This collection of essays deals with philosophical and educational questions about multi-culturalism in primary and secondary schools.

Based on eighteen months of fieldwork and interviews with forty-nine participants, Canadian Islamic Schools provides significant insight into the role and function that Islamic schools have in Diasporic, Canadian, educational, and gender-related contexts.

Presents research and statistics, case studies and best practices, policies and programs at pre- and post-secondary levels. Prebub price $535.00 valid to 21.07.12, then $595.00.

Published in association with UNESCO, Democracy and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies examines the political governance of cultural diversity, specifically how public policy-making has dealt with the claims for cultural recognition that have increasingly been expressed by ethno-national movements, language groups, religious minorities, indigenous peoples and migrant communities. Its principle aim is to understand, explain and assess public-policy responses to ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. Adopting interdisciplinary perspectives of comparative social sciences, the contributors address the conditions, forms, and consequences of democratic and human-rights-based governance of multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-faith societies.

By unanimous adoption of the Universal Declaration of Cultural Diversity, the UNESCO Member States accepted a new ethical approach to respect diversity as a guiding principle for democratic societies. While support for the Declaration remains strong, there is a general awareness that the democratic management of multicultural societies needs rethinking and further development. This publication examines the political governance of cultural diversity, specifically how public policy-making has dealt with the claims for cultural recognition that have increasingly been expressed by ethno-national movements, language groups, religious minorities, indigenous peoples and migrant communities. Its principle aim is to understand, explain and assess public policy responses to ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity. Adopting interdisciplinary perspectives of comparative social sciences, the contributors address the conditions, forms, and consequences of democratic and human-rights-based governance of multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-faith societies.--Publisher's description.

Over the last two decades the world has witnessed an important transformation of the concept of citizenship and social integration, increasingly recognizing that cultural and ethnic diversity need to be considered when designing and implementing social policies. The increasing cultural diversity of societies, along with the important role culture plays in forming identities in these societies, creates major challenges for national and local governments in ensuring social cohesion and social inclusion. 'Delivering Services in Multicultural Societies' reviews recent approaches to recognizing cultural diversity when delivering basic services. It first discusses how supporting cultural diversity can help achieve social inclusion and social cohesion. It then considers the debate over multiculturalism from various perspectives and discusses the risks and benefits of policies that support cultural diversity. Also examined are policies and programs that support cultural diversity in the delivery of basic services, such as education, health care, customary law, traditional governance systems, and cultural services. For each of these services the author reviews main challenges and describes best practices. Finally, the book offers a synthesis of what has been learned about taking cultural diversity into account in service delivery.

This book explores some issues relating to the sociolinguistic situation in South Africa, attending especially to language variety and language attitudes. The focus is on the teaching of language, specifically English, and on the relevant education of language teachers in a multicultural country such as South Africa. In school systems such as the South African education system, which has for many years provided real access to education and power for a limited group of students only, the demands of modern society for greater language and cultural knowledge imply radical adjustments to literacy teaching and the training of language teachers. The central section of the book focuses on assessing the attitudes of several groups of English teacher trainees towards the use of four varieties of South African English in education. The effect of group discussions and lectures aimed at raising awareness of language varieties and of questions of standard and evaluation is measured by a subsequent language attitude assessment. The book makes some suggestions as to how language awareness and critical language studies that extend to a critical awareness of genre could contribute to the effective preparation of language teachers.

Global Migration and Education makes a notable contribution to understanding the issues faced by immigrant children, their parents, and educators as they interact in school settings, and to identifying the common challenges to, and successes in, educational institutions worldwide as they cope with these issues. Global in scope, there are chapters from 14 countries. It will help educators and others involved in these complex processes to see beyond the notion of problems created and experienced by recently arrived young children. Rather, this volume provides many concrete suggestions deriving from the success stories and voices of teachers, parents, and students. It also offers evidence that diversity can be a condition for learning that, when understood, embraced, and supported, leads to rich learning opportunities for all involved that would not exist without diversity. All of the authors offer recommendations about educational policy and practices to address and ultimately improve the education of all children, including immigrant children. The book is organized around five themes: *Multiple Global Issues for Immigrant Children and the Schools They Attend; *They Are Here: Newcomers in the Schools; *Views and Voices of Immigrant Children; *Far from Home With Fluctuating Hopes; and *Searching for New Ways to Belong. Intended for researchers, students, school professionals, and educational policymakers and analysts around the world in the fields of multicultural education, child psychology, comparative and international education, educational foundations, educational policy, and cross-cultural studies, this book is highly relevant as a text for courses in these areas.

This volume brings together a selection of papers presented at the Fifteenth Session of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values (ISREV), which took place in 2006 in Driebergen, the Netherlands, addressing the theme ‘Religious Education in a World of Religious Diversity’. The authors were invited to combine the concept of diversity with the dimensions of temporality, of time and history in reworking their contributions for this book. This temporal aspect is in a sense inherent in educational thinking. On the one hand education as intergenerational transmission has a conservative aspect: tradition being what is actually and presently transmitted from the past and/or what is considered worthwhile to be passed on. On the other hand, acknowledging the activity of students themselves as a prerequisite for any education to happen, brings the open-endedness and therefore the future into the pedagogical arena in terms of development, learning, reflection, edification, et cetera. So, the question answered in this volume is what does this inherent historicity mean for religious education as well as for (the concept) religion and religious diversity? In answering this question the contributions represent the global character of the concern with religious diversity in relation to religious education, and originate respectively from the following countries: Canada (Bhikkhu, English), United States (Moran), Latvia (Ilishko), Russia (Kozyrev), Germany (Pirner), South Africa (Roux, du Preez, Ferguson), Japan (Omori), Australia (de Souza), Turkey (Selçuk), and the Netherlands (Meijer, Miedema).