ASTK12297U Course: Multiculturalism - what is it really about?
Masterlevel: 7,5 ECTS
Ever since the early 1980s, multiculturalism and “diversity” has been a core component in the Western hemisphere. Currently, it is claimed, it is exercising an influence towering above Marxism of the early 1970s. What, then, is multiculturalism essentially about? Using a wide range of scholarly material, this course will put multiculturalism in an ideological framework. Generally, multiculturalism is seen as a leftist and progressive idea. Above all, this reputation is closely associated with the fact that multiculturalism is linked to anti-racism and a generous immigration policy. It also enjoys a wide public footing, in particular among the elites. However, this interpretation may be fruitfully compared with a leftist critique against multiculturalism, resting, among other things, on the collectivist, mythical and anti-individualist implications of the multicultural idea of ethnic belonging. From this vantage point, multiculturalism is a conservative ideology.
The course is expected to be structures according to the following headings.
- Introduction
- In defence of multiculturalism – Will Kymlicka,
- In defence of multiculturalism – Charles Taylor
- In defence of multiculturalism – Bhikhu Parekh
- Anti-racism as tolerance.
- Ethnicity as protection.
- Culturalism as progressive
- Critics of multiculturalism – Slavoj Zizek
- Critics of multiculturalism – Bech, Necef
- Critics of multiculturalism – Göran Adamson
- Anti-racism or racism – is it that simple?
- Ethnicity as imprisonment
- Culturalism as conservative
- Conclusion and summing up
‘The objective of the course/seminar is to enable the students to:
- Contextualize multiculturalism: why did it emerge, and why is it currently increasingly being questioned?
- Explain the salient features in the various ways in which multiculturalism is being defended.
- Explain the salient features in the various ways in which multiculturalism is being critizised.
- Explain multiculturalism’s intricate relationship to key political concepts, such as populism, elitism, diversity, and citizenship.
- Explain the reasons why multiculturalism – by its advocates – is seen as progressive, while its left-leaning critics see it as a form of conservative ideology.
Göran Adamson, Svensk mångfaldspolitik – En kritik från vänster (Malmö: Arx Förlag, 2014)
Anne Phillips, The Politics of Presence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)
Bech, Henning & Ümit Necef, Mehmet, Er danskerne racister?Invandrerforskningens
problemer, Frederiksberg: Frydenlund, 2013
Will Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular – Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)
+ Articles
The list of articles will be available at the start of the course.
- Category
- Hours
- Class Instruction
- 28
- Total
- 28
- Credit
- 7,5 ECTS
- Type of assessment
- Oral examinationOral exam
- Marking scale
- 7-point grading scale
- Censorship form
- External censorship
Criteria for exam assesment
- Grade 12 is given for an outstanding performance: the student lives up to the course's goal description in an independent and convincing manner with no or few and minor shortcomings
- Grade 7 is given for a good performance: the student is confidently able to live up to the goal description, albeit with several shortcomings
- Grade 02 is given for an adequate performance: the minimum acceptable performance in which the student is only able to live up to the goal description in an insecure and incomplete manner
Course information
- Language
- English
- Course code
- ASTK12297U
- Credit
- 7,5 ECTS
- Level
- Full Degree MasterBachelor
- Duration
- 1 block
- Placement
- Block 3
- Schedule
- C (Mon 13-17 + Wednes 8-17)
- Continuing and further education
- Study board
- Department of Political Science, Study Council
Contracting department
- Department of Political Science
Course responsibles
- Göran Adamson (13-6c747766733366696672787473456e6b7833707a336970)