Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism
In the United States,
Spain and England

Mª Carmen Mateo Martínez
Pablo Candela Aranda
Mª José Fernández Ramírez

Civilización lengua inglesa

INDEX

- Abstract…………………………………………………………………..3

- Introduction……………………………………………………………4

- History…………………………………………………………………...5

- Multicultural education………………………………………….10

- Racism…………………………………………………………………..16- Conclusion…………………………………………………………….22

- Bibliography………………………………………………………….24

Abstract

In this essay we are going to see multiculturalism from three different points of view and from three different countries: United States, England and Spain.
First of all, we are going to talk about history of multiculturalism, which cultures cohabited together thorough history.Then, we are going to analyze how these three countries receive immigrants in order to provide a nice environment at school.
Finally, we will see how racism affects the coexistence between different cultures and races in these countries.
Our aim in this essay is to show that multiculturalism is a good thing and that we have to fight to achieve that all cultures respect one another.Introduction

According to the Collins English Dictionary, the term multicultural refers to people of many different nationalities and cultures; and multiculturalism is the belief that all the different cultures or racial groups that make up a society should be given equal representation in areas such as education, the arts, and the workplace.
In some countries multiculturalism is recognized,and the different cultures or cultural identities coexist pacifically. There are de jure policies to promote social cohesion.
In its origins, multiculturalism began in response to a wave of European imperialism in sub-Saharan Africa and the massive immigration of Europeans to the United States and Latin America. Philosophers, and historians such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James or AlainLocke developed concepts of cultural pluralism, from which emerged what we understand today as multiculturalism. In Pluralistic Universe (1909), William James espoused the idea of a "plural society." James saw pluralism as "crucial to the formation of philosophical and social humanism to help build a better, more egalitarian society".
Today multiculturalism is officially recognized in countriessuch as Canada, Australia and some countries of the European Union. Other countries such as Netherlands or Denmark have reversed the national policy and returned to an official monoculturalism; and in the United Kingdom and Germany, among others, there is a debate about reversal, due to the evidence of incipient segregation and anxieties over "home-grown" terrorism.
In a debate of BBC aboutmulticulturalism, experts have given different opinions. Ruth Lea, director of the Centre for Policy Studies in the United Kingdom, thinks that there is two ways in which people interpret multiculturalism. The first one is that every culture has the right to exist and there is no over-arching thread that holds them together, which is the multiculturalism so destructive because there is no thread tohold society together; and the other one is the multiculturalism that she would call diversity, where people have their own cultural beliefs and they happily coexist.
The last is the kind of multiculturalism that should exist in order to live in peace, since nowadays, in the countries object of our essay: Spain, the United States and England, there is a lot of cultures coexisting.

1. HistoryNowadays, we find the phenomenon known as multiculturalism in England; acccording to the BBC news, there are many ethnic groups living all together such as Asians, Chinese people, Black people, Muslims...But in order to understand why nowadays are living there those ethnic groups, we have to know the history of multiculturalism in England, which is divided in differrent stages.

The first...