Abstract A Problem to Every Solution The Corrymeela Community, René Girard and the ambiguous pluralism The main purpose of this study is to examine how Girard´s ideas of society, culture and religion have become part of the reflexion in the praxis of Corrymeela Community through the work of Roel Kaptein and how this praxis can shed light over the work with dissonances of faith and values in education in RE, Social Studies and other subjects. In earlier publications I have studied how dissonances of faith and values can be understood in educational settings and in connection with issues of interreligious dialogue. The extensive discussion of how differences in culture, religion and value in a pluralistic society are to be analysed and treated in pedagogical reflexion seems to increasingly occupy actors in different parts of the educational system. It is obvious that these issues also are brought into focus as an important field of research. My main interest in this paper is to study how a reconciliation group in the middle of the conflict in Northern Ireland has developed a view of conflict reason and conflict resolution under the influence of the French researcher René Girard and what aspects of this study that can improve the reflection over pluralism and dissonances of faith and values in everyday praxis in education. For a period of more than a decade I have been in contact with actors in the peace process in Northern Ireland in connection to different educational projects. The attempts to analyse the different aspects of ”The Troubles” and the efforts to find ways out of conflicts and civil war are many and the literature on subjects related to these tragic history of social, cultural and religious conflicts is difficult to survey. An interesting and continuing reflexion on conflicts in relation to dissonances of faith and value has been carried out by the ecumenical group “Corrymeela Community”. It has its main centre in Belfast and the members are mainly lay people in different professions. The community is dispersed but meet regularly in the centre of Belfast or in a centre in Ballycastle up at the northern coast. René Girard is a member of the French Academy. In his books that touch upon Anthropology, Literature Theory, Philosophy and Theology he defends a hypotheses about “ Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World”, as the title reads of one of his books. The conflicts among men must be understood in the light of a elaborated mimesis-theory, where the desire to acquire what the Other desires leads to rivalry and scapegoating. Cultures arise through rules and rituals as a way of structuring social life and thereby avoid the otherwise inevitable crises that lead to repeated scapegoating of individuals or groups. From analysing myths, literature of fiction and biblical texts he has developed the hypotheses to illuminate how conflicts are related to culture and religion.

In the context of world globalization, Sweden has today become a multicultural society, where many different cultures, religions, values and approaches are trying to co-exist. When the Swedish government's integration policy was put into effect, one sought to open the way for a more peaceful coexistence between majority and minority people. The intention was that everyone, through mutual interaction, would learn to come together and learn to respect each other's differences. It was suggested that an intercultural approach should permeate all education, including preschool activity. There are particular guidelines for a culture and tradition promotion work within the preschool in the new revised curriculum (Lpfö 98, rev. 2010), These guidelines are intended for preschool teachers, where the intention is to strengthen each child’s traditional and cultural identity (Skolverket 2010).The purpose of this study is that from an intercultural perspective examine preschool teachers’ thoughts, views and notions around a cultural promotion work within the multicultural preschool. Six preschool teachers were interviewed from two multicultural preschools. The questions have been based on preschool teachers' thoughts, views and notions around a culture and tradition of promotion work in the meeting with children within multicultural preschools. The results show that some preschool teachers, whether consciously or unconsciously, relate themselves ethnocentric to a culture and tradition promotion work. The multicultural work is primarily related to a language promotion work. Intentions exist but seem to be too weak for an intercultural approach and the reason seems to be, among other things, the monocultural norm and approaches in stronghold within the preschool, the lack of knowledge of other cultures and unclear guidelines in the governing documents of work approach.

This paper presents the results of a critical discourse analysis of a selection of Canada’s security texts and argues that the country’s security discourses construct Muslims as dangerous and different from the normative Canadian. The research relies on a social constructionist understanding of discourse and the recognition that our state’s representatives and agents, operating from positions of discursive power, wield disproportionate influence in directing the national conversation and managing the signals that shape our social attitudes and imaginaries. By persistently qualifying terrorism with Islam, portraying the terrorist figure as a religiously and ideologically-motivated actor opposed to ‘Western values’ and by casting suspicion on the ordinary behaviour of Muslims, Canada’s security discourses produce a mental model in which Islam and its followers are associated with a propensity for terrorist violence. The discourses also naturalize the idea that Muslims are in need of surveillance, not only by the state’s agents, but by the public itself. When examined alongside a body of research illustrating Canada’s ‘visible minority’ population continues to be negatively affected by dominant group discrimination, the results of the study raise questions about the culpability of state representatives in the reproduction of ideas of difference which continue to inform the country’s social imaginary and hinder the equality and inclusivity of minority groups within the national collective.

The liberal tradition has borne great fruits since the dawn of the modern era by emphasizing the value of equality and personal liberty, and by developing a theory of rights. Despite its incredible success, many authors have been pointing to fissures in the liberal structure, including practical and theoretical problems with state neutrality, with the state’s stance vis-à-vis different cultures, and with liberalism’s purported radical individualism. It is my belief that the gains of liberalism can be reconciled within a new theory that better answers to such critiques. Citizenship Beyond Liberal Neutrality begins with an analysis of contemporary debate between liberalism and its critics. This leads to a discussion of the state’s relationship toward cultural identities, and to a discussion of the meaning of citizenship within a liberal-democratic state. What we need, I argue, is a civic identity that is both capable of judging cultural practices, and capacious enough for a citizenry characterized by reasonable pluralism. This common identity, moreover, provides a locus for attachment that is often found wanting in contemporary liberal theory. I draw on relevant insights from virtue theories, constitutional patriotism, and an ‘analogical’ understanding of public reason to inform a new, liberal-like conception of citizenship. In order to exemplify this conception, and to bolster the case for it, I consider how such a philosophy could play out with respect to two public policy areas that are central to citizenship, namely education and immigration. Distilled to its simplest, I argue for a theory of citizenship that admits a conception of the good, that can promote virtue while respecting autonomy, and that can provide a basis for civic unity.

This dissertation examines how the new “multicultural phase” anthologies of American literature treat American history. Anthologies of American literature are more historical, more diverse, and more multidisciplinary than ever before, but they have over-extended themselves in both their historical and representational reach. They are not, despite their diversity and historicism, effective vehicles for promoting critical discussions of American history in the classroom. Chapter One outlines a brief history of anthologies of American literature, while also introducing the terminology and methodology used in this study. Chapter Two explores the role of the headnote as a vehicle for American history in anthologies by focusing on headnotes to Abraham Lincoln in multiple anthologies. Chapter Three examines how anthologies frame Native American origin stories for their readers. Chapter Four focuses on the issues raised by anthologizing texts originally composed in Spanish, and Chapter Five argues for a transnational broadening of the “slavery theme” in anthologies to include Barbary captivity narratives and texts that reference Indian slavery.

The primary purpose of this study was to assess faculty perceptions of campus diversity at Western Kentucky University. A Diversity Survey was developed and administered to faculty at Western Kentucky University. Responses from the 378 fulltime faculty members who completed the survey were used in this study. Composites including campus diversity climate, satisfaction with diversity effects, race, gender, and religion were formed from the survey items for use in the analyses. Results indicated that minority and women faculty perceive campus diversity less favorably than do majority and men faculty.

This dissertation examines current academic approaches to reading South Asian-Canadian literature as a multicultural “other” to Canadian national literature and proposes an alternative reading strategy that allows for these texts to be read within a framework of South Asian diasporic subjectivities situated specifically at the Canadian location. Shifting from the idea that “Canada” names a particular national identity and national literary culture to the idea that “Canada” names a particular geographic terrain at which different cultural, social, and historical vectors intersect and are creolized allows for a more nuanced reading of South Asian-Canadian literature, both in terms of its relationship to the complex history of the South Asian diaspora and in terms of the complex history of South Asian encounters with the Canadian space. Reading prose, poetry, drama, and theatrical institutions as locations where a specifically South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity is reflected, I am able to map a range of individual negotiations among the cultural vector of the “ancestral” past, the cultural vector of the influence of European colonialism, and the cultural vector of this place that demonstrate that the negotiation of South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity and its reflection in literature cannot be understood as producing a homogenous or “authentic” cultural identity. Instead, the literary expression of South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity argues that the outcome of negotiations between cultural vectors that take place in this location are as unique as the individuals who undertake those negotiations. These individual negotiations, I argue, need to be read collectively to trace out a continuum of possible expressions of South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity, a continuum that emphasizes that the processes of negotiation are on-going and flexible. This dissertation challenges the assumption that Canadian literature can be contained within the limits of a Canadian nationalist mythology or ethnography. Instead of the literature of the Canadian “nation” or the Canadian “people,” Canadian literature is best understood as the literature produced in this location by all the “minority” populations, including the dominant “minority.” Reading Canadian literature, then, is reading the differential relationships to history and community that occur in this place and which are inscribed in these collectively Canadian texts.

The purpose of this essay is to examine what literary heritage teachers communicate in the school subject Swedish at upper secondary school. The overall research question for this work is: Which authors and/or works are mentioned by the teachers in the school subject Swedish at upper secondary school? How well do these authors and/or works answer towards a multicultural perspective? Which factors affect teachers´ selections of texts? Based on this purpose and these research questions, the aim is to answer the didactic question of what. To accomplish the purpose of the study a quantitative method has been used. The survey was conducted in two medium-sized cities in central Sweden, and was answered by 17 teachers. The study shows that the teachers ascribe the Western and Swedish literature great importance. Authorships and/or works outside the Western literary culture sphere are very few, as well as texts written by women and by Swedish writers with immigrant origin or belonging to national minorities. The factors that govern teachers’ selection of texts are agreement in the form of solid reading lists, cooperation and coordination, thematic work, resources and students. The conclusion that follows is that it seems to be the conservative and liberal multiculturalism that emerges most strongly when it comes to teaching literature in the school subject Swedish. / Syftet med föreliggande uppsats är att undersöka vilket litteraturarv lärare förmedlar genom skolämnet svenska i gymnasieskolan. De övergripande forskningsfrågorna är: Vilka för-fattarskap och/eller verk behandlar lärare i undervisningen i skolämnet svenska på gymnasiet? Hur väl svarar dessa författarskap och/eller verk mot ett mångkulturellt perspektiv? Vilka faktorer påverkar lärarnas texturval? Utifrån syftet och forskningsfrågorna är målsättningen att ge svar på den didaktiska vad-frågan. För att uppnå studiens syfte har en kvantitativ metod, i form av en enkätundersökning, anammats. Enkätundersökningen genomfördes i två medelstora städer i mellersta Sverige och besvarades av 17 svensklärare. Resultatet visar att undersökningsdeltagarna tillmäter den västerländska och svenska litteraturen stor betydelse. Författarskap och/eller verk utanför den västerländska litterära kultursfären är väldigt få, likaså texter författade av kvinnor och texter skrivna av svenska författare med invandrarbakgrund eller tillhörande nationella minoritetsgrupper. De faktorer som styr lärarnas texturval är överenskommelser i form av fasta litteraturlistor, samarbete och samordningar, tematiskt arbete, resurser och eleverna. Slutsatsen som följer är att det tycks vara den konservativa och liberala mångkulturalismen som framträder starkast i litteraturundervisningen i svenska.

The aim of this study has been to analyze how society is constructed in the workbook Möte med människor från andra kulturer, a popular material within the “cultural competency” industry. The analysis has largely been carried out from the perspective of a pedagogy against oppression as it has been outlined by Kevin Kumashiro. I have found that the material combines discursive movements, which in complex and hybrid ways deconstruct, decenter, recenter and reproduce stereotypes and norms, through its normative language and pedagogy. A language constructing culture as cleanly demarcated, static and homogenous. Cultures are made mutually exclusive and cultural patterns dominant within Sweden are placed in a dichotomous relationship with the “immigrant” other, naturalizing the privileges of the former and the marginalization of the latter. The material attempts to structure a reflexive process encouraging the reader to develop a critical self-awareness. However, the material, more often than not, fails to move this beyond an individual level, other than to inscribe a static and excluding notion of “Swedish” culture and identity onto the reader. The material teems with critical potential but I argue that its ambition is mired by normative language and staging. This is not to say that it cannot encourage critical awareness, but inarguably, its ability to do so has been lessened.

<p> </p><p>The aim of this study has been to analyze how society is constructed in the workbook <em>Möte med människor från andra <em>kulturer</em>, a popular material within the “cultural competency” industry. The analysis has largely been carried out from the perspective of a pedagogy against oppression as it has been outlined by Kevin Kumashiro. </em></p><p>I have found that the material combines discursive movements, which in complex and hybrid ways deconstruct, decenter, recenter and reproduce stereotypes and norms, through its normative language and pedagogy. A language constructing culture as cleanly demarcated, static and homogenous. Cultures are made mutually exclusive and cultural patterns dominant within Sweden are placed in a dichotomous relationship with the “immigrant” other, naturalizing the privileges of the former and the marginalization of the latter.</p><p>The material attempts to structure a reflexive process encouraging the reader to develop a critical self-awareness. However, the material, more often than not, fails to move this beyond an individual level, other than to inscribe a static and excluding notion of “Swedish” culture and identity onto the reader. The material teems with critical potential but I argue that its ambition is mired by normative language and staging. This is not to say that it cannot encourage critical awareness, but inarguably, its ability to do so has been lessened.</p><p> </p>