Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is an important subject that has been discussed and highlighted Recently in many areas from education to politics. The reason for this fact is that many societies have now understood that some problems have arisen in different dimensions as people live together, namely from multiculturalism, and They intend to solve these problems by overcoming the problems among countries. Multiculturalism is defined in the literature as the legal and political coherence of ethnical diversity, coexistence of several cultures, modern societies covering different cultural groups, and ensuring that these different cultural groups have equal statutes. Although multiculturalism means several points of view or several dimensions, it could also be defined as the pluralism and diversity of cultures. For example, Canada, which has legalized the multicultural structure, was the first country to use this term in 1971, and although Pierre Trudeau, who was the [Page 889]prime minister of Canada, frequently mentioned the term multiculturalism, Canada continued with the double culturalism principle for some period. Despite this, multiculturalists defend that multiculturalism arose in the 1960s due to the cultural needs of groups that immigrated to Europe.

The word culture was a word used in its singular culture meaning until the 18th century, and Today, culture addresses differentiation in characteristics such as religion, language, race, ethnical origin, class, gender, or lifestyle. In addition to that, the anthropologist Franz Boas defines culture as the patterns of belief, value, tradition, and behavior that people use in regulating their worlds and relationships with each other and are transferred from generation to generation. Consequently, multiculturalism means the coexistence of different cultures in a society. Moreover, multiculturalism means people having different religions, languages, races, and traditions living together.

Whereas multiculturalism does not consider it appropriate from the point of view of the conditions of the country to become prototypes in culture, language, ethnical origin, lifestyle, and religion, it perceives the differences that a society has as a richness and tries to establish a sociability on the grounds created by these differences. For that reason, as it is taken as a purpose by each social ideology, the main purpose of multiculturalism is to establish and survive the good society. A good society is a society that acknowledges cultural diversity as a richness and determines its policies in this direction.

There are various ways to handle the multiculturalism and its impacts at local, national, and global levels. Each different point of angle related to the subject gives a new dimension to our understanding about this complex and changing fact. Multiculturalism means the coming together, living, working, trading, and participating in the political life of people from different races, ethnical origins, religious and cultural groups on a piece of earth, as well as their social and cultural interaction and participation in political life, expressing a social diversity. Multiculturalists believe that multiculturalism teaches giving value to the citizens, diversity, and differences of a democratic society and assisting in integration with the society without breaking different cultures from their pasts. From the point of view of education, the concept of cultural diversity is as important as the concepts of identity and diversity. Furthermore, the culture is the whole of beliefs and actions that a group of people understand as the world They have constructed along with their individual and social lives. Thus, multiculturalism relates to cultural diversity and cultural differences and associates identity and diversity with multiculturalism. We are all connected to culture from physical, social, psychological, and spiritual aspects; therefore, we can change a culture, but we cannot break off from the culture. Whereas there is no escape from multiculturalism, which is defined by scholars as the celebration of diversity in daily life, there is also no escape from culture.

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