Multiculturalism as a process maintaining diversity

Overview

Multiculturalism and assimilation, segregation and multiculturalism as processes that maintain ethnic diversity and arguments made in favour of a multicultural approach.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is multiculturalism?

   Model answer

   Multiculturalism describes both a social condition and a policy model. As a condition it means a society containing several ethnic groups that retain distinctive cultures. As a policy model it means a state that recognises and accommodates that difference: minorities are expected to participate fully as equal citizens while keeping their own language, religion and customs, and public institutions adapt to make that possible. Its defining assumption is that equality does not require sameness.

2. 2

   What sorts of measures does a multicultural policy typically involve?

   Model answer

   Anti-discrimination law with a body to enforce it; recognition of minority religions in public life through holidays, dietary provision, dress rules and burial arrangements; support for community languages in schools, broadcasting and translated public information; funding for community organisations and cultural festivals; adaptation of public services, for example interpreters in hospitals and courts; the possibility of separate faith schools; and measures to widen minority representation in policing, the civil service and elected bodies.

3. 3

   Distinguish between multiculturalism and assimilation.

   Model answer

   Assimilation expects the minority to shed its distinctiveness and become indistinguishable from the majority, adopting its language, customs and identity within a generation or two, with the majority culture unchanged. Multiculturalism expects the minority to participate fully in shared civic institutions while retaining its own culture, and expects those institutions to adapt to accommodate it. Assimilation therefore removes diversity over time; multiculturalism maintains it. The two also differ over who must change: under assimilation only the minority, under multiculturalism both parties.

4. 4

   How does the melting pot model differ from both assimilation and multiculturalism?

   Model answer

   The melting pot expects the cultures of all groups, majority included, to fuse into a new common culture that is different from any of the originals, so the majority changes as well. It resembles assimilation in producing convergence on a single culture and therefore reducing diversity, but differs in that the destination culture is new rather than the pre-existing majority one. Multiculturalism differs from both in expecting distinct cultures to persist alongside one another rather than to merge.

5. 5

   Distinguish between segregation and multiculturalism as processes that maintain ethnic diversity.

   Model answer

   Because they maintain it by opposite mechanisms. Segregation preserves difference through separation: groups live, learn and socialise apart, so contact is minimised and distinctiveness survives by default. Multiculturalism preserves difference through recognition within shared institutions: groups mix in workplaces, services and public life while their distinct languages, faiths and practices are formally accommodated, so distinctiveness survives despite contact. Segregation is compatible with inequality and is often produced by discrimination; multiculturalism explicitly requires equal rights. In short, segregation means difference without contact, multiculturalism means difference with contact.

6. 6

   Can a city be highly segregated and multicultural at the same time?

   Model answer

   Yes, and many are, which is why the two must be kept distinct. A city can have officially recognised minority languages, faith provision, anti-discrimination law and diverse public institutions while its residential map remains sharply divided, because housing patterns respond to income, history, networks and intimidation rather than to policy declarations. Equally, a city can be residentially well mixed while offering no formal accommodation of minority cultures at all. Recognition and spatial mixing are separate variables.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.