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The term “multiculturalism” has recently come into usage to describe a society characterized by a diversity of cultures. Religion, language, customs, traditions, and values are some of the components of a culture, but more importantly culture is the lens through which one perceives and interprets the world.
In the past several years there has been a growing trend towards multiculturalism in many areas of our society. Most of these trends are found on college and university campuses. I think this is likely due to a belief that the traditional Christian American values and views are unable to deal with the growing numbers of various ethnic minorities in our society. Phew, that was a mouth full. Although this trend would seem able to change society for the better, I believe that it has been and will be largely ineffective. It does, however, have some possible advantage over society's traditional view.
The Contact Hypothesis states that “increasing contact between groups can in some circumstances decrease prejudice between them.” It is possible that education about various cultural groups alone, could reduce prejudice similarly to actual contact; by increasing recognition of similarities, providing information that goes against the stereotypical grain, and breaking down the illusion of out-group homogeneity. It would likely do so less than contact.
“Multiculturalism might be able to reduce prejudice without building the resentment, which sometimes occurs in contact. It is also possible that it could help encourage re-categorization. For the most part, however, it seems that multiculturalism will do little or nothing to get rid of prejudice and discrimination. Even assuming that multicultural education is nearly as effective as contact, it would not have much effect on society. Contact itself is only successful under certain circumstances.”(D’Souza, D. 8) The weakness of multiculturalism is that it only deals with a few of the many aspects of prejudice. Prejudice seems extremely difficult if not impossible to overcome in our society. The stereotypes that are created by and reinforce prejudice are neither rational ideas nor emotional responses. Multiculturalism treats them as if they were.
“Stereotypes are the result of cognitive processes that are, by their very nature, difficult to change. Information that is inconsistent with stereotypes is usually forgotten, ignored, disregarded or devalued. One could be aware that less than 20% of Americans arrested on drug charges are black, and could feel some sort of brothership with humankind, and still be afraid of being mugged by a crack addict in a black neighborhood.
Throughout history, there have been various perspectives of multicultural differences. According to Meriam Webster (n.d.), culture is “the beliefs, customs, arts, institutions, and the thoughts or products of a particular society or group.” Unfortunately, African Americans, Native Americans, Italians, Irish, Jews as well as various other cultural groups have been profoundly discriminated against and negatively stereotyped (Good Therapy org.). With the frequent mingling of cultures in educational settings, the workplace, and in the social arena, we are bound to encounter cultural differences.
When the word “prejudice” is mentioned in public conversation, undertones of anger and unfairness usually accompany it. Prejudice is often defined as a predetermined opinion not based on fact,experience, or knowledge. Many acts of inequalities and discriminative wrong-doings in history can be traced back to being a result of prejudice.So what place does a concept with such a negative connotation have in an institution of higher education where students and faculty of varying cultures and backgrounds come together to learn? Instinctively, a good number of people would answer that prejudice and its negative consequences have no place in such an environment. However, a contradicting opinion is expressed in an article written by Jonathan Rauch titled “In Defense of Prejudice” . In this article, Rauch expresses his dissatisfaction with the
Today in Canada it is not uncommon to see people of various races, ethnic backgrounds or cultural groups living within a mutual society; commonly known as multiculturalism. Multiculturalism refers to the presence of, or support for the presence of several distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a society. As the topic becomes more more popular due to news events and social media debates, multiculturalism gets twisted and misunderstood. In essence, multiculturalism is not about dwelling on about our differences, it is about emphasizing our commonality. Diversity of the human race has the power to unify society and make it stronger. Firstly, innovation
First, I will discuss the influences of different definitions of diversity in cultural unification. The major problem concerning this issue is that many people differ in the real meaning of the concept and how they view their personal involvement. Brook argues that “we do not really care about diversity all that much in America, even though we talk about it a great deal” (306). However, they are the general, erroneous interpretations of diversity that are really creating this wrong image of indifference. According to Kira Hudson Banks in her research entitled “A Qualitative Investigation of Students’ Perceptions of Diversity,” many people defined diversity as race and do not include other types of diversity (153).
Integration of culture within the United States has become a difficult task for government officials who follows the Multiculturalist approach. Culture is the diversification of one’s being as regards to their immutable traits being learnt from the time of their births. Linda Chaves’s essay “Demystifying Multiculturalism” points out that the accommodation of equal rights between whites and non-whites is not a problem it is education. However, multiculturalist believes that non-whites are becoming a threat to their population and will eventually change the American culture. The demographic tidal wave illusion from the business sectors is merely an exaggeration as they believe that non-white’s will eventually whip out United States white’s population. Chavez gives attention to the fact that ‘judgment should not be based on skin color but by content of one’s character’ (6). Furthermore, she doesn’t only criticize the Multiculturalist techniques but emphasizes through reasoning why the Multiculturalist approach would imposed negative attitude towards the non-whites in the United States. This will not only create negativity but a racial chaos between whites and non-whites living in the United States.
One problem is defining the tem "multiculturalism". When it is looked at simply as meaning the existence of a culturally integrated society, many people have no problems. However, when you go beyond that and try to suggest a different way of arriving at theat culturally integrated society, everyone seems to have a different opinion on what will work. Since education is at the root of the problem, it might be appropriate to use an example in that context. In 1980, the American school, Stanford University came up with a program - later known as the "Stanford-style multicultural curriculum" which aimed to familiarize students with traditions, philosophy, literature and history of the West. The program consisted of fifteen required books by writers such as Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Aquinas, Marx and Freud. By 1987, a group called the Rainbow Coalition argued the fact that the books were all written by DWEM's or Dead White European Males. They felt that this type of teaching denied students the knowledge of contributions by people of colour, women, and other oppressed groups.
In my opinion, prejudice has a very big impact on society all across the country everyday. I do believe that most people have a tendency to let their preconception of others get in the way of and effect their decisions. People tend to make many decisions based on their own bias beliefs about other people. Prejudice can be called by many things such as bias, racism, sexism, discrimination, and many other different things.
The basis for this concept, begins with the causes of prejudice. While there are many causes that relate to prejudice, the context ...
In our global economy requiring functional and respectful relationships between nations, prejudice and stereotypes can be a destructive force both in the world and in individual societies, especially in diverse ones.
Just because other perspectives are incorporated in the classroom, this doesn’t mean that everyone will become more understanding and appreciative of other cultures. When multicultural practices have rigorous standards, allow the advancement of social communications with other cultures, and allow the advancement social justice concepts both inside and outside of the classroom, this is when students will become more appreciative of other cultures (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p.162).
“Stereotypes unreliable, exaggerated generalizations about all members of a group that do not take individual differences into account” (Schaefer 40). Stereotypes can be positive, but are usually associated with negative beliefs or actions such as racial profiling.
As Hodson and Victoria (p.344) note, human beings are not born prejudiced. They develop prejudice through socialization process. The role of family, media, and education is crucial in the prejudice in individuals. Stereotyping involves the construction of unfounded ideas and thoughts concerning an individual. Stereotyping involves the construction of unfounded ideas and thought concerning an individual in the same social context (Farley, p.21). The development of stereotypes revolves around the association of individuals with particular labels of identity. The truth is such ideas and propositions cannot be proven in most situations (Brown, p.68). Hence, the individuals who uphold stereotypes in society become prejudiced toward the victims. The difficulty associated with changing stereotypes is connected to the length of time required for internalization. Individuals in particular classes of society are exposed to stereotypes in their social environment for a considerable amount of time. In consideration of the Emmanuel Church shooting, the perpetrator expressed stereotypical idealization of the African American community. He expressed biased attitude through the sole target of African
Ignorance is a huge problem, it is one of the biggest factors responsible for issues such as racism and sexism. Luckily, ignorance, generally speaking, is a relatively easy issue to fix. The obvious answer here would be more education, but this is not necessarily the case. In order to eliminate much of the racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice that arise due to ignorance, it is necessary to look at education from another perspective: one that encourages togetherness and development alongside people of all races and genders. One quote by Grace Boggs book The Next American Revolution summarizes the issue perfectly. “Just imagine what our neighborhoods would be like if, instead of keeping our children isolated in classrooms for twelve years and more, we engaged them in community-building activities with the same audacity with which the civil rights movement engaged them in desegregation activities fifty years ago! ...Our children will be absorbing naturally and normally the values of social responsibility and cooperation at the same time that they are being inspired to learn the skills and acquire the information necessary to solve real problems” (Boggs 158). So, the main point here is that prejudice, against all sexes, genders, and creeds, can be eliminated via education that encourages cooperation with the largest variety of people. In order to understand this concept, it is necessary to look at it from a few different perspectives to analyze its viability in modern society.
On the other end of the spectrum, multiculturalism is the proper way of bringing cultures together and helps to unify society.
In his article “The Failure of Multiculturalism”, Kenan Malik uses the diverse European culture to study and explain the irony of multiculturalism. He defines multiculturalism as “the embrace of an inclusive, diverse society” (Malik 21). Integration between cultures is practically inevitable, but several nations view this as a threat towards upholding their culture. Due to this, many countries have made attempts at properly integrating new people and ideas while trying to prevent the degradation of their own. This can result in unjust regulations and the reverse effect of an intended multicultural society.