Multicultural State Research Articles

“Mad Hot” Multiculturalismo: Identidad cultural dominicana a través de la música y la danza

In 1994, a ballroom dance program for 5th graders was implemented in New York public schools. By 2005, more than 6,000 kids from 60 schools in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn were required to take this 10-week course. The very same year, Marilyn Agrelo directed the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom Dance (2005). The documentary tells the story of the preparation, instruction, and rehearsal of various school teams for the Colors of the Rainbows final competition. New York is one of the most multicultural states in the United States with the student population coming from different countries and backgrounds. There are Dominicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, European Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans. Through the music used in this Public-School program (merengue, tango, rumba, and swing), students find an outlet for their feelings and a way to “construct their subjectivities”, as Charles Keil would suggest. It is through dance that, a public school becomes a space of alterity or paratopia; a Korean boy dances a tango with a Dominican girl, whereas a Jewish-American boy dances a merengue with an African-American girl. In this essay, I will argue, among other things, that the ballroom dance program teaches students from different races, religions, and cultural backgrounds not only how to dance but also how to mingle and interact, thus reinforcing the possibility of greater multicultural integration. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2024 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]

Sweden: multiculturalism and specifics of religious freedom’s realization in secular state

Sweden has a long history of being a monoconfessional state. However, in the 20th – 21st centuries the composition of Swedish society has changed, leading the country into a crisis caused by the policy of ignoring the needs of ethnic and religious minorities. In recent years, multidisciplinary research works have been focused on finding a ground of the current social and political destabilization in this country caused by on-going religion- and ethic-based conflicts between its nationals. Some of them suggest that Sweden is not a secular but a clerical state, others – that there is a gap in its legislation.The author of the article offers another point of view, according to which, the Swedish law enforcer distorts the constitutional and legal meaning of the provisions on religious freedom that occurs under the influence of historical specifics of the development of Swedish law, hence the lack of uniformity in law enforcement practice for the implementation of this fundamental human right.The subject of the study is the norms of the legislation of Sweden, including historical legal acts and documents, as well as relevant court cases and key findings of domestic and foreign research works.Objective: to prove the influence of historical specifics of the development of Swedish law on the current legal enforcement practice under which the distortion of the constitutional and legal meaning by the Swedish law enforcement takes place.Methods: the author employs a combination of general (content-analysis, case-study, formal logical method, generalization etc.) and private scientific methods (formal judicial methods, concrete sociological method of studying state and legal phenomena etc).Results: The obtained results demonstrate that Swedish law enforcement has been given an opportunity for a broad interpretation of constitutional norms. The author identifies the distortion of the constitutional and legal meaning in provisions that provide a special status to followers of the evangelical faith, on the one hand, and a partial ban on religious and ethnic minorities from expressing their confessional affiliation, on the other. The analysis of specifics of the development of Swedish law demonstrates the possible ground of the existing constitutional inequality is the historically discriminatory nature of the legislation in relation to followers of other religious cults. These results can be used as a foundation for future research in the field of realization of religious liberty in multicultural states.

Compulsory Etiquette: Emotionality and the Constraints of Urban Indigenous Life

Abstract: The infrastructures of urban Indigenous life are marked by a type of dissonance that constantly confronts settler narratives of who and how Indigenous peoples are. The myriad violences that mark colonial power order urban Indigenous life within an unbearable nexus of assimilation, terror, and dispossession. Such violence places considerable demands on Indigenous peoples’ social and material worlds, such that the pressures to visualize, embody, and narrate Indigeneity in the service of a multicultural state are unending. In this article, I outline the politics of emotionality as both threatening to the settler state and a fissure that reveals a desiring for another world. I examine the fixation on the bickering in community meetings at the only urban Indian center in Philadelphia during the 1970s and 1980s to take stock of the ways negative affect is a signal of Indigenous refusals of settler values and marks the city as a zone of affective struggle. The contracts into which Indigenous peoples enter as forms of material survival get leveraged by the state, which demands Indigenous people relinquish sovereignty over their bodies. In the process, the state continues its primary mission to destabilize Indigenous community development and deny the possibilities of futurity. Yet, as Indigenous people push against settler-colonial regulations, the outbursts generated from bickering are affects at the point of refusal of the settler state to determine the totality of Indigenous life. Thus, negative affect, while tense, can generate community by offering an opportunity to reconfigure the terms of social life according to multitribal dialogue as a move toward reclaiming the future.

‘I Was Part of Minority Group’: Youth’s Attitude Towards Multiculturalism and Their Awareness of Being an Intercultural Citizen

ABSTRACT This study explored the Indonesian youth’s attitude towards multiculturalism and their awareness of being an intercultural citizen. The research methodology adopted a qualitative method with a questionnaire as the research instrument. The Indonesian youth come from varied backgrounds. Thematically, the data were analysed based on race, ethnic, religious and other cultural issues particularly attitudes towards multicultural state, diversity and awareness of being an intercultural citizen. The findings provided that the youths’ attitudes are quite varied and tend to have a positive attitude towards a broad concept of multiculturalism, whilst when the concept provides real-life cases, there is a possibility for them to respond negatively. The youths also have significant awareness in responding to the idea of coexisting in diversity, however, there is a possibility to reject the concept of intercultural citizen and have a positive attitude towards a multicultural state at the same time. Thus, some factors might affect youth’s attitudes towards multiculturalism which are colonial legacy, political situation, deeply embedded concept of native inhabitants and socio-religious issues. Ultimately, the backgrounds of the youth need to be considered as those have a big influence on the way they see and define both concepts.

Old Testament translations in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and their contexts

From the 15th century onwards, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a multiconfessional and multicultural state. Apart from Lithuanians, its population comprised Ruthenians (the ancestors of Belarusians and Ukrainians), Poles, and smaller Jewish, Tatar, and Karaim communities. After its Christianization, Lithuania officially fell under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church, but most of its inhabitants were of the Eastern Christian rite. Reformed Protestantism spread among the nobility at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, while Lutheranism flourished in Lithuania Minor. Smaller ethnic groups also had their confessional communities. All confessional groups had their sacred books. This article gives an overview of Christian vernacular translations of the Old Testament that were read in the Grand Duchy between the 15th and the 18th centuries. It briefly discusses the circumstances of the translation of the Old Testament into Ruthenian (the Skaryna Bible), Old Church Slavonic (the Ostrog Bible), Polish (the Brest, Nesvizh and Gdansk Bibles) and Lithuanian (the Bretkūnas, Chylinski and Quandt Bibles) as well as their characteristic features.

ORIGIN AND CONTINUITY OF THE SYMBOLIC FORM BY THE EXAMPLE OF MEMORIAL ARCHITECTURE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE YUGOSLAV IDEOLOGY

<p>The work represents a theoretical contribution to the study of the complex semiotics of the forms of the memorial architecture of Yugoslavia, with special insight into the usage and possible continuity of prominent symbolic forms by the example of three notable Yugoslav authors: Ivan Meštrović, Bogdan Bogdanović, Dušan Džamonja. Pointing out the connections of archaic symbols with the memorial architecture of Yugoslavia, the purpose of the work is to identify the potential continuity of the semiotics of the form, but also to indicate the turn of the artistic expression that appears under the influence of the new political context in need of dominant multiculturalism and the aspiration to preserve the multicultural state model.</p>

Exploring the Impact of Pedagogical Challenges in Multiculturally History Classrooms in 2022/23: A Teaching and Learning Perspective in Botswana Secondary Schools

Botswana is a multicultural state and like other culturally diverse nations, it faces challenges ofdiversity and inclusivity in education. In Botswana, English is the official language and Setswana is a national language and the education system recognizes these two as languages of instruction. This is a challenge as there are other ethnic groups in Botswana whose languages are neither English nor Setswana. In schools, this has proven to be a problem as there are diverse students for whom Setswana is not their mother tongue and they do not grasp concepts easily. Chebanne and Moumakwa (2012) observed that the San remain illiterate and marginalized because of the current state of education in Botswana where the Education Language Policy is monolingual. The San have been left out of the education system since their indigenous language is not incorporated into the national curriculum. This poses a problem for History in that its subject matter deals with indigenous people and it will be difficult for teachers to teach students who feel their ethnic groups are marginalized.

The neoliberal multicultural state and the urban Indigenous associative model in Santiago de Chile.

This article argues that since the recovery of democracy in Chile in the early 1990s, the state has been reshaping the Indigenous socio-political landscape by adopting neoliberal multiculturalism as a governance model. By not posing significant challenges to the state's neoliberal political and economic priorities, Indigenous cultural activity has been carefully channelled to meet state expectations of what constitutes urban indigeneity. Drawing on the minority and multicultural studies literature and ongoing ethnographic fieldwork, this article analyses how Mapuche civil society navigates the complexities of two relational models of state/ethnic minority interaction: ethno-bureaucracy and strategic essentialism. Although Mapuche associations have tried to accommodate their interests within the limits of neoliberal multiculturalism, the article argues that this governance model has established incentives for inclusion and exclusion in the socio-political apparatus, resulting in a fragmentation of the Mapuche associative landscape in urban Chile.

Medical Pluralism as a Matter of Justice.

Culture, health, and medicine intersect in various ways-and not always without friction. This paper examines how liberal multicultural states ought to interact with diverse communities which hold different health-related or medical beliefs and practices. The debate is fierce within the fields of medicine and bioethics as to how traditional medicines ought to be regarded. What this debate often misses is the relationship that medical traditions have with cultural identity and the value that these traditions can have beyond the confines of the clinical setting. This paper will attempt to bring some clarity to the discussion. In so doing, it will delve into some controversial areas: (1) the debate around whether liberal states ought to embrace multiculturalism, (2) the existence and nature of group-differentiated rights, (3) the question of whether healthcare systems ought to embrace medical pluralism, and (4) what this would entail for policymakers, clinicians, and patients. Ultimately, I argue that liberal democratic states with multicultural populations ought to recognize medical pluralism as a matter of respecting group-differentiated and individual human rights.

State ethnonational policy as a factor in guaranteeing the right of citizens to security

The article focuses on the function of the authorities which is supposed to comprehensively promote the normative regulation of the ethno-national development of the state, develop and implement optimal models of interethnic understanding, prevent and eliminate conflict situations caused by interethnic frictions, and at the same time ensure the right of every citizen to security in the context of self-realisation and manifestation of identity (including national identity). In particular, this study demonstrates the dependence of the security environment of society on the ethno-national policy of the state, which, in turn, determines the means of guaranteeing the right of citizens to personal security.The authors summaries that the ethno-national policy of the state should provide for the coherence of a number of concepts and theories, including ethnic and cultural heterogeneity, multicultural state, acculturation, «ethnicist position» and others. At the same time, one of the main criteria for assessing the quality of such a policy should be the level of guarantee of the right to personal security for citizens, combined with the possibility of free development of ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity, i.e. self-realisation and self-identification. And in the context of the rapid development of globalization of the modern world, this aspect must necessarily be accompanied by the formation of an international system for the protection of the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, taking into account legal, socio-economic, socio-political and humanitarian factors.

Domestic Migration and Integration of Religious Diaspora: Global experiences can benefit the shaping of internal relationships in Indonesia

Many Balinese Hindus have migrated to East Kalimantan for official assignments, as part of transmigration programs, and for advancing economic opportunities, thus initiating a domestic Balinese diaspora. This diaspora maintains its identities and practices, as in Bali, and seeks to replicate Balinese symbols and practices when connecting with other Hindu communities from different cultures and traditions. This article sheds light on “Bali-centrism” and “quasi-exclusiveness” when the Balinese diaspora interacts with non-Balinese Hindus within East Kalimantan. The authors argue that Bali-centrism and Balinization might alienate and socially exclude non-Balinese Hindus from mainstream Hindu development. To cope with the grief of losing Hindu ‘friends’ from another tradition, a mindset shift is required. Furthermore, with the relocation of the Indonesian capital city from Jakarta to Nusantara, the influx of various ethnic and religious groups, including Hindu adherents, would be unavoidable, although admittedly it is impossible to know at this juncture about the eventual admixture of administration, commerce and culture that the city would comprise. The authors propose a “salad bowl” concept to build Hindu communities in a multicultural state with its new capital city. To augment understanding of the multiplicity of components and attributes influencing a diasporic community, the authors have drawn from applicable, non-religious diasporic experiences as well as from the historical manoeuvring of different religious groups globally; this knowledge may help researchers and community development practitioners understand the prevalence of bonding issues and interaction by sects within all religions.

Perspectives of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) community members regarding mental health services: A qualitative analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Victoria is one of the most multicultural states in Australia. Many CALD communities in Victoria may have encountered complicated migration journeys and complex life stressors during their initial settlement, leading to adverse mental health concerns. This diversity necessitates public policy settings to ensure equity and access in health services planning and delivery. While the MH policies and services take cultural diversity into account, there needs to be more implementation of those components of MH policies that relate to the particular needs of various CALD communities in Victoria. Even though mental health services prevent and address mental health issues, many barriers can impair CALD community access and utilisation of mental health services. Furthermore, the recent Royal Commission inquiry into the Victorian Mental Health system drives a renewed policy imperative to ensure meaningful engagement and cultural safety of all people accessing and utilising mental health services (Department of Health, 2023). This study focused on the perspectives of people from CALD communities in Victoria regarding their mental health service needs, understandings of and experiences with mental health services to prepare an education package for mental health nurses as part of a larger multi-method research project. A qualitative descriptive design was used to collect and analyse the perspectives of 21 participants in Victoria, using telephone interviews, followed by thematic analysis. The themes and sub-themes identified were: Settling issues; Perceptions of understanding of mental health issues (help-seeking attitudes toward mental health issues; the need for CALD community education); perceived barriers to accessing and utilising mental health services in Victoria (socio-cultural and language barriers; stigma, labelling and discrimination; knowledge and experience of accessing health facilities); experience with mental health services and professionals. Community participation, mental health professional education and robust research regarding the mental health needs of CALD people are some of the recommended strategies to improve access and utilisation of mental health services in Victoria. The current study can contribute to the existing knowledge, understanding, practice and quality improvement as it vividly portrays the issues of various CALD communities in Victoria. The findings of this study imply that CALD MH service users and their families are likely to benefit in terms of improved service assessment and quality of MH care and equity when MHNs undertake CC training and bring that into their practice.

Nowe obywatelstwo i patriotyzm na pograniczu kultur: międzykulturowy kontekst

The cultural diversification of states deconstructs the model of a homogenous national community, yet it requires the maintenance of the stability of democratic institutions in a situation where culturally different citizens are increasingly resistant to forced assimilation and subjugation. A multicultural state must actively protect the cultural identities of its citizens. Some dilemmas arise in the understanding of citizenship and patriotism, for which state multiculturalism and interculturalism at the level of an individual citizen become contextual references. Therefore, the subject of this article is the different types of new citizenship and patriotism, with model approaches to them. The author exposes multiculturalism, revealing the new citizenship and intercultural connotations of patriotism. She looks at these categories from a cultural borderland perspective. With reference to the pillars of coexistence identified on the basis of empirical research in this borderland, the author conceptualizes intercultural citizenship and patriotism. She also points to their multidimensional nature with an intercultural connotation. The author sees them as integrating factors of a culturally diverse society. Their national-cultural, identity, and community provenance gives an intercultural character to the integration process. Integration conceived in this way fosters the evolution of the nation-state into a heterogeneous national community operating within its borders.

Islamic Solidarity on Sale: the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in the context of Azerbaijan’s Nation-Branding Endeavors

To reach their political goals, countries try to craft an image acceptable to the international community as reliable allies standing for similar values. Since its independence, Azerbaijan has been actively working on its branding as a country that bridges the West and the Islamic world. To do this, Azerbaijan creates its image as a secular, multicultural state and a leading state among Islamic countries with a firm support of Islamic solidarity. Positioning Azerbaijan as an advocate of Islamic solidarity, Ilham Aliyev then embarks on the next step of his plan to demand the Islamic world’s solidarity about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Thus, nation branding in the case of Azerbaijan is not only about creating an image of a possible investment place or touristic destination; official Baku “sells” its solidarity pursuing the political goal of getting the support of Islamic countries against Armenia․

ТЕОРЕТИЧНІ ЗАСАДИ РОЗВИТКУ БІЛІНГВАЛЬНОГО НАВЧАННЯ В ПОЛІКУЛЬТУРНОМУ СЕРЕДОВИЩІ США

The article examines the theoretical foundations of the development of bilingual education in the USA. The essence of the concept of «bilingual education» and other related concepts related to the field of bilingualism are revealed. The author introduces the leading ideals of the American philosophy of education, trends, and fundamental principles of the development of bilingual education. The author emphasizes that bilingual education in the USA is quite developed. Many foreign scholars have studied bilingual education in the United States. The most authoritative of them are K. Baker, C. Price-Jones, O. Garcia, J. Cummins, and others. The basis of bilingual education is the theory of constructivism, which is based on the study of the experience of the natural acquisition of a second language. Based on research, its authors concluded that the main principle of learning a second language is the principle of using the skills acquired when learning the first (native) language, which serves as the basis for learning the second. The author assures that during the past ten years of practicing bilingual education in the USA, the country has gained a lot of experience which is a good example for other multicultural states, in particular Ukraine.

Constituting Religious Conflict in a Multicultural State

Constituting Religious Conflict in a Multicultural State

‘A National Unity of Interests and Affections’: frameworks of the Union in the Early Brazilian Novel

UK novelistic fiction has been consistently acknowledged as a major repository of narrative paradigms for the incipient Brazilian novel. Genres originally offering a narrative solution for tensions embedded throughout the social life of the United Kingdom would cross the Atlantic and, by mid-nineteenth century, be rendered instrumental for structuring local experience. Among these genres, arguably, was the national tale. National tales aimed to bridge the social dilemmas inherent to a multicultural state like the United Kingdom and, more broadly, the British Empire. Works such as The Wild Irish Girl (1806), by Sidney Owenson, Marriage (1818), by Susan Ferrier, and The Absentee (1812), by Maria Edgeworth, engendered sentimental plots of star-crossed lovers who stood for the divergent UK nationalities, allegorically and didactically overcoming the perceived English prejudice against the Irish and the Scots. Circulating in Brazil for at least five decades, national tales purveyed a narrative framework whereby the unsolvable contradiction between colonial heritage and postcolonial nationalism could be fictionally negotiated in an intercultural erotic union. Indianist novels like José de Alencar’s O Guarani (1857) may have re-enacted such framework.

Towards an ethical-dialogical approach to religious education: a theoretical analysis from the cases of Ireland and England

This article draws on the experiences of Ireland and England, which support different conceptions and practices of religious education (RE), in order to provide a normative framework for the organisation of RE in multicultural states. This analysis consists in an assessment of three conceptions of RE: the liberal conception, which emphasises neutrality and objectivity; the pragmatist conception, which is egalitarian in character; and the tradition-oriented conception, which is based on a substantive ethics. Rejecting the view that RE should be only informative and free from criticism of content, I will make the case for an ethical-dialogical approach to RE, whereby pupils can learn from each other’s beliefs and experiences, as availed by their own cultural traditions, without setting aside their capacity to evaluate different moral claims. This approach to RE is especially designed to multidenominational schools that recognise the ethical potential of learning from religion, but are sensible towards issues of conscience in plural environments.

The Nexus between Intercultural Communication and Peaceful Co-Existence in a Multi-Cultural State

Different societies and cultures have varying values and norms in interpersonal and intergroup interaction. Where the communication is intracultural, the norms hardly constitute any hindrances, but in intercultural communication, the varying values could pose serious challenges. Along with the rapid globalization of the era, the public is increasingly paying attention to intercultural communication as an important component of success, both in life and at work. It is general knowledge that human beings cannot live without communication and due to the influence of globalization; communication is no longer confined solely to a community and national level but also on an international scale. Thus, intercultural communication is now more important than it ever was in every facet of society. Yet the effective intercultural communication needed for the aforementioned success is difficult to achieve. The paper adopted the library research method used to interrogate literature by getting data from secondary sources which will provide valuable useful materials for the study. The paper also conceptually discusses intercultural communication, obstacles, and possible solutions to these challenges in a multi-cultural state. Finding from the study suggests that working intercultural communication skill cannot only assist in eliminating communication issues like conflicts and misunderstanding but also promote a mutually beneficial relationship with parties involved in the communication process.

THE PHENOMENON OF UKRAINIAN DIASPORIC CINEMA IN THE CONTEXT OF CANADIAN MULTICULTURALISM POLICY

The article is devoted to a comprehensive study of the genesis and development of Ukrainian cinema in the conditions of being outside the ethnic territory. The author explores cinema as one of the essential aspects of the national and cultural movement of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada from the second quarter of the 20th – to the beginning of the 21st century. Particular attention is paid to the phenomenon of Canadian multiculturalism and its role in the development of both Anglo-French and Ukrainian cultural traditions. The relevance of this work is related to the current geopolitical, economic and cultural state of Ukraine in the world. Today, in the conditions of military aggression, ethnic genocide, and information chauvinism, which caused a new wave of Ukrainian emigration, it is necessary to take steps to preserve the national heritage and acquaint the world community with the achievements and urgent needs of Ukraine. Therefore, cultural and strategic cooperation between Ukraine and Canada is too important. This publication summarizes the main aspects of the history of Ukrainian and Canadian cinema, formulates standard and distinctive features of Western – Anglo-Saxon, French, and East Slavic – Ukrainian film tradition, analyzes various manifestations of Ukrainian diaspora cinema in Canada, and studies acculturation trends. We included the necessary source base to achieve this goal, containing Canadian and Ukrainian periodicals, the vast majority of which were put into scientific circulation for the first time. Based on carefully studied relevant historiography, the author draws the appropriate conclusions necessary for the entire disclosure of the topic of the scientific article. It is essential to compare the vision of the creative process from the standpoint of historians, cultural study researchers, and artists - actors, directors, and screenwriters who have influenced the development of domestic and foreign cinema. The article's methodology consists of analysis, historical-comparative, and historical-genetic methods. The object of the work is the culture of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada, and the subject is the analysis of the history and development of Ukrainian cinema in Canada as a multicultural state. This article attempts to supplement and summarize various aspects of the problem.