To have a further understanding of the situation, we can turn to Garcea’s article (2008) he mentions that one of the central questions that are in debates, in regards to multiculturalism, asks if multiculturalism contributes either to harmony and integration or conflict and fragmentation. This has always been the case when debating about multiculturalism because we want to know if multiculturalism is a good thing or a bad thing, will it perpetuate pre-existing problems or will it solve them? Garcea’s article best lists out the many differing principles in which multiculturalism is understood in Canada. From the list of postulations that he created, only a few of them will be discussed in the essay to give us a clearer representation of the
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Next, we will incorporate a SWOT analysis done on Canada by Eddy Ng and Irene Bloemraad, in A SWOT analysis of multiculturalism in Canada, Europe, Mauritius, and South Korea, to further understand how the problems within Canada are perpetuated by multiculturalism. However, we will only be focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the analysis. A SWOT analysis consists of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in order to understanding the various aspects of something better, in this case, multiculturalism. In their study, they have found that the strengths were fostering national identity, the promotion of cultural tolerance and modernization, and the incorporation of ethnocultural minorities. In terms of fostering national identity, it had allowed Canada to move away from the melting pot metaphor of assimilation towards a salad metaphor that tries to empower and accept migrating ethnocultural minority groups. As for weaknesses, the authors have found that multiculturalism starts falling when it starts creating faultlines, “dividing lines that may split a group into subgroups based on one or more [demographic] attributes” (Lau and Murnighan 1998:328). What tends to reinforce these faultlines is when a sense of strong group identification based the groups’ respective backgrounds and lack of understanding between groups (Ng and …show more content…
These concerns relate to fragmentations that are found in a study by Wong (2008) states that multiculturalism may lead to ethnic marginalization and stratification, emphasizes differences and therefore causing a Canadian identity issue as well as social divisiveness, and lastly, cultural relativism. What they have found is similar, and even overlaps (Garcea 2008), with the points found in the debate that was mentioned earlier when looking at Europe’s situation (Banting and Kymlicka 2010). Due to these fragmentations found in a pluralistic society where diversity is promoted, we can start seeing the problem with multiculturalism. Multiculturalism celebrates diversity and too much of it without having some sort of standard or expectation will push the country towards an unfavorable path. However, it has also been stated that Canada is also one of the few to adopt multiculturalism as a federal policy and have many intricate and complex settings within society to manage this problem, to manage ethnocultural
Next, we will incorporate a SWOT analysis done on Canada by Eddy Ng and Irene Bloemraad, in A SWOT analysis of multiculturalism in Canada, Europe, Mauritius, and South Korea, to further understand how the problems within Canada are perpetuated by multiculturalism. However, we will only be focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the analysis. A SWOT analysis consists of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in order to understanding the various aspects of something better, in this case, multiculturalism. In their study, they have found that the strengths were fostering national identity, the promotion of cultural tolerance and modernization, and the incorporation of ethnocultural minorities. In terms of fostering national identity, it had allowed Canada to move away from the melting pot metaphor of assimilation towards a salad metaphor that tries to empower and accept migrating ethnocultural minority groups. As for weaknesses, the authors have found that multiculturalism starts falling when it starts creating faultlines, “dividing lines that may split a group into subgroups based on one or more [demographic] attributes” (Lau and Murnighan 1998:328). What tends to reinforce these faultlines is when a sense of strong group identification based the groups’ respective backgrounds and lack of understanding between groups (Ng and …show more content…
These concerns relate to fragmentations that are found in a study by Wong (2008) states that multiculturalism may lead to ethnic marginalization and stratification, emphasizes differences and therefore causing a Canadian identity issue as well as social divisiveness, and lastly, cultural relativism. What they have found is similar, and even overlaps (Garcea 2008), with the points found in the debate that was mentioned earlier when looking at Europe’s situation (Banting and Kymlicka 2010). Due to these fragmentations found in a pluralistic society where diversity is promoted, we can start seeing the problem with multiculturalism. Multiculturalism celebrates diversity and too much of it without having some sort of standard or expectation will push the country towards an unfavorable path. However, it has also been stated that Canada is also one of the few to adopt multiculturalism as a federal policy and have many intricate and complex settings within society to manage this problem, to manage ethnocultural