A Double-Edged Pluralism: Paradoxes of Diversity in the International Institute Movement, 1945–1965

Abstract

Abstract As a study in US pluralism, this article examines the International Institute movement—an urban network of liberal pluralist social welfare and intercultural agencies—in the early post-1945 era. It argues that the institutes were practitioners of a double-edged, or paradoxical, pluralism, in which progressive and conservative elements coexisted in tension with each other. An assessment of Institute records from the national headquarters and several local affiliates dealing with group and cultural programs and casework methods considers the possibilities, limits, tensions, and ironic implications of institute theories and practices. The analysis highlights the challenge of attaining that ever-elusive “balance” between promoting cultural diversity (and integration) and ensuring a degree of assimilation. It sheds light on a major irony—namely, that the application of modestly relativist cultural insights often generated hypotheses of im/migrant pathology. And, in regard to processes of racialization, it illuminates a paradox: that race could inflect institute “cultural” theory and practice with respect to both ethnic and racialized im/migrants and minoritized Americans. Finally, the authors suggest their framework might be of wider applicability and that critical historical thinking about contemporary multiculturalism and its long roots is both timely and important.