Multiculturalism Question

Debating Identity in 21st Century Canada

Jack Jedwab

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781553394235
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Canada's policy of multiculturalism has been the object of ongoing debate since it was first introduced in 1971. Decades later, Canadians still seem uncertain about the meaning of multiculturalism. Detractors insist that government has not succeeded in discouraging immigrants and their descendants from preserving their cultures of origin, undercutting a necessary identification with Canada, while supporters argue that immigrant groups' abilities to influence their adjustments to Canada has strengthened their sense of belonging. Beyond what often seems to be a polarized debate is a broad spectrum of opinion around multiculturalism in Canada and what it means to be Canadian. The Multiculturalism Question analyzes the policy, ideology, and message of multiculturalism. Several of Canada's leading thinkers provide valuable insights into a crucial debate that will inevitably continue well into the future.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Contributors
• Introduction
• The Government of Canada’s Multiculturalism Program: Key to Canada’s Inclusion Reflex?
• Multiculturalism in the 1990s: The Smallest Common Denominator in Defining Canadian National Identity
• Assimilation by Stealth: Why Canada’s Multicultural Policy Is Really a Repackaged Integration Policy
• Our Multiculturalism: Reflections in the Key of Rawls
• Multiculturalism Policies and Popular Multiculturalism in the Development of Canadian Immigration
• (Never) Coming Out to Be Met? Liberal Multiculturalism and Its Radical Others
• Reform by Stealth: The Harper Conservatives and Canadian Multiculturalism
• Nationalism, Pluralism, and the Democratic Governance of Diversity
• What Is Really at Stake in the Multiculturalism/Interculturalism Debate
• Multiculturalism, Language, and Immigrant Integration
• Multiculturalism: Psychological Perspectives
• “Melticulturalism” in North America: Canadian and American Attitudes toward Immigration, Integration, and Residential Concentration