Dilemmas of Multiculturalism

Although racial and ethnic disparities in health services utilization and outcomes have been extensively studied in several countries, this issue has received little attention in Canada. We therefore analyzed data from the 2001 Canadian Community Health Survey to compare the use of health services by members of visible minority groups and nonmembers (white people) in Canada. Logistic regression was used to compare physician contacts and hospital admissions during the 12 months before the survey and recent cancer screening tests. Explanatory variables recorded from the survey included visible minority status, sociodemographic factors and health measures. Respondents included 7057 members of visible minorities and 114,255 white people for analysis. After adjustments for sociodemographic and health characteristics, we found that minority members were more likely than white people to have had contact with a general practitioner (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.28, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.14-1.42), but not specialist physicians (OR 1.01, 95% CI 0.93-1.10). Members of visible minorities were less likely to have been admitted to hospital (OR 0.83, 95% CI 0.70- 0.98), tested for prostate-specific antigen (OR 0.64, 95% CI 0.52-0.79), administered a mammogram (OR 0.68, 95% CI 0.59-0.80) or given a Pap test (OR 0.47, 95% CI 0.39-0.56). Use of health services in Canada varies considerably by ethnicity according to type of service. Although there is no evidence that members of visible minorities use general physician and specialist services less often than white people, their utilization of hospital and cancer screening services is significantly less.

In Canada, the expression refers to members of cultural minorities, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-White in colour (National Council of Welfare, 2014). According to the National Council of Welfare (2014), members of visible minorities are a relatively young and growing population. Most live with family members, and they are often highly educated but have lower incomes than people who are not visible minorities. Like Aboriginal peoples, members of visible minorities are more likely to face systemic discrimination on the basis of their physical appearance or certain easily recognizable cultural attributes (Chan, 2008). Visible minority families may be first-generation immigrants or born in the host community. Our study was done in the Montreal area of the province of Quebec, where visible minorities account for 32% of the population (Ville de Montreal, 2013).Not all visible minorities families are vulnerable or in difficulty. Furthermore, the trajectories and vulnerabilities observed vary depending on whether the members of visible minorities are new immigrants or not (Dettlaff & Earner, 2012; Hassan et al., 2011). Nevertheless, they often face numerous systemic obstacles as they seek to provide for their needs (LeBrun et al., 2015). Members of visible minorities face high levels of poverty: 22% compared with 9% for nonvisible minorities (National Council of Welfare, 2014). Such forms of adversity may cause considerable stress and put pressure on family relationships (LeBrun et al., 2015). In addition to those common to all children, some risk and protective factors for child maltreatment could be specific to visible minorities, although the available evidence is mixed (LeBrun et al., 2015).Caseworkers run up against a number of difficulties when they offer services to parents from visible minorities. Among sources of misunderstanding (Dufour, Hassan, & Lavergne, 2012), communications problems, relations between men and women, lack of receptiveness on the part of clients, difficulty reassuring clients, and the presence of a third party may hinder the development of a rapport. The language barrier can adversely affect the assessment of the family situation and children's needs, as well as isolate some family members from the treatment plan and thus jeopardize the intervention. Differences between caseworkers' and clients' representations may complicate the casework relationship, its outcomes, and the content covered. Caseworker and clients may not share a common understanding of the nature and intent of social services and their work together. Beyond the predictable clashes between their respective values (what is deemed valid and important) and customs (habits and practices), the true culture shock lies in the differences in the ways clients and caseworkers construct meaning, not necessarily attributing the same explanation to a problem. Their differing views of the origin and consequences of a problem are crucial because they influence whether those involved recognise that there is a problem or not, the sources of the problem, and how to solve it. For example, quite distinct views on child rearing and children's needs may clash. The difficulties may be so great that caseworkers feel they are dealing only superficially with problems (Denis, 2004).In child protection, as in other situations involving imposed assistance, there are challenges that can hamper work with families (Cahalane, 2013). More than half of youth receiving protection services in Montreal are members of visible minorities (Lavergne, Dufour, Sarmiento, & Descoteaux, 2009). Families' rights and freedom to choose are limited by the law. Caseworkers assess whether parents have the capacity to be fit and then compel them to comply with established service standards (Lemay, 2013). The difficulties can be exacerbated when child protective services (CPS) are involved, as in cases of child maltreatment. …

The chapter is devoted to studying the role of social disidentification in acculturation preferences of ethnic minority and majority group members. Social disidentification refers to the active rejection and distancing oneself from a particular group. The study involved ethnic Russians living in Kabardino-Balkar Republic (KBR), North Caucasus, Russian Federation (N = 249), and the Kabardians and Balkars, who constitute the ethnic majority of Kabardino-Balkar Republic (N = 285). We measured ethnic, religious, republican, regional (North Caucasian), and national (belonging to Russian Federation) identities in both ethnic majority and minority group members as well as levels of national, regional, and republican disidentification. We used measures of acculturation strategies and expectations from the Mutual Intercultural Relations in Plural Societies project (http://www.victoria.ac.nz/cacr/research/mirips). Data processing was carried out using hierarchical regression analysis. The results showed that not only social identities affect the acculturation preferences but also social disidentification. We found that the republican disidentification of ethnic Russians in KBR was positively related to their separation and marginalization acculturation strategies and negatively related to their integration strategy. The regional disidentification of ethnic Russians in KBR was negatively related to their assimilation strategy and positively related to their marginalization strategy. The national (belonging to Russian Federation) disidentification of ethnic majority group members (Kabardians and Balkars) was positively related to their expectations of the segregation, assimilation, and exclusion of ethnic Russians and negatively related to their integration in the republic. In general, the study shows specific patterns of relationships between different types of social disidentification and acculturation preferences of majority and minority group members.

List of Tables List of Figures List of Contributors Series editor's preface Preface Acknowledgements 1. Migration and Political Representation: An Introduction and a Framework - Karen Bird, Thomas Saalfeld, and Andreas M. Wust Part I: Immigrants and Members of Visible Minorities as Voters: Turnout and Party Choice 2. Voter Turnout amongst Immigrants and Visible Minorities in Comparative Perspective 3. Party Choices amongst Immigrants and Visible Minorities in Comparative Perspective Part II: Immigrants and Members of Visible Minorities as Candidates for Elective Office 4. New Citizens - New Candidates? Candidate Selection and the Mobilisation of Immigrant Voters in German Elections - Sara Claro da Fonseca 5. Minority Representation in Norway: Success at the Local Level, Failure at the National Level - Johannes Bergh and Tor Bjorklund 6. Ethnic Inclusion or Exclusion in Representation? Local Candidate Selection in Sweden - Maritta Soininen 7. Yes They Can: An Experimental Approach to Eligibility of Ethnic Minority Candidates in France - Sylvain Brouard and Vincent Tiberj Part III: Immigrants and Members of Visible Minorities as Legislators 8. Minority Representation in the US Congress - Jason Casellas and David Leal 9. Patterns of Substantive Representation Among Visible Minority MPs: Evidence from Canada's House of Commons - Karen Bird 10. Presence and Behaviour: Black and Minority Ethnic MPs in the British House of Commons - Thomas Saalfeld and Kalliopi Kyriakopoulou 11. Migrants as Parliamentary Actors in Germany - Andreas M. Wust 12. Epilogue: Toward a Strategic Model of Minority Participation and Representation - Thomas Saalfeld, Andreas M. Wust and Karen Bird

We aim to provide one explanation for why the link between contact and prejudice is consistently less strong for minority group members than it is for majority group members. Specifically, we propose a “wallpaper effect” such that contact works to increase minority group members' positivity towards majority groups when they live in areas densely populated with other minority group members. Conversely, we suggest that when minority group members live in neighborhoods patterned with majority group faces (as is so often the case), contact will be less transformative. We test this assumption using a large sample of both New Zealander minority (Māori; N = 925) and majority (European; N = 3805) group members. In line with predictions, Māori who lived in minority dense neighborhoods showed the traditional association between contact and increased warmth towards New Zealander Europeans. This relationship, however, was weak or non-existent when they lived in primarily European neighborhoods. Contact effects in majority group members were unaffected by neighborhood composition. The interaction held when controlling for, and was not explained by: gender, income, experiences of harm, cognitions of race-based rejection, or realistic threat. We provide the first evidence to suggest that when it comes to minority group members' intergroup attitudes, contact with majority group members may be a relatively ineffective predictor unless the “wallpaper” of their lives is minority-dense.

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Historically, self-employment was perceived as a mechanism whereby immigrants could circumvent discriminatory practices in wage labor. More recent research by Borjas in the United States, however, suggests that this view is incorrect. Immigrants, particularly members of visible minorities, are disadvantaged in both the wage labor and the self-employed markets. This pattern has not been replicated in Canada, however; after controlling for several socioeconomic attributes, it is found that foreign-born, self-employed visible minority-group members are not at a disadvantage in relation to the majority population. Foreign-born visible minority group members earn less, however, in the wage labor force. In contrast, it was found that there is no statistically significant difference between native-born visible minority group members and others in the wage labor force, and that native-born, self-employed minority-group members may earn more than others in that market segment.

It was only in 2004 that the European Union, originally composed of Western European countries, began to include the so-called Eastern European countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary), which had transitioned from socialism to democracy. This was followed by Romania and Bulgaria joining in 2007 and Croatia in 2013. The very nature of the European continent, with its diverse peoples, languages, histories, and cultures, has undoubtedly necessitated policies that recognize, acknowledge, and seek to reduce differences as much as possible, with the ultimate goal of uniting them. In particular, the EU member states, which were originally composed of Western European countries, may have been in dire need of policies to bridge the gap with the countries that underwent communism after World War II, as many of them joined the EU in the 2000s. The policy direction of cultural integration with former communist countries aligns with the general trend of European integration. However, it is being promoted in various ways, taking into consideration the special history and situation of these countries. The goal is to provide opportunities for people to understand each other's history and culture, fostering interactions that contribute to overcoming cultural differences and forming strong bonds. In particular, the former communist countries have an economic gap with existing EU member states due to past political and economic changes. The EU is working to provide economic infrastructure and industrial support to these countries, strengthen cooperation, and promote cultural integration with Western European countries. Such directions and policies continue to be promoted for cultural integration between existing EU member states and former communist countries. Examples of these initiatives include the European Capital of Culture project and the Erasmus Program, which aim to foster cultural understanding and integration among future generations through education, ultimately working towards the goal of European integration. In any case, it is clear that the country of 'Croatia' and the city of 'Rijeka,' which gained independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and were not initially recognized by not only European citizens but also the world, seized the opportunity of the European Capital of Culture 2020 project to establish closer communication and cooperation with Europe and the global community. We expect that they will continue progressing on the path of 'integration' while preserving 'cultural diversity' in the future.

Few studies have been conducted about differential public perceptions of the police in Canada. Based on the 2004 General Social Survey of Canada, this article examines the impact of belonging to the category visible minorities on citizens' confidence in the police. Consistent with the theoretical prediction, results of multivariate analyses show that members of visible minorities had lower levels of confidence than non–members of visible minorities, even after the effects of perceptions, community contexts, and crime-related variables were controlled for. The small but persistent effect of visible minorities raises questions about race relations in Canada. Other interesting significant predictors of confidence in the police are community context, perceptions, and crime experiences. The findings indicate that equal racial confidence in the police is yet to be achieved and continued reform measures are needed if the police force is to win the hearts and minds of visible minorities in Canada.

Recent research describes how procedural fairness can be used to resolve issues related to ethnic-cultural matters. The central finding in this strand of literature is that when minority members experience procedurally fair treatment by societal actors regarding ethnic-cultural issues, this will lead to a range of outcomes that are beneficial for social cohesion. Although these results are promising, it remains yet to be shown that such group-specific treatment fairness does not hamper social cohesion by inciting misapprehension among members of non-recipient groups. Therefore, the present study set out to examine two central questions. First, how would minority group members respond to treatment fairness of citizens belonging to another minority group? Second, how would majority group members respond to treatment fairness of citizens belonging to minority groups? Two experimental studies (total N = 908) examined these questions. In Study 1, we compared ethnic-cultural minorities' reactions to procedurally (un)fair treatment of their own versus a different minority group. In Study 2, we compared minority and majority group members' responses to procedurally (un)fair treatment of minority group members. Results show that minority group member reactions to ethnic-cultural procedural fairness emanate from a shared bond with the fairness recipient(s) of the other minority group. Conversely, majority group members' reactions are driven primarily by a perceived moral obligation to act rightfully toward members of disadvantaged groups. Taken together, our results suggest that ethnic-cultural procedural fairness enactment fosters societal unity among different groups, possibly strengthening social cohesion for well-being and prosperity among members of these groups.

The authors conducted an empirical study to test McGuire's (1984) distinctiveness theory within an advertising context. First, following the distinctiveness theory postulate, they found that members of minority groups were more likely than majority groups to have their ethnicity salient. Furthermore, in applying distinctiveness theory to persuasion, they found that members of minority (versus majority) groups find an ad spokesperson from their own ethnic group to be more trustworthy and that increased trustworthiness led to more positive attitudes toward the brand being advertised. The authors draw implications for both advertising to ethnic/minority groups as well as for further research applications of distinctiveness theory.

This chapter discusses the main coping strategy employed by members of minority groups for dealing with the tensions that the broader Palestinian–Israeli conflict introduces into the workplace. This strategy can be termed “split ascription,” which refers to the conceptual separation that members of minority groups create between their direct work environment, composed of personal social ties with team members, and the structural elements of the employing organization, including hiring and promotion procedures and decisions. Members of both minority and majority groups depict their direct work environment as politically neutral and generally describe personal work ties between Jewish and Palestinian-Arab workers as positive, collegial, or neutral. By contrast, minority group members often regard structural elements of the employing organization as prejudiced and even racist. The recourse of minority group members to split ascription demonstrates the importance of examining the intersubjective views of workers in diverse work teams, along with their perceptions of structural and interactional elements, in order to fully comprehend interethnic workplace relations in war-torn regions. Understanding the grassroots strategy of split ascription in terms of a unified coping strategy also points to a possible critique of existing theoretical approaches to the study of interethnic workplace relations.

There is much debate about how best to approach ethnocultural diversity in increasingly plural societies. Sustainable co‐existence of different group interests presents an ongoing challenge. In Australia, for example, discussion continues about the merits of multiculturalism (promotion of diversity and recognition of minority rights) versus assimilation (dampening of diversity through conformity to the dominant ethnoculture). The current research examines the impact of these political forces on both minority and majority group members. Can these debates and ideologies get under the skin, so to speak, and affect people's sense of place in society and consequently their wellbeing? A key concept in this research is the degree of (mis)alignment between personal ideology on the one hand and the social normative ideology on the other. Limited research to date has explored the impact of ideological differences on individual functioning. We explore the impact of ideological misalignment in two separate studies using different methodologies (i.e., cross‐sectional N = 195 and experimental N = 96). The results suggest that, for both ethnic minority and majority group members, misalignment reduces sense of belonging in mainstream society, which in turn hinders wellbeing. This was only part of the picture, however, as we find that misalignment can also indirectly lead to positive wellbeing. We argue that this occurs when misaligned individuals are able to find an alternative context for subgroup belonging. Altogether, this research highlights how social normative factors can powerfully impact individual functioning. As a theoretical framework, the social identity perspective provides valuable insights into why and how this occurs. This research is the first to investigate the wellbeing consequence of political misalignment with a focus on cultural diversity. We conclude by discussing the broader implications of the findings, acknowledging research limitations, and providing directions for future research.

D.O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Science (2001) - Prix D.O. Hebb pour contributions remarquables it la psychologie en tant que science (2001) Abstract Most research on prejudice has followed a unidirectional orientation of investigating why or when majority- or dominant-group members become prejudiced toward members of minority or subordinate groups without considering the effects of prejudice and discrimination upon its victims. By contrast, my research program over the past quarter-- century deals with the of prejudice and discrimination from the perspective of the and has sought to answer questions such as the following: What is it like to be discriminated against on the basis of an arbitrary characteristic such as ethnicity, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, etc.? What are the social-psychological and affective correlates and consequences to individuals who confront prejudice and discrimination by virtue of membership in a minority or subordinate group? This paper presents a sampling of my research on the of prejudice and discrimination, along with several theoretical perspectives that I have used and developed to help to understand this issue. Canada prides itself, quite rightly, as being a tolerant society in which people from different racial, ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds can live together amicably in forming our national mosaic. Nevertheless, members of some groups often feel themselves to be discriminated against in personal, economic, social, and/or political spheres. Feeling one is a of discrimination or prejudice is hardly rare. A national Gallup poll in the early 1990s showed one in four Canadians believed they had been discriminated against on some basis. The same question posed 10 years previously found one in five Canadians felt discriminated against. So, perceived discrimination is increasing, slowly but surely, and may continue to do so in future as individuals' sense of entitlement increases and/or their willingness to tolerate inequity declines or disappears. Moreover, a national survey of Canadians by Angus Reid in the early-1990s showed that Canadians are generally aware of discrimination against some groups in our country. Nearly half strongly agreed that discrimination against nonwhites was a problem in Canada. Younger Canadians, particularly those under 24 years old, were especially likely to agree that discrimination is a problem in Canada. In the early-1970s, I began conducting research into the then neglected topic of prejudice and discrimination from the perspective of the victim or target. I wanted to explore what I called the of prejudice. My colleagues and I asked questions such as: What is it like to be a of prejudice or discrimination? What are the affective and socialpsychological consequences or correlates of perceiving prejudice and discrimination aimed at oneself and one's group? To explore these issues, we have used methods ranging from controlled experiments in the psychological laboratory to correlational and survey studies assessing the correlates of perceived discrimination in the community and society outside the laboratory. With my collaborators, I have tried to show that the phenomenology of prejudice and discrimination is not only researchable, but also very informative about the groups and individuals who confront them. The picture that emerges from this research is complex, with some clearly negative features but also some positive - or at least, apparently non-negative - features, as well. Not surprisingly, perceiving oneself to be a target of prejudice or discrimination has demonstrable, negative impact upon the individual, and I speculate theoretically about why and in what sense it is a negative experience. However, every cloud usually has at least a bit of a silver lining. The silver lining here is that perceived prejudice and discrimination, under some circumstances, may help buffer or protect aspects of the self-concept for members of certain minority or subordinate groups, in some instances. …

<p>With the rapid development of urbanization, modernization, information technology and globalization, cultural patterns are becoming more and more diverse and social groups are becoming more and more atomized. We need to re-examine cultural diversity and think about how education can promote cultural exchange and integration. Based on the concept of multicultural education, this paper analyzes the current situation of cultural diversity in Chinese society from the dimensions of urban and rural areas, nationalities, regions, social classes, gender and globalization. On this basis, it explains several core values of pluralistic and cultural education: achieving equity by teaching tolerance and recognition, reflecting on power relations and knowledge construction, pluralistic unity and cultural integration, and cosmopolitanism in the age of globalization. From the perspective of improving educational policies, it is proposed that cultural diversity should be recognized and recognized in educational policies and practices, and appropriate curriculum power and space should be given. Construct the flexible education policy that puts fairness first and quality equal; with the help of big data and information technology, we can construct accurate and personalized multicultural education.</p>