽  
Wenty Marina Minza ◽  
Bagus Riyono

The romantic relationship is an interesting topic to study because it emerges as an important part of adolescent development that becomes increasingly important in subsequent years of individual development. One of the limitations of research in this field is the difficulty of providing unique and standards definitions of romantic relationships due to cultural differences in conceptions and the differences within individuals from the same cultural group. This study aims to explore the concept of a romantic relationship from the perceptions of Balinese adolescents and terms that represent it that can be used as a basis to comprehend the dynamics of romantic relationships in Balinese culture nowadays. Two phases of the study conducted through survey and FGD. Balinese adolescents were aged 15-17 years old (n= 277). Through thematic analysis procedures, some emergent themes were identified as romantic relationship conceptualization. This relationship was conceptualized as an exclusive relationship, consisting of affective, cognitive, and psychomotor dimensions, and was represented by many terms. This study concluded that the concept of romantic relationships for each individual from the same cultural group could be perceived differently, leading to varied forms of adolescents' behavior.


2000 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oluremi B. Ayoko ◽  
Charmine E.J. Härtel

A Brisbane worker recently commented in an interview, ‘I think there's a lot of difficulty just in cultural diversity.’ The worker, a member of a racial minority group, said: If I was to categorise the problems, my frustration here would be more personal, the lack of understanding of issues and people – it is really just diverse people skills. Not understanding that people come from different backgrounds and people just talking out of their narrow experiences, they just don't realise that they are insulting you… (interview with Ayoko, November 1999). What do managers do about these cross-racial tensions at work? Analysis of our interview data revealed that most (80%) leaders do nothing about the conflict. Where something is done, workers often report that it worsens rather than lightens the tension in the work atmosphere.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Cantius Mubangizi

Abstract South Africa has faced enormous challenges since the advent of democracy in 1994. One of the difficulties in the post-apartheid era has been the building of a human rights culture in the context of substantial cultural diversity. In this paper, the constitutional, judicial and institutional contexts – which have consolidated and supported the expression of human rights in the face of cultural diversity – are reviewed. The focus on cultural rights in the constitution is discussed, and the relevance of several constitutional institutions in terms of ensuring human rights, is mentioned. With a clear understanding of the constitutional, judicial and institutional contexts in place, the paper discusses the potentially inherent conflict between human rights and cultural rights, using gender-related issues as a proxy. Several examples of this potential conflict are discussed, including female circumcision, virginity testing and polygamy. The importance of human rights education for informing the debate about cultural and human rights in South Africa is emphasized. The answers to the challenges associated with the clash between cultural rights and human rights are not simple, although pragmatically – in addition to the role of the available constitutional, judicial and institutional structures – they could reside in a cross-cultural debate.


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