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“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 this section I consider different models of nationhood, the diffusion of new multicultural models, and barriers to the spread of new models rooted in nations' pasts and the current fears of immigrants from the Middle East.

The construct of global mindset is one that has gained greater attention recently. This chapter focuses on contextual factors that impact the development of a global mindset. Specifically, the focus is on the cultural context of Canada and the factors in the Canadian context that bridge the gap between the theoretical and the practical, and provide both opportunities and challenges related to developing a global mindset in this context. Developing a global mindset on the part of leaders takes place in particular contexts. In this chapter, the distinguishing aspects of the Canadian cultural context are reviewed. Specifically, the Canadian values of (1) individualism/collectivism balance; (2) egalitarianism; (3) caution, diffidence, dependence and non-violence; (4) consensus building; (5) regionalism; (6) multiculturalism; (7) particularism and tolerance; and (8) deference to authority are shown to be important in this cultural context to the development of a global mindset on the part of leaders. While these factors provide many benefits to supporting such development, they also represent unique cultural challenges for leaders.

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.

This paper critically analyzes the International Olympic Committee's 2000 global marketing campaign titled “Celebrate Humanity”. Released prior to the 2000 Summer Games, this campaign capitalized on recent cultural trends by focusing on multicultural inclusivity and the idea that sport could contribute to world peace. Using this campaign as our case study, we demonstrate the possibilities for both local consumption and interpretation of a global campaign within the specific cultural context of the United States.

This study aims to investigate the promotion of workplace multiculturalism via the use of a participative and empowerment‐based diversity training and development method.

A two‐year long qualitative, multiple case‐study amongst 15 Finnish organizations was conducted by means of the focus group method. Altogether 20 group interviews were held with so‐called “working culture bridge groups” consisting of different stakeholders and their four coordinators to explore the approaches, modes of action, achievements and explanatory factors that contributed to the development of working cultures towards multiculturalism.

The development method was directed more at individual than organizational level change processes. More specifically, the attitudes of the majority were perceived as the main problem and the goal was to influence them by enhancing their knowledge and awareness of multicultural issues. The effectiveness of the method was recognized to depend on the clarity of set goals, adequate resources, systemic development work at both the individual and organizational level as well as on the commitment of management.

Despite being conducted in one country with low cultural diversity, an empowerment‐based method proved to be useful in directing the creation of inclusive working organizations.

The method helps in planning the content and delivery of different diversity training and development approaches.

The paper offers a powerful tool and an innovative way for practitioners to align both organisational and diversity goals to meet individual needs, to identify inequalities and to increase the effectiveness of diversity initiatives.

This paper explores the possibilities of federalist and multicultural theory as a basis to generate perception change within Israeli‐Jewish society. In an innovative course, student subjects were exposed to the narratives of a variety of subgroups, participated in a workshop, and studied various examples of federalism and multiculturalism as an alternative to Israel's historic melting pot model. Their opinions on Israeli society and cultural outlook were analyzed based on qualitative methods and consensus theory (which is being introduced as a measurement of attitudinal change). The data indicates that the course was able to generate empathy for the “other,” encourage the students to identify commonalities between disparate subgroups and to consolidate the consensus and change some opinions toward a more federalist multicultural viewpoint. Based on this experiment, we suggest that there is a foundation to consider a federalist multicultural model as a vehicle to reduce social tensions in Israel and elsewhere.

Multiculturalism continues to be a major, and divisive, issue as developed countries around the world adjust to a more pluralistic society. These societal issues are reflected in the provision of library service, especially libraries serving children, and the publishing of children’s literature. Consideration of the controversies caused by this conflict, especially in the USA, Canada and the UK, highlights the desirability (and inevitability) of pluralism as a touchstone for the provision of library service. Defines the terms, clarifies the historical context, and samples the recent literature.