Cultural diversity has become a major issue in the United States. Issues of cultural diversity are more focused, especially in the classroom setting. There are several techniques that may be applied to teaching to accommodate students of diverse backgrounds. Teachers must first be aware of stereo types, ethnocentrism, and prejudice. They should apply management techniques to the physical space as well as students' behaviour. Multiple intelligence theory, active learning, technology and multicultural education are among some of the techniques that may be applied to teaching in the classroom. In addition to teaching modifications, teachers must include the parents in the classroom activities. Teachers should be familiar with the obstacles they may face when implementing the techniques. These methods also have future implications in the higher education setting. Professors may utilise these techniques in their lectures. Students who have had these practices integrated into their learning will also be better prepared for higher education and for the workforce.
The central purpose of this research is to investigate the main progresses in promoting European integration strategies, social cohesion and sense of belonging (both global and European citizenship) within and by the European Union, taking into account the new multicultural realities of our globalized world; promoting a new model of integration which does involve neither homogenization nor hegemonization, allowing for both protection of human rights and the preservation of cultural values. Integration is in fact considered as a key element of the European Union's migration policy, as well as a crucial element for the future development of European societies, besides the very identity of Europe itself. To this end a comparison is made between the classic and contemporary cosmopolitan theories and the human rights theory, in order to discover if and in which way they may or should complement each other. The idea of cosmopolitanism is questioned and criticized in parallel with the classical Westphalian sovereignty model, which represented and still represents the dominant governance model of international law and relations, notwithstanding the recent rise and development of international global institutions and non-governmental actors, proposing an alternative and new model of "global governance". I therefore analyze the relationship between two famously conflicting ideologies of human rights: universalism and cultural relativism, in their philosophical and metaethical meaning of the liberal-communitarian debate; in the historical perspective of the post cold-war scenario, which saw the rise and establishment of an international community based on a "common view and scope" and on allegedly "shared values and principles". The main purpose here is the one of investigating whether or not those values and principles, certified and promoted by the UDHR and other important treaties and declarations since 1948, can be really considered universal and universally shared, besides all cultural differences and relativism. I consider these issues as historically and ideologically related to the actual structure of the international and European system of protection of minorities and cultural diversity, which developed on a parallel although different line. The main intention here is the one of investigating merits and faults of this system, analyzing the new concept and definition of minorities in the European Union context, the European Union competences in this field and the possible mutual cooperation between the EU and other international actors acting for the protection of minority rights. Following OHCHR indications, there is still "no internationally agreed definition as to which groups constitute a minority", while it is always stressed the fact that the existence of a minority should be recognized as a matter of fact and that any definition must include both objective and subjective aspects (race, ethnicity, language or religion but also identity and sense of belonging). I eventually evaluate different models of integration and European mechanisms of protection of cultural diversity, suggesting a path for a new model of European integration and human rights protection. The role of both states and supranational institutions like the European Union in protecting those rights is considered as essential in this respect.
Academic scholarship analyses how citizenship law reforms such as longer residency requirements and tougher language tests reinforce culturally exclusionary national narratives. Citizenship ceremonies however, have largely escaped scholarly attention. Drawing on Australia as a case study, this article addresses that gap. After examining how Australian citizenship is performed at ceremonies, this article argues that although the government states that citizenship ceremonies should welcome new citizens, deep suspicions about the cultural diversity of migrants are also conveyed. This paper contributes to an understanding of how citizenship ceremonies reinforce culturally exclusionary national narratives, even where the legal criteria for acquiring citizenship status is non-discriminatory. This paper also illustrates how citizenship ceremonies are important sites for the construction and communication of legal identities.
PurposeTo make a literary review related to effective management of cultural diversity in organisations and to systematically bring up different views put forward regarding this issue.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the literature which covers the "diversity management" and "cultural diversity management" is reviewed in detail and then tried to explore the contributors' different views about the effective cultural diversity management approach. In the paper these different perspectives about this matter are classified.FindingsThe answer to the question of how cultural diversity should be managed effectively cannot be given easily. There are various typologies about the organisational and managerial literature. In order to be able to effectively manage cultural diversity in organisations, it is beneficial to develop a "cultural diversity management model" peculiar to the organisation by considering the positive and negative sides of different perspectives located in this study.Research limitations/implicationsBecause the main aim is to make only a detailed literary review and bring up different views through a classification, there are no theoretical interpretations nor personal critiques about the writers' different perspectives in the paper.Practical implicationsThe researchers of this topic would be able to make empiric and theoretical evaluations in the frame of perspectives explored in the paper.Originality/valueThis paper will provide a contribution to cultural diversity in organisations related to its management as an anthology and will be a systematic knowledge base for researchers.
Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: Diversity represents the 'multitude of individual differences and similarities that exist between people' (Treven Treven, 2007, p.29). It came into play as an organizational concept three decades ago, in the 1980s in the US as an initiative to create a more positive business perspective and provide equal employment opportunities for various minority groups. The initiative that started as a mere political correctness and legal compliance issue later on evolved into a complex business-orientated strategy in the area of human resource management and development, organizational culture and leadership, named by Gilbert, Stead, and Ivancevich (1999) the new organizational paradigm. Changing demographics and recent societal changes like extensive immigration and consequent increase in international workforce alongside with current economic metatrends such as internationalisation and globalisation are causing more exposure to Diversity, both in daily and in business life. Managing Diversity is becoming a strategic focus area of management in organizations and a resource, which enables companies gain competitive advantage on the modern market through company's most important asset - its people (Richard, 2000). Literature reviews (Cox Blake, 1991) and numerous surveys (e.g. The Second European Diversity Survey, 2004; Survey on Diversity in Corporate Annual Reports of Stoxx 50 Companies, 2009) show that the topic of Diversity and, eminently, the issues of cultural diversity and ethnicity are currently gaining prominence amongst human resource (HR) professionals. Consequently, cultural diversity trainings (CDTs) are becoming salient, e.g. researchers report (Sweeney, 2002 as cited in Jackson, Joshi Erhardt, 2003) that 67% of employers carry out ethnicity-related diversity trainings (DT). However, scholars (King, Dawson, Kravitz, Gulick, 2010, p.1) point out that 'prevalence of DT has not been matched by empirical research on its effectiveness'. The trend toward diversity trainings in organizations poses the question of their efficiency (Pendry, Driscoll, Field, 2007; Roberson, Kulik, Pepper, 2001), which can be operationalized as organizational business and individual-level outcomes, i.e. in form of psychological variables, relevant in that regard for both parties - employees and organizations. On the structural level of organizations Diversity is viewed as an organizational human resource development tool Diversity Management (DM). This tool enables acknowledging the differences between employees and helps to use diversity's positive contributions for strategic purposes of the company. Diversity management focuses primarily on organizational practices of recruitment, training and promoting underrepresented groups and is broadly defined by Cox and Blake (1991, p.45): 'Managing diversity refers to a variety of management issues and activities related to hiring and effective utilization of personnel from different cultural backgrounds'. Based on the so-called business case for diversity human resource management (HRM) models generally assume that there's a certain alignment between organizational human resource strategies, organizational performance, and competitiveness. Despite of somewhat contradictory results of empirical studies of diversity in teams and workgroups (Williams O'Reilly, 1998), the general stand is that managed the right way diversity brings benefits and improvements such as attracting the best minority personnel, enhancing decision-making, increasing team cooperation, and problem solving (Egan, 2005; Elsass Graves, 1997), reducing opportunity costs by cutting down turnover, absenteeism rates, increasing job satisfaction, improved commitment, and organizational flexibility (Cox Blake, 1991). Based on various literature reviews (Jackson et al., 2003; Shore, Chung-Herrera, Dean, Ehrhart, Jung, Randel, Singh, 2009), three main structural levels can be differentiated within Diversity research in organizations: organizational, group and individual (see 2.4. Diversity Outcomes). Focus of group diversity research clearly lies in the area of group performance (e.g. Chatman O'Reilly, 2004; Watson, Kumar, Michaelson, 1993). Quantitatively less attention has been devoted to individual-level psychological variables, such as employee attitudes (Montei, Adams Eggers, 1996; Nakui, Paulus, Van der Zee, 2008) and, in particular, attitudes towards diversity (Van Oudenhoven-Van der Zee, Paulus, Vos, Parthasarathy, 2009). Research of organizational Diversity lies in the area of economic company performance (Hollowell, 2007), whereas again the impact of company's Diversity management strategy influencing individual-level psychological variables, such as employee affective organizational commitment (Magoshi Chang, 2009) has been far less researched. Therefore, a research gap seems to be particularly apparent within the area of psychological outcome variables of cultural diversity in organizations, with central variables being affective commitment and attitudes towards diversity (ATD). This fact is somewhat paradoxical in the twenty-first century's age of knowledge work, where concepts like commitment HR strategy are key and where 'learning organizations' target at 'mobilizing worker commitment and sustainable competitiveness" (Bratton Gold, 2007, p.59). As literature research shows group diversity research has been mostly focused on the performance aspect of workgroup diversity (Chatman O'Reilly, 2004). Far less researched, but nonetheless not less important, are employee's affective reactions (e.g. commitment) and attitudes towards diversity (Van Oudenhoven-Van der Zee et al., 2009). Existing studies (Chang, 2006; Huselid, 1995) examine the effects of HR commitment practices and, using the logic of the commitment management approach, prove (Magoshi Chang, 2009) that attitudes towards diversity change as a consequence of company's exercising of Diversity Management and have far-reaching consequences on employee's affective commitment (AC). In other words: HR commitment practices have a positive effect on employees' organizational commitment. With change of attitudes being a common goal of diversity trainings, another research line has taken up the study of attitudinal changes as a result of employee participation in DTs. Speaking of the outcomes, many researchers (van Knippenberg Haslam, 2003; Van Oudenhoven, Van der Zee, Paulus, Vos Parthasarathy, 2009) have suggested that positive attitudes towards diversity in workgroups affect feelings and general work attitudes of participants in a positive way. Thus, research has suggested a strong link between the attitudes and organizational commitment. Multiple associations of commitment with such variables as performance, productivity, retention, citizenship behaviour have been documented in the literature (Meyer Allen, 1990, 1991, 1997) and have left no doubt about the concept's importance. Based on empirical research of commitment practices (Bae Lawler, 2000; Huselid, 1995), it has been suggested that Diversity Management Practices (DMP) can be seen as a reflection of commitment management philosophy. According to Magoshi and Chang (2009) commitment management approach foregrounds the reciprocity between the company and the employees (Kossek Block, 2000), views the relationship between them as exchanges of commitment (March Simon, 1958), and inherently implies devotion of the company practicing DM to the employees and their needs. In line with the abovementioned theory, company's adherence to Diversity Management Practices (e.g. in form of carrying out HR development initiatives like cultural diversity trainings) triggers positive effects on employees' organizational commitment and should, therefore, be treated as an important outcome, which implicates positive consequences for overall organizational performance. Research on both: commitment (Magoshi Chang, 2009) and attitudes towards diversity (Riordan, 2000; Strauss, 2007) indicates that the abovementioned effects vary for groups with different ethnic composition as well as for people with majority and minority backgrounds. This fact offers interesting basis for scientific debate and will be further on discussed in this thesis.
'Somewhere right now, in this country, a young person is scribbling on a scrap of paper or tapping on a keyboard, composing a song that will resonate far beyond the page. The industry may change, but that simple act of creativity remains, and will always remain, immortal and timeless' (Feargal Sharkey, Chief Executive, UK Music, 2010) The quotation above from Feargal Sharkey, former lead singer of the Undertones, appears in the Foreword to UK Music's Liberating Creativity policy statement. The document captures a familiar dilemma. On the one hand, Sharkey-the-romantic holds dear to the belief that there is something magical or mystical about the act of creativity, a moment in which an individual, or small group of individuals, are inspired to create. On the other hand, there is Sharkey-the-lobbyist arguing for the need for government intervention and investment for the purpose of 'liberating creativity'. Sharkey is by no means alone in wanting to combine these two thoughts. But can they be? What contribution does public policy intervention make to creativity? Does it liberate it, or stifle it? This is a familiar question, to which there are many answers. We discuss some of these below, but our main concern is with the contribution to creativity of a particular institution – the Collective Management Organisation (CMO)1, and the public policy designed to regulate its performance. We also concentrate on a single sector of the creative industries: the music industry. In doing this, we examine the European Union's attempt to reform the CMO in the name of creativity (among other goals), and we compare the performance of CMOs in different national settings. Our argument is that, by these two routes, we can contribute to an understanding of the part played by public policy and institutional intermediaries in fostering creativity. This narrowing of the focus is necessary for any reasonable answer to the question as to what a particular policy regime and its component intermediaries contribute to creative culture. Key to ...
This essay compares the logic of states and the logic of markets in the management of cultural diversity. On the one hand, the economic logic of markets leads to an encouragement of a "soft" cultural diversity associated with the marketing of exoticism in music, the arts and cuisine, for example. On the other hand, the liberal states are trapped between their willingness to recognize some form of diversity and their fear of seeing social cohesion harmed by this recognition. In other words, the essay applies Hollified's hypothesis about the liberal paradox in immigration policy to the sphere of cultural diversity in post-immigration situations. (Original abstract)
