Multicultural Democracy: Toward a better democracy

Multicultural democracy incorporates socio-economic, cultural, and political diversity and goes beyond current conceptions of democracy. It begins by asking these critical questions: Who is and is not participating in democracy and on whose terms? And how wide is the path to participation? These questions serve as a foundation for exploring the three tenets of multicultural democracy: democracy as a path, membership in both large and small publics, and diversity as essential. After explaining the theory of multicultural democracy, I examine the extent to which critical pedagogy, building of community, and thorough disciplinary content contribute to classroom-based multicultural democracy.     

Linguistic Diversity and Education for Democracy in a Multicultural Society

This paper looks at the gap between policy documents and classroom practice with respect to education in a multi‐ethnic/multi‐lingual society. It discusses the practice of language teaching in the multilingual classroom from the teachers and the teacher trainers point of view. Teachers face a number of dilemma's which they try to solve in their day to day practice. It is argued that external pressures, in addition to a bureaucratic organizational tendency towards resistance to change see to it that teachers decide on conservative resolutions of dilemma's. The conclusion is that any kind of innovative effort should focus both on the content of innovations, as well as on the changes in the school as an organizational structure, consequently dealing with resistance to change and transforming the school into an organization that can learn.     

Taking the longer view: Explaining Multicultural London English and Multicultural Paris French

The article explores the perplexing outcomes of comparative research projects in London and Paris on language change in multilingual areas of the cities populated by large numbers of recent immigrants with very diverse language backgrounds. In London, as in many other northern European cities, language contact on such a large scale has resulted in the emergence of a “multiethnolect”: a repertoire of innovative linguistic forms used by young people of all ethnicities, including monolingual non‐immigrant speakers. In Paris, however, there was no such repertoire. I propose four factors that are necessary for a multiethnolect to emerge and that explain why similar processes of population movement, immigration, and globalization have produced such different linguistic outcomes in London and Paris. These factors remind us that language evolution, like language use, is constrained not only by the social characteristics of individuals but also by the socio‐cultural historical contexts in which individuals live.     

Body and Management Pedagogy

In this article I explore the impact of bodies in management education — why they have been ignored and what possibilities may be created when we understand them better. Bodies — including gestures, stature, posture and voice — shape and constrain how teachers and students act, what they think and what is taken away. The bodies of male and female teachers and students occupy different spaces and carry contrasting significations, resulting in different repertoires of embodied and disembodied pedagogical styles. Drawing on feminist scholarship, organizational research and my own bodily experiences and observations in management teaching, and despite the myth of disembodiment in rational classrooms, I suggest management pedagogy increasingly assumes and celebrates particular bodily performances. Rather than lament the constriction of stereotypical body regimes, I argue that making bodies more visible in management pedagogy has liberating possibilities for teachers and students and their learning.     

Multicultural education in Thailand

This study examines multicultural education policy in Thailand. The researcher used the qualitative research methods of interviewing, observation and document examination to obtain data. Theory about multicultural education was used as a theoretical framework. The sites of study were eight primary schools that served students from diverse cultures – Muslim, Buddhist, Burmese, Cambodian and Thai – in the southern provinces of Thailand. Results showed that current educational policies do provide opportunity for migrant students to access public education. The Ministry of Education has allowed schools to apply their own rules and regulations that reflect the diverse cultures of their students. The results also show that the curriculum includes references to various cultures, that textbooks contain content that encourages students to live in harmony with people from different cultures and that some schools have implemented bilingual education programs. However, deeper analysis of school practices made it clear that what seems to be an acceptance of cultural diversity is just another form of assimilation. The well-established features that define Thainess remain intact and the inclusion of culturally specific content is insufficient to change the unequal power relations among dominant and minority groups in Thailand.     

Theorizing and Analyzing Citizenship in Multicultural Societies

I argue that sociologists have directed insufficient attention to the study of citizenship. When citizenship is studied, sociologists tend to concentrate on just one facet: rights. I elaborate four conceptual facets of citizenship. I link two—citizenship as rights and belonging—to theoretical elaborations of multiculturalism. Considering multiculturalism as a state discourse and set of policies, rather than a political or normative theory, I outline linkages between multiculturalism and two additional facets of citizenship: legal status and participation. Over the last 15 years, the idea of multiculturalism has come under withering criticism, especially in Europe, in part because it is claimed that multiculturalism undermines common citizenship. Yet countries with more multicultural policies and a stronger discourse of pluralism and recognition are places where immigrants are more likely to become citizens, more trusting of political institutions, and more attached to the national identity. There is also little evidence that multicultural policies fuel majority backlash, and some modest evidence that such policies enlarge conceptions of inclusive membership. By studying claims‐making and the equality of immigrant‐origin groups, we see that the participatory aspect of citizenship needs to take center stage in future work in political sociology, social theory, social movements, immigration, and race/ethnicity.     

Inquiry

The following interview with Dr. Les Roberts, Director of Health Policy at The International Rescue Committee (IRC), was conducted in May 2002. Previously, Dr. Roberts worked for WHO during the Rwandan Civil War of 1994 and at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, both in the Refugee Health Unit and at the National Center for Environmental Health.     

Inquiry

The Republic of Armenia, one of the new nations formed out of the former Soviet Union, gained its independence in 1991, in the aftermath of glasnost and perestroika. In the past decade various struggles have plagued the young country, including a war with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh Region, an autonomous oblast, or self-governing region (the start of which preceded independence), and an earthquake that ravaged parts of the country in 1988. In the aftermath of these events, various issues have emerged regarding the plight of poor children and poverty in general. The kinds of initiatives that have been undertaken to address this situation and various policy implications are discussed here in interviews conducted with Mr. Simon Balian, Executive Director of the Fund for Armenian Relief (FAR), and Ms. Annette Choolfaian, professor and Director of Health Services Management and Policy at New York Medical College. (It should be noted that the interviews were conducted separately.) They provide valuable insight into the conditions of poverty and how it affects children in this small, newly formed country. In some ways, the situation examined and conditions discussed are expected to parallel those found in other nations that seceded and ultimately gained independence from the former Soviet Union.     

Inquiry

The following interview with Dr. Denise Johnston was conducted in October 2005. Dr. Johnston is a child development specialist and the founding director of the Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents, which has served more than 20,000 clients and is staffed almost exclusively by formerly incarcerated parents and children of prisoners.     

Inquiry

The following interview with Dr. William Aldis, Regional Advisor for Africa for Emergency and Humanitarian Action at the World Health Organization (WHO), was conducted in August 2001. Dr. Aldis is head of the WHO unit for crisis situations in sub-Saharan Africa where he works on several public health programs related to children. He returned to his station in Zimbabwe in September. Previously, Dr. Aldis held the position of WHO Country Representative in Sierra Leone where he worked on developing programs to help child soldiers and to advance immunization programs.