Higher Still in European Perspective

Abstract

This article attempts to identify the persistence of prejudice, especially about language, at a time when multicultural educational objectives are widely accepted (at least notionally), even in unconscious vocabulary, and to examine the survival of many attitudes that continue this surviving racism and lingering prejudice. It deals with the belief in the ‘bilingual deficit’, the survival of which has done immense damage, and the views of culture within Scotland, the role of cultural ‘markers’ in religion and language, and some of the myths about minority populations within Scotland and elsewhere. Changes of identity are also mentioned, religious and other, and how various cultures may change the roles of their children in different contexts, and how minorities may play altered roles (and be differently defined) in different situations. The tasks for Scotland at the present are also looked at, and an agenda for change (hopefully) set forth. The tasks for multicultural education are argued to be urgent and a priority, not only an additional element, both for the minorities and the majority, especially within Scotland at the present time, and a number of practical implications are identified.