Canada's policy of multiculturalism has been the object of ongoing debate since it was first introduced in 1971. Decades later, Canadians still seem uncertain about the meaning of multiculturalism. Detractors insist that government has not succeeded in discouraging immigrants and their descendants from preserving their cultures of origin, undercutting a necessary identification with Canada, while supporters argue that immigrant groups' abilities to influence their adjustments to Canada has strengthened their sense of belonging. Beyond what often seems to be a polarized debate is a broad spectrum of opinion around multiculturalism in Canada and what it means to be Canadian. The Multiculturalism Question analyzes the policy, ideology, and message of multiculturalism. Several of Canada's leading thinkers provide valuable insights into a crucial debate that will inevitably continue well into the future.

Polygamy, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, punishing women for being raped, differential access for men and women to health care and education, unequal rights of ownership, assembly, and political participation, unequal vulnerability to violence. These practices and conditions are standard in some parts of the world. Do demands for multiculturalism--and certain minority group rights in particular--make them more likely to continue and to spread to liberal democracies? Are there fundamental conflicts between our commitment to gender equity and our increasing desire to respect the customs of minority cultures or religions? In this book, the eminent feminist Susan Moller Okin and fifteen of the world's leading thinkers about feminism and multiculturalism explore these unsettling questions in a provocative, passionate, and illuminating debate. Okin opens by arguing that some group rights can, in fact, endanger women. She points, for example, to the French government's giving thousands of male immigrants special permission to bring multiple wives into the country, despite French laws against polygamy and the wives' own bitter opposition to the practice. Okin argues that if we agree that women should not be disadvantaged because of their sex, we should not accept group rights that permit oppressive practices on the grounds that they are fundamental to minority cultures whose existence may otherwise be threatened. In reply, some respondents reject Okin's position outright, contending that her views are rooted in a moral universalism that is blind to cultural difference. Others quarrel with Okin's focus on gender, or argue that we should be careful about which group rights we permit, but not reject the category of group rights altogether. Okin concludes with a rebuttal, clarifying, adjusting, and extending her original position. These incisive and accessible essays--expanded from their original publication in Boston Review and including four new contributions--are indispensable reading for anyone interested in one of the most contentious social and political issues today. The diverse contributors, in addition to Okin, are Azizah al-Hibri, Abdullahi An-Na'im, Homi Bhabha, Sander Gilman, Janet Halley, Bonnie Honig, Will Kymlicka, Martha Nussbaum, Bhikhu Parekh, Katha Pollitt, Robert Post, Joseph Raz, Saskia Sassen, Cass Sunstein, and Yael Tamir.

Multicultural societies are a phenomenon that can be increasingly observed worldwide. This book focuses on the question of how individuals living within a multicultural society experience the meeting of cultures. Murdock combines both a thorough review of the theoretical body of research concerning multiculturalism and related concepts such as globalization, acculturation and biculturalism with specific empirical research evidence, providing new insights into factors which shape our openness towards a plurally composed society. Multiculturalism, Identity and Difference contains original research conducted within the ‘natural laboratory’ that multilingual, multicultural Luxembourg provides. This is a country where the foreign population makes up nearly half of the total population. In the era of globalization, culture contact is a daily occurrence and this book makes a contribution to the questions of if and how culture contact can be experienced as an opportunity rather than a threat by individuals.

Tackles the challenge of dismantling the multicultural model without destroying diversity in European society* Have Europeans become hostile to multiculturalism? * When people vote for anti-immigration parties, do they also support their anti-multiculturalism policies? * And are right-wing extremists becoming the storm troopers of the struggle against diversity?In recent years, European political leaders from Angela Merkel to David Cameron have discarded the term 'multiculturalism' and now express scepticism, criticism and even hostility towards multicultural ways of organising their societies. Yet they are unprepared to reverse the diversity existing in their states. These contradictory choices have different political consequences in the countries examined in this book. The future of European liberalism is being played out as multicultural notions of belonging, inclusion, tolerance and the national home are brought into question.

This volume assembles leading scholars from a range of disciplines to debate multiculturalism in theory and practice. The volume is grouped around four central questions raised by multiculturalism; Is universalism ethnocentric?; Does multiculturalism threaten citizenship?; Do minorities require group rights?; and what can Europe learn from North America? The book aims to answer these questions by moving the debate about multicultural questions into a more consensual mode. The authors show a resistance to either endorsing or rejecting multiculturalism, but a preference for dissecting and differentiating the concrete historical and geographical contexts in which specified versions of multiculturalism make sense, and others in which they do not.

Reveals Virginia Woolf's interest in Christianity, its ideas and cultural artefacts