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This paper aims to take a brief glance at the past of multicultural education in classrooms and discusses the ever-changing “melting pot” of cultures expected to continue to grow even more diverse in the USA in the next few years. It seeks to identify ideas and approaches that will help integrate multiculturalism into the curriculum and classroom practices in the future.

This paper explores and challenges the importance of understanding multiculturalism’s role in the classroom by sharing the relevance of moving beyond surface approaches to teach about different cultures. It delves into the need to dig deeper to make multicultural perspectives and contributions a part of curriculum and classroom environments on a daily basis.

The author concludes that due to the rapidly changing demographics of the population of students, it is a necessity to address concepts such as inclusion of underrepresented cultures and ethnic backgrounds in curriculum materials, educator preparation and diversifying teacher educators.

This paper shares a unique perspective as goes beyond sharing multiculturalism with students as recognition or a celebration or a festival. It details how curriculum practices and classroom environments should strive to make differences a part of the general curriculum and become a shared culture – not a separate culture.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse two features of multicultural societies: diversity and equity. The author argues that both these features are necessary for multicultural societies and their institutions to be successful. Diversity is understood to include variations in culture, ethnicity, religion, age, gender and sexual orientation. Equity is understood to include inclusive participation and the removal of barriers to such participation. Diversity without the opportunity for equitable participation can lead to a form of separation; equity without diversity can lead to a form of assimilation; the absence of both can lead to marginalisation; and the presence of both can lead to a full integration.

This is a conceptual paper with a focus on better understanding of how to manage multicultural societies and institutions.

The author distinguishes between three meanings of multiculturalism; as demography; as policy; and as ideology. He proposes a conceptual framework to illustrate the various ways in which intercultural relations may take place at three levels (society, institutions and individual), and with two kinds of groups (dominant and non-dominant). An analysis of multiculturalism policy in Canada and internationally reveals three principles needed for success in such societies: the multiculturalism principle; the integration principle; and the contact principle.

The use of these concepts for better management of intercultural relations in multicultural societies and institutions through mutual adaptation is proposed.

With much debate and confusion about the meaning and value of multiculturalism, this paper has sought to clarify many of the concepts and distinctions.

The article begins by pointing out how Canada has undergone a huge demographic change in the last 30 years, forcing companies to rethink their training strategies. This means diversity training will assume an ever larger role. Different clichés about diversity training are discussed and demystified. The goal of all diversity training is to make participants aware of their perceptions and assumptions, so as to ensure correct understanding of different values. The characteristics of an effective diversity program are: it must be linked to a business objective, it cannot result in preferential treatment for some groups and it must have the 100 percent support from top management. The benefits will yield better communication with outsides as well as insiders, enlarge the customer base and will transpose one's mindset so that a person can engage successfully in any interracial or intercultural relationship.

This chapter is partially based on an unpublished Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) background report, titled ‘OECD Research Project on Diversity in the Workplace: Country Report Germany’, which was written by the authors of this chapter. While the OECD country report illustrates how diversity policies and related diversity instruments targeting various diversity dimensions have developed in Germany over recent decades, this chapter focuses solely on the management of ethnic diversity and its related policies. Diversity policies are broadly understood as any policy that seeks to increase the representation of disadvantaged social groups such as migrants and ethnic minorities, women, disabled persons, older workers and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, intersex and queer/questioning (LGBTIQ) in the workplace, both in the public and in the private sector. The central idea of this chapter is to provide an overview of which policies and instruments have been implemented for migrants and ethnic minorities at the workplace and to evaluate their success or failure where possible. In doing so, this chapter also discusses obstacles, success factors and challenges for policy implementation for the past and for the future.

“Multiculturalism” is a troubled concept, in a political as well as in a scholarly sense. What has triggered this paper is the authors’ experience of the hardships involved in understanding the power structures embedded in societies termed “multicultural”; we find ourselves equipped with a set of conceptual tools that are confusing, and with policy makers that compound that confusion. This presentation takes as its point of departure the tension engendered at the interface between popular democracy ground rules and minority rights, and turns in its second part to current political vocabulary in Norway. Thematically, the discussion moves from the intricacies of “cultural rights” to a closer look at the bias implicit in the benevolent phrase “fair terms of integration.” The suggestion is that hidden underneath the niceties, we find the unavoidable and seemingly unspeakable dilemmas of a welfare state confronted with non-economic, humanitarian principles. Let us be clear about one thing, however; the aim of this presentation is not to solve problems, but to face them.

In terms of the concept of broken home as a juvenile delinquency risk factor, whilst Nigeria and Ghana are culturally different from western nations (Gyekye, 1996; Hofstede, 1980; Smith, 2004), parental death (PDE) and parental divorce (PDI) have been previously taken-for-granted as one factor, that is ‘broken home’. This paper aims to deconstruct the singular model of ‘broken home’ and propose a binary model – the parental death and parental divorce hypotheses, with unique variables inherent in Nigerian/Ghanaian context.

It principally deploys the application of Goffman’s (1967) theory of stigma, anthropological insights on burial rites and other social facts (Gyekye, 1996; Mazzucato et al., 2006; Smith, 2004) to tease out diversity and complexity of lives across cultures, which specifically represent a binary model of broken home in Nigeria/Ghana. It slightly appraises post-colonial insights on decolonization (Agozino, 2003; Said, 1994) to interrogate both marginalized and mainstream literature.

Thus far, analyses have challenged the homogenization of the concept broken home in existing literature. Qualitatively unlike in the ‘West’, analyses have identified the varying meanings/consequences of parental divorce and parental death in Nigeria/Ghana.

Unlike existing data, this paper has contrasted the differential impacts of parental death and parental divorce with more refined variables (e.g. the sociocultural penalties of divorce such as stigma in terms of parental divorce and other social facts such as burial ceremonies, kinship nurturing, in relation to parental death), which helped to fill in the missing gap in comparative criminology literature.

This chapter examines the patterns of immigrants’ integration in a state of the Midwest of the United States, Indiana, which has experienced a growth of more than 250% of the foreign-born population in the last 20 years. The study, based on in-depth interviews and document analysis, examines the ways that immigrants blend into mainstream society in everyday life and in social interactions, as well as the obstacles they encounter in this process. The study reveals the cultural changes in the host culture as a result of the large number of immigrants who have established their residence in this state, the dichotomies that emerge between “natives” and “newcomers.” It also shows that immigrants stay connected to their country of origin through electronic media (in particular television and computers) and how this technology affects the process of integration. Finally, the study demonstrates that there is a process of segmented assimilation and variations in the immigrants’ sense of identity according to their socioeconomic status and ethnic background.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse three drivers of the Islamic economy: global Muslim demography; operational sectors and demand; and faith-based consumerism.

This paper follows a constructivist approach to the Islamic economy, undertaken through an exploratory study of global Muslim population, the growth in opportunities in the Islamic economy and plurality of religious thought across the diaspora.

The research finds four trends (t) positively impacting the growth of the Islamic economy: (t1) above-nominal increase in global Muslim population, with greater intra-religious interactions of varying Muslim cultures; (t2) an increasing demand for a diversity of Shari’ah-compliant and halal products and services; (t3) improving socio-economic status of Muslims in developed and emerging countries; and (t4) a widening perspective of faith understanding and rising interest in religious literacy.

This research serves to inform global businesses of opportunities in Islamic economy sectors, highlighting global demographic change and informing how business is impacted through the plurality of Muslim faith interpretation.

Based on this research, businesses can better align their services with the socio-economic environment and faith sensibilities of Muslim consumers.

The paper provides a first look at the activity across Islamic economic sectors and disaggregates their activity and potential for growth across Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority markets. In particular, three areas were examined – demography, emergent Muslim lifestyles and religiosity.