Racial Minorities in Multicultural Canada


Book Description

Comprises 13 essays grouped under five themes: racial and ethnic policies in Canada; minorities and health care; marriage and minority families; institutional control and ethnic organizations; and theoretical perspectives of race relations. Includes essays on Canadian Indians, Chinese-Canadians and Japanese-Canadians.




Multiculturalism In Canada: Evidence and Anecdote


Book Description

With over 20 percent of the population foreign-born, and with more than 250 ethnic origins, Canada is one of the world's most multicultural societies. Canada's ethnic and religious diversity continues to grow alongside immigration. Yet how well is Canada's model of multiculturalism and citizenship working, and how well are Canadians, whatever their ethnic or religious origin, doing? Will Canada's relative success compared to other countries continue, or are there emerging fault lines in Canadian society? Canadian Multiculturalism: Evidence and Anecdote undertakes an extensive review of the available data from Statistics Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada operational statistics, employment equity and other sources to answer these questions and provide an integrated view covering economic outcomes, social indicators, and political and public service participation. Over 200 charts and tables are used to engage readers and substantiate the changing nature of Canadian diversity.




Selling Illusions


Book Description

Since he immigrated to Canada two decades ago, Neil Bissoondath has consistently refused the role of the ethnic, and sought to avoid the burden of hyphenation -- a burden that would label him as an East Indian-Trinidadian-Canadian living in Quebec. Bissoondath argues that the policy of multiculturalism, with its emphasis on the former or ancestral homeland and its insistence that There is more important than Here, discourages the full loyalty of Canada's citizens. Through the 1971 Multiculturalism Act, Canada has sought to order its population into a cultural mosaic of diversity and tolerance. Seeking to preserve the heritage of Canada's many peoples, the policy nevertheless creates unease on many levels, transforming people into political tools and turning historical distinctions into stereotyped commodities. It encourages exoticism, highlighting the differences that divide Canadians rather than the similarities that unite them. Selling Illusions is Neil Bissoondath's personal exploration of a politically motivated public policy with profound private ramifications -- a policy flawed from its inception but implemented with all the political zeal of a true believer.




The Education Systems of the Americas


Book Description

This handbook focuses on and compares the education systems in the three Americas: North, Central and South America, and includes a chapter on most countries in the region. The chapters follow a common structure and include schematic diagrams of the structure of mainstream education from pre-primary to tertiary level. Each chapter starts with a description of the historical and social foundations of the education system from the post-World War II period up to today, including political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions. By highlighting important dates and structural decisions, the current education system can be understood as resulting from past developments. The first part ends with a description of the transitions to the labour market that are offered, and the way in which these are organized in the education system described. The second part consists of an overview of the institutional and organizational principles as well as the structure of education from pre-primary to tertiary level. It includes a focus on legislative bases and financial provisions for the education system and a description of the structure by using the ISCED-classification. It further includes information of the supply of human resources such as teachers and other educators. The third and final part of the handbook discusses selected educational trends and aspects. In this context, three topics are of particular interest: dealing with inequality, ICT and digitization activities, and STEM-related policies and programmes.




Ethnicity, Politics, and Public Policy


Book Description

Ten essays on multiculturalism form a comprehensive picture of the problems and prospects of pluralism and mirror the nuanced issues which arise when theories and goals of cultural sensitivity confront real life.




Canadian Multiculturalism @50


Book Description

Canadian Multiculturalism @50 offers a critically-informed overview of Canada’s official multiculturalism against a half-century of successes and failures, benefits and costs, contradictions and consensus, and criticism and praise. Admittedly, not a perfect governance model, but one demonstrably better than other models.




Race, Racialization and Antiracism in Canada and Beyond


Book Description

This multidisciplinary volume brings together scholars and activists to examine expressions of racism in contemporary policy areas, including education, labour, immigration, media, and urban planning. While anti-racist struggles during the twentieth century were largely pitched against overt forms of racism (e.g., pogroms, genocide, segregation, apartheid, and 'ethnic cleansing'), it has become increasingly apparent that there are other, less visible, forms of racism. These subtler incarnations are of special interest to the contributors. The intent of Race, Racialization, and Antiracism in Canada and Beyond is to probe systemic forms of racism, as well as to suggest strategies for addressing them. The collection is organized by themes pertinent to political and social expressions of racism in Canada and the wider world, such as the state and its mediation of race, education and the perpetuation of racist marginalization, and the role of the media. The contributors argue that, in order to effectively combat racism, various methodological approaches are required, approaches that are reflective of the diversity of the world we seek to understand.




Religion and Ethnicity in Canada


Book Description

As the leading book in its field, Religion and Ethnicity in Canada has been embraced by scholars, teachers, students, and policy makers as a breakthrough study of Canadian religio-ethnic diversity and its impact on multiculturalism. A team of established scholars looks at the relationships between religious and ethnic identity in Canada's six largest minority religious communities: Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims and practitioners of Chinese religion. The chapters also highlight the ethnic diversity extant within these traditions in order to offer a more nuanced appreciation of the variety of lived experiences of members of these communities. Together, the contributors develop consistent themes throughout the volume, among them the changing nature of religious practice and ideas, current demographics, racism, and the role of women. Chapters related to the public policy issues of healthcare, education and multiculturalism show how new ethnic and religious diversity are challenging and changing Canadian institutions and society. Comprehensive and insightful, Religion and Ethnicity in Canada makes a unique contribution to the study of world religions in Canada.




Cultural Diversity and Canadian Education


Book Description

This thorough study will be of assistance to those seeking to understand the role of education in contemporary Canada. Education policy and practice regarding language and culture are highlighted, as is the crucially important question of cultural transmission.




Decolonizing Global Citizenship Education


Book Description

The ideas for this reader came out of a conference organized through the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research (CGCER) at the University of Alberta in 2013. With the high expansion of global citizenship education scholarship in the past 15 or so years, and with most of this scholarship produced in the west and mostly focused on the citizenship lives of people in the so-called developing world, or selectively attempting to explain the contexts of marginalized populations in the west, the need for multidirectional and decolonizing knowledge and research perspectives should be clear. Indeed, the discursive as well as the practical constructions of current global citizenship education research cannot fulfill the general promise of learning and teaching programs as social development platforms unless the voices of all concerned are heard and validated. With these realities, this reader is topically comprehensive and timely, and should constitute an important intervention in our efforts to create and sustain more inclusive and liberating platforms of knowledge and learning. “This collection of cutting-edge theoretical contributions examines citizenship and neo-liberal globalization and their impacts on the nexus of the local and global learning, production of knowledge, and movements of people and their rights. Case studies in the collection also provide in-depth analysis of lived experiences that challenge the constructed borders, which derive from colonial and imperial re-structuring of the contemporary world and nation-states. The contributors articulate agency in terms of both resistance and proactive engagement toward the construction of an alternative world, which acknowledges equality, justice and common humanity of all in symbiosis with the social and natural environment. It is a valuable reader for students, scholars, practitioners, and activists interested in the empowering possibilities of decolonized global citizenship education.” – N’Dr