In defence of multiculturalism?
In defence of multiculturalism?
Social workers are required to be aware of changing social contexts and their impact on service user communities. Many social workers writing about anti-racist practice in the 1980s would have followed Sivanandan’s (1982) critique of local authority ‘multiculturalism’. Sivanandan’s case was that too often policies of multiculturalism were reduced to a celebration of ‘steel-bands, samosas and saris’, whilst institutional and structural racism was ignored. But from a perspective contemporary, the attack on multiculturalism has shifted the political terrain. Multiculturalism is being used as a code word by politicians to attack migration and the pressence of minority communities in Britain itself – themes that are addressed in this chapter in a nuanced ‘defence’ of multiculturalism in the face of the present political assault.
Keywords: Racism, Multiculturalism, Far-right politics, Institutional racism
Policy Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
