Societal Diversity Research Articles

Religious Moderation in Indonesian Islamic Universities

This study investigates the implementation of religious moderation policies in IAIN Ponorogo, Indonesia, and their impact on fostering social cohesion and cultivating a moderate identity within the academic community. Employing a qualitative case study methodology, data were collected through comprehensive interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGD), and document reviews. The findings revealed significant progress in integrating religious moderation values into the curriculum, research activities, and community service programs. The establishment of the Religious Moderation House (RMB) has been instrumental in reinforcing these values through seminars, workshops, and outreach. However, challenges persist in achieving a consistent understanding and application of moderation principles among academic stakeholders. The survey results indicate that while a majority of students, faculty, and staff report positive changes in attitudes after participating in moderation programs, some individuals still struggle to fully grasp and internalize these values. Psychological and cultural factors, along with varying levels of commitment across faculties, present additional barriers to comprehensive adoption of a moderate identity. Despite these challenges, this study highlights the positive impact of religious moderation initiatives on promoting tolerance, reducing social tension, and preparing students for engagement with broader societal diversity. The findings emphasize the need for enhanced coordination, practical incentives, and continuous monitoring and evaluation to ensure the long-term sustainability and effectiveness of these programmes. By embedding religious moderation into its core strategic plans, IAIN Ponorogo could continue to empower its academic community to embody these values, thereby contributing to a more inclusive and harmonious educational environment.

Open your eyes, open your mind: The profile of cognitive liberalization and intergroup contact experiences

AbstractAccording to the cognitive liberalization hypothesis, exposure to intergroup contact improves cognitive outcomes related to open‐mindedness and out‐of‐the‐box thinking. In a sample of Italian adults (N = 708), we: (a) investigated the profile of cognitive liberalization through a latent profile analysis including cognitive (i.e., cognitive flexibility, socio‐cognitive mindfulness, curiosity and low need for structure) and socio‐cultural (i.e., deprovincialization, beliefs supporting societal diversity and low social dominance orientation [SDO]) dimensions of cognitive liberalization; (b) tested how intergroup contact experiences differed between the profile of cognitive liberalization and the other profiles. Results showed three profiles: Cognitive Liberalization (high scores in both cognitive and socio‐cultural dimensions of cognitive liberalization), Cognitive Rigidity (low scores on cognitive, high scores in socio‐cultural dimensions) and Anti‐Liberalization (low scores on all liberalization variables). Individuals belonging to the Cognitive Liberalization profile reported less negative, and more positive and intimate contact experiences with the outgroup compared with the other two profiles; they had a higher proportion of outgroup members in their acquaintances, and perceived those outgroup members involved in positive contact as more representative of their outgroup. Diversity of contacted outgroup members did not matter for the profiles. Close and positive relationships with the outgroup could be key to cognitive liberalization. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's .

Sustainable future food demand: Integrating social, health, and environmental considerations in forecasting

Predicting future food demand and understanding its environmental and dietary ramifications are vital for ensuring food system sustainability in an equitable manner. Existing forecasting methods often overlook societal diversity and do not connect projected food demand with its socio-environmental implications. This paper introduces a framework for forecasting a nation's future food demand with considerations for socio-demographics and dietary preferences, along with potential dietary and environmental implications. Israeli household expenditure surveys spanning two decades (1997–2017) representing over 120,000 households were used to explore a series of potential food purchase scenarios for the period up to 2030 and the nutritional and environmental footprints of subgroups. These subgroups included small and large families, young couples, the elderly, and wealthy adult households. Three dietary scenarios based on expected socio-demographic changes were then examined: “Environmental,” “Healthy,” and “Mediterranean” scenarios. All examined scenarios predicted a surge in food demand by 18 to 22 % for the period of 2018–2030. The “business-as-usual” (BAU) scenario emphasizes the expected rise in the consumption of meat, oil products, and food outside the home, leading to a 20 % rise in greenhouse gas emissions. In comparison, in the case of the Healthy scenario, emissions are expected to rise by 22 %, and according to the Environmental scenario by only 10 %. Significant differences were also discovered across various social groups in regard to the analyzed dietary and environmental indicators. Although the study focuses on Israel, the proposed framework's universality makes it adaptable to any country. This could empower policymakers and stakeholders to craft food security informed decisions and targeted interventions that address the needs of diverse social groups while considering socio-environmental implications both presently and in the future.

Conducting an Interreligious Ecological Civilization of Love without Discrimination

It is important to conduct a civilization of ecological love between religions in a society characterized by religious and societal diversity which, along with this reality, contains the danger of discrimination, bias, and repudiation. This study focuses on building an interreligious ecological civilization of love without discrimination by analyzing the Master Plan of the Archdiocese of Semarang (RIKAS). Following the theoretical propositions regarding interreligious ecotheological leadership, the RIKAS provides a strategy to overcome discrimination to realize an ecological civilization of love. Through this article, I examine RIKAS which aspires to build an ecological civilization of love between interreligious communities. Using the content analysis method, I processed the ideals of RIKAS from a non-discrimination perspective and an inclusive paradigm. This research aims to explore transformative strategic formulations that encourage inclusiveness to prevent and overcome discrimination to realize an interreligious ecological civilization of love according to RIKAS. The result is the finding of various non-discrimination formulations that encourage the interreligious ecological strategy as a form of implementing a civilization of love in the diversity of society, not only in Semarang but also in the Indonesian nation. This study can inspire globally that the Catholic Church is present without discrimination in diverse communities everywhere.

Development of Progressive Islamic Law in Indonesia Regarding �Apostasy� as Grounds for Divorce: Insights from Maqasid Sharia

The development of Islamic law in Indonesia, particularly concerning apostasy as a cause of divorce, is significant in the evolution of Islamic law. The complexity of Indonesia's social and legal system poses challenges in integrating Islamic values with societal diversity. This research aims to understand the development of Islamic law in Indonesia regarding apostasy issues through the analysis of maqasid sharia. Using a descriptive-analytical approach, data from various sources are examined to understand the development of Islamic law in Indonesia, focusing on the implications of maqasid sharia regarding apostasy as a reason for divorce. Findings indicate that progressive Islamic law development in Indonesia emphasizes a balance between religion and individual justice, protecting individual rights in divorce and seeking fair solutions through legal reforms considering the principles of maqasid sharia.

Learning from diversity: Public reason and the benefits of pluralism

The New Diversity Theory (NDT) represents a novel approach to public reason liberalism, providing an alternative to the traditional, Rawlsian public reason paradigm. One of the NDT's distinctive features is its emphasis on the potential advantages of a diverse society, with a particularly strong focus on the epistemic benefits of diversity. In this paper, I call into question whether societal diversity has the epistemic benefits that New Diversity theorists claim. I highlight a number of pernicious epistemic phenomena that tend to arise in diverse contexts, ultimately arguing that the only feasible way around these epistemic pitfalls is through widespread convergence on certain intellectual virtues. If these virtues are indeed necessary, then the benefits highlighted by the NDT should only be expected in societies that reflect certain kinds of diversity. More precisely, only the kinds of diversity that can still persist despite homogenization along the lines of certain intellectual virtues are compatible with the NDT's claims. Building upon this insight, I then highlight features of the NDT that require further development in order for it to serve as a compelling alternative to its Rawlsian counterpart.

Multicultural-Based Public Policy: The Experience of Indonesia in Managing Diversity for National Resilience

The management of societal diversity through multicultural-based public policies is an interesting issue that is developing in the democratic system of the Indonesian nation today. This research aims to analyze multicultural-based public policy in three elements such as managing diversity, democratic politics, and national identity in strengthening Indonesia's national resilience. Through a study of the intertextuality of documents on multicultural issues, this research analyzes library data related to the policy concepts, regulations, and responses of society to the practice of multicultural policies in the public sector. The findings of this research describe several multicultural policies that are difficult to implement in the democratic political system of Indonesia. It often deals with identity politics based on religion. To strengthen national identity, the Indonesian government applies two essential philosophies in all aspects of national life, namely Pancasila and Bhineka Tunggal Ika. Both contain strong multicultural values as the historical heritage of the Indonesian society which are continuously maintained through the policy of establishing the Pancasila Ideology Development Agency (BPIP). Multicultural-based public policies have strengthened national identity, nationalism attitude, social integration of society that supports the resilience of the Indonesian nation for unity in its diversity to date

CULTURAL AND ARTS CONSUMPTION AS A SOURCE OF SOCIAL SOLIDARITY: THE CASE OF THE LATVIAN CENTENARY PROGRAMME

In 2017–2021, Latvia celebrated its centenary with a wide-ranging cultural programme. The Centenary programme was announced as “the biggest event in the history of modern Latvia” providing 22.3 million euros over three years for more than 800 festive events “to strengthen the spirit of nationhood and a sense of belonging amongst the people of Latvia, and to promote collaboration and self-organization within the community” [Ministry of Culture 2020]. In this paper, we explore the ways in which this cultural policy initiative worked as a form of social solidarity building in the Latvian society, where there is a large Russian-speaking community. We are interested in examining the public’s participation and perceptions of the Centenary cultural programme, focusing specifically on the differing patterns and effects in the Latvian and Russian-speaking communities. The analysis draws primarily on a representative survey, designed and conducted in the autumn of 2021 by the authors as part of a larger research project. The survey was designed to enable analysis of the perceptions of the Centenary programme, participation and consumption patterns among different social groups and cultural communities, and experiences and perceptions of social solidarity (or lack thereof) in the context of the Centenary programme. The survey has provided new data on the links between cultural and arts consumption practices in an ethnically diverse society, as well as on the perceptions of effects of arts consumption on social solidarity and sense of belonging. On the basis of quantitative analysis of the survey data, we study the patterns of cultural consumption and its social impact, given the ethnic diversity of the society in question. We explore, firstly, how cultural and arts consumption is influenced by ethnic belonging and, secondly, how the effects of this consumption differ among ethnic groups. Based on this empirical analysis, the paper contributes to the wider, ongoing interdisciplinary debates on cultural and arts consumption, societal diversity and inclusion. Furthermore, the paper offers a novel approach to exploring, both theoretically and empirically, the effects of cultural and arts consumption on social solidarity.

Pengembangan Model Kurikulum Pendidikan Agama Islam Berbasis Multikultural

In the context of globalization and cultural diversity, religious education needs to accommodate societal diversity to remain relevant and inclusive. This research employs a curriculum development approach to design a model that integrates Islamic values with the concept of multiculturalism, aiming to develop a Multicultural-Based Islamic Religious Education curriculum. The methodology utilized a qualitative approach through interviews, observations, and document analysis. The findings of the research emphasize the importance of a multicultural-based Islamic religious education curriculum, given that Indonesia is a diverse nation comprising various ethnicities, languages, religions, and cultures. Implementing a multicultural-based Islamic religious education curriculum is expected to have a positive impact on fostering harmony and tolerance among individuals.

Multicultural Education in the perspective of the Qur'an and Hadith: Concepts and Implementation

Multicultural education is education that accommodates cultural and societal diversity. In the perspective of the Qur'an and Hadith, multicultural education is considered important for developing awareness of diversity and tolerance towards differences. This research aims to analyze multicultural education in the perspective of the Qur'an and Hadith. The method used in this research is a qualitative method with a literature study approach using hermeneutic approach. The data used in this research are the Qur'an, tafsir books, and hadiths from Kutub as-Sittah. The data obtained were analyzed using content analysis techniques. The results of the research show that the Qur'an and Hadith provide strong support for multicultural education by providing clear concepts such as Tolerance, Justice, Democracy, Equality, as well as Brotherhood and kinship.

Diversity assent: conceptualisation and an empirical application

ABSTRACT Recent evidence suggests that in many European countries generally positive views about societal diversity predominate. Yet, as research has rather focussed on negative attitudes towards immigration and diversity, less is known about positive attitudes and those who hold them. The paper makes a conceptual and an empirical contribution to filling this gap. We introduce a multidimensional concept, “diversity assent”, to capture both evaluations of diversity and attitudes towards reflecting diversity in societal institutions. We test the concept using the case of urban Germany, drawing from a large, purpose-built survey. We demonstrate that, while assent differs for the two dimensions, a sizeable majority of those who evaluate diversity positively also agree with representing diversity in official policy and institutions, with some differences along socio-political lines.

Democracy and societal diversity in the African continent / Tanzania as a model

المستخلص :
 تتمتع تنزانيا بالعديد من الهويات المختلفة ، مثلها مثل معظم الدول الأفريقية، اذ أنها موطن لأكثر من مائة قبيلة، فضلا عن الإسلام والمسيحية والطوائف الإقليمية. ومع ذلك، فقد استطاعت تحويل هذا التنوع إلى قوة وليس نقطة ضعف مما جعله مصدر ثراء وقوة وليس مصدرًا للصراع. غالبًا ما تجري الطوائف في تنزانيا مناقشات تهدف إلى المصالحة والتعاون، وتعزيز فكرة المواطنة والانتماء، وتتمسك هذه المناقشات بمبادئ المساواة والحوار، وقد تم تعزيز ذلك من خلال تنفيذ نظام تعليمي شامل يوفر الفرص للجميع من غير استثناء أو تحيز. اذ استند التنزانيون على قاعدة مبنية على دخول مسيحي ثم مسلم إلى المنصب بالتناوب والتعاقب، وقد اتبعت السنة النبوية ، وبمرور الوقت أصبحت تنزانيا منارة للنقاش وبناء السلام ومثال للانسجام والوحدة في افريقيا، بالإضافة إلى ذلك ، تجنبت المشاركة في الاستقطاب الإقليمي والعالمي وعزلت عنها، وعلى الرغم من هذا الانسجام والإنجاز الذي حققته تنزانيا في نشر فكرة إدارة التنوع وتقييم المواطنة ، إلا أنها مع ذلك عرضة لمشكلات كبيرة قد يكون لها تأثير سلبي. تتضمن هذه الحالة ميل سكان زنجبار للفصل وتفاقم الفقر. لذلك يجب على تنزانيا أن تنفذ تدابير وقائية واستراتيجيات استباقية لتجنب الوقوع في المجهول.

Discursive Norms and Incentives for Equipping Students with Religion and Worldview Literacy in Swedish Preschool Teacher Education Policy

The increasing societal diversity of religions and worldviews (R&W) in Swedish preschools affects what competencies today’s preschool teachers need and what needs to be taught in Swedish Preschool Teacher Education (PTE). The study aims to investigate the content and discursive norms regarding religion and worldviews in Swedish PTEs on a national policy level and contribute to knowledge in the research field of Religious Studies and Higher Education. The PTE curricula of all the twenty Higher Education institutions offering PTE in Sweden in 2022 are investigated using text-centred discourse analysis, together with a theoretical and analytical tool for analyzing different dimensions of the PTEs and the potential for them to function as socially sustainable communities of care. The results show that even though there might be implicit incentives for teaching about R&W, all but one of the educational curricula of the twenty PTEs in Sweden lack explicit mention of ‘religion’. Based on the results, we can see that at a national policy level, the content of the educational curricula reproduces liberal secular and humanist worldviews as norms for the PTEs. There is also a lack of explicit policy-related incentives for the PTEs to promote social sustainability regarding equipping students with proper knowledge and skills for developing care-centered and norm-critical R&W literacy.

Time to re-envisage culturally responsive care: Intersection of participatory health research and implementation science.

In the context of widening societal diversity, culturally and linguistically diverse patients continue to experience inequities in healthcare access and deficiencies in standards of nursing care. Re-framing culturally responsive care as a complex intervention spanning multiple interacting factors at micro, meso and macro levels is an essential prerequisite for addressing knowledge translation gaps into everyday nursing practice. To this end, this paper proposes and explicates the potential of applying synergistic participatory implementation methodologies for developing effective implementation strategies with impact at individual and wider structural levels. Discussion Paper. A co-design case study is presented as an example of combining normalization process theory and participatory learning and action to investigate and support the implementation of culturally responsive care in general practice nursing. Enacting culturally responsive health care is inherently complex in that it is influenced by multiple interacting factors. Viewing culturally responsive care as a complex intervention and incorporating a synergistic participatory implementation science approach offers possibilities for addressing the documented shortcomings in the implementation of culturally responsive nursing care. There is a need to move away from conventional approaches to conceptualizing and generating evidence on culturally responsive care. Incorporating participatory implementation methodologies can provide a new lens to investigate and support whole system implementation strategies. The combination of participatory and implementation methodologies is both theoretically and empirically informed. Engaging stakeholders in the co-design and co-production of evidence and solutions to long standing problems has the potential to increase the likelihood of influencing iterative and sustainable implementation and changes to clinical practice and systems. This work is part of a wider programme of participatory health research on migrant health, partnering with a non-governmental organization that supports migrants.

Societal diversity, group identities and their implications for tax morale

We study how the tax morale of individuals is influenced by societal diversity in their place of residence. Using data from the World Value Survey, we compare the effects that diversity has on self-reported measures of tax morale at the national, sub-national and individual level. We show first that, both across countries and within countries across sub-national regions, greater diversity is associated with lower average levels of tax morale. We then document that within countries and regions tax morale is lower among individuals who are less similar to others and this effect operates more strongly in places characterized by higher levels of diversity. This pattern applies to diversity in terms of different social cleavages, including income, ethnicity, language or religion, but is particularly pronounced when it comes to diversity in terms of cultural values. This suggests that social identification is important for how people perceive their responsibility of paying taxes.

Status of Lighting Technology Application in Indonesia

In 2019, Indonesia’s electricity consumption exceeded 278 TWH, or about 1.08 MWh/capita. This value shows a considerable increase in electricity consumption which has doubled in just a decade. Previous studies have shown that the proportion of electricity consumption used for lighting needs is correlated to the country’s GDP. This is generally around 20 to 50% of electricity production but can go up to 86% in the case of Tanzania. Indonesia is the 4th country in the world in terms of population and its lighting market as well as its lighting-related energy consumption has a strong impact on several levels: societal, environmental but also economic and energy. Having a knowledge of the lamps used by the Indonesian people is therefore particularly interesting and important, in particular in the context which presents a great societal diversity but also in a context of energy saving. Indonesia is an archipelagic country made up of 5 large islands and over 17,000 small islands with widely varying levels of population density. This island geography leads Indonesia to face challenges in the distribution and production of electrical energy, which affects the use of lamps in various types of regions. The overview of this study was done by collecting data from various sources, especially BPS (Biro Pusat Statistik/Statistic Center Bureau of Indonesia), CLASP (an NGO for clean energy), the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources of Indonesia (ESDM), PLN (Indonesian Electrical Company), etc. The data obtained from these sources provides several descriptions of general lighting conditions in Indonesia viewed from several angles, such as growth of lamp market, use of lamp types, percentage of use of lamps with energy saving (ESL), etc. Considering that Indonesia has various regional characteristics, in this study, the survey of a total of 394 respondents was conducted on the use of lamps by creating regional categories based on electrical conditions, power consumption, and electricity per capita, among others. The categories of areas observed fall into 5 types based on their population and geography: large cities, small towns, rural/village areas, islands and remote areas. The results of compiling data from these various sources show that the types of lamps used by Indonesians follow the lighting trend in the world. The use of LED lamps has a utilization percentage of around 52%, much higher than other types of lamps such as CFL, fluorescent or incandescent. Based on the survey conducted, it is known that the widely used LED power is between 1 and 10 watts with a usage time of 8 to 12 h per day. In the next few years, it is estimated that the use of LEDs in Indonesia will increase as the government has prepared various regulations and policies related to energy saving, one of which relates to lighting.

Meanings given to (super-)diversity in the Dutch national team by Dutch football commentators: A historical approach

International football can be considered the main site for meaning-making processes related to national and racial/ethnic diversity. Various scholars have argued how international football, with the World Cup as its apex, can be seen as a barometer for understanding dominant attitudes towards societal diversity. A key domain where this diversity is interpreted and given meaning to is mediated football. To provide a wider overview of – often intersecting – meanings given to nationality and race/ethnicity over a longer period of time, this explorative study uses a historical approach to inquire how Dutch-mediated football – especially football commentary on television – has given meaning to a diversifying Dutch national team at three moments in time (the World Cups of 1974, 1998 and 2014). Further, it discusses how mediated football serves as a site for the (re)construction of discourses surrounding nationality and race/ethnicity in the Netherlands. Our findings show that meanings given to nationality and race/ethnicity are fluid, context-dependent and reconstructed in a particular temporal context. Further, it appears that key players have provided a significant role in meanings given to (super-)diversity of the Dutch national football team. Commentary on White Dutch key players was dominated by positive comments (in the World Cups of 1974 and 2014), while comments on Black Surinamese Dutch key players was relatively more negative (in the 1998 World Cup). Moreover, our results contrast with earlier studies in that Dutch commentators did not rely on stereotypical representations of Black Dutch footballers as ‘naturally’ athletic.

INSIDE-OUT: USING THE MARKETING CLASSROOM TO MIRROR DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION OF THE MARKETPLACE

ABSTRACT Today’s students will work in an increasingly diverse environment which requires the ability to understand and connect with consumers from different social groups and cultures. The expectations placed on marketing practitioners to connect with a multiplicity of consumers requires a nuanced understanding of the different lifestyles, lived experiences and values of consumers. Exposing students to societal diversity and inclusive practices in their marketing curricula helps to inform their marketing practice in industry. Using an exploratory approach, through semi-structured expert interviews with marketing educators, two overarching themes emerged as crucial sources of inclusion in marketing education, namely pedagogical considerations and curriculum design considerations. This research proposes the Inside-Out framework as a guideline for marketing educators to foster inclusive teaching practices through the lens of the Experiential Learning Theory. Several recommendations for future research are presented, including the development of a teaching resource, an objective assessment of curriculum design and the continued examination of inclusive teaching practices within marketing education.

Integrating psychosocial variables and societal diversity in epidemic models for predicting COVID-19 transmission dynamics.

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, governments must make decisions based on a variety of information including estimations of infection spread, health care capacity, economic and psychosocial considerations. The disparate validity of current short-term forecasts of these factors is a major challenge to governments. By causally linking an established epidemiological spread model with dynamically evolving psychosocial variables, using Bayesian inference we estimate the strength and direction of these interactions for German and Danish data of disease spread, human mobility, and psychosocial factors based on the serial cross-sectional COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO; N = 16,981). We demonstrate that the strength of cumulative influence of psychosocial variables on infection rates is of a similar magnitude as the influence of physical distancing. We further show that the efficacy of political interventions to contain the disease strongly depends on societal diversity, in particular group-specific sensitivity to affective risk perception. As a consequence, the model may assist in quantifying the effect and timing of interventions, forecasting future scenarios, and differentiating the impact on diverse groups as a function of their societal organization. Importantly, the careful handling of societal factors, including support to the more vulnerable groups, adds another direct instrument to the battery of political interventions fighting epidemic spread.

Improving Representation Over Time? Assessing Intersectional (In)Visibility of Masculinity and Race/Ethnicity in Print Ads

The current research investigates intersections of masculinity and race/ethnicity as portrayed in mainstream advertisements by assessing 1,181 print ads across two time periods. Drawing on intersectionality and content analysis, the intersections of masculinity types and race/ethnicity are explored. Results suggest a narrow assessment of these elements as part of diversity can lead to false improvement assumptions over time. Rather than focusing on one intersection such as masculinity, multiple dimensions should be considered to more accurately capture developments within advertising over time. Overall, companies need to reevaluate how diversity is reflected in advertisements and select suitable depictions to fully reflect and advance societal diversity in promotional tools.