Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

214 Language Diversity in the ClassroomThe interest in examining or re-examining multiculturalism hascontinued more or less unabated, and a very important recent developmenthas been the attention given to it by political philosophers. Theimportance here arises from the fact that, for the first time, efforts havebeen made to consider the matter from a general and disinterested pointof view rather than from a parti pris stance. In 1992, for example, CharlesTaylor wrote about the tensions underpinning multiculturalism asstruggles for the ‘recognition’ of group identities. He argued that, in aworld in which the old social hierarchies have collapsed with theirselective and inegalitarian bases for honor and in which a democraticsense of individual dignity has arisen, the politics of equal recognitionhave assumed great importance. But demands for equality must coexistwith demands for uniqueness; as Taylor puts it, the new ‘politics ofrecognition’ is closely tied to a ‘politics of difference’. The demands ofuniversal respect, on the one hand, and of particularity, on the other,suggest difficulties:The reproach the first makes to the second is just that it violates theprinciple of nondiscrimination. The reproach the second makes to thefirst is that it negates identity by forcing people into a homogeneousmold that is untrue to them. (Taylor, 1992: 43)This is a rather neat exposition of one face of that unity-diversity tensionthat I have touched upon here.Having due regard to the collectivist impulses that underpin multiculturalism(on the one hand), and to the traditional liberal-democraticview that argues for individual equality but remains as neutral aspossible on the cultural ‘content’ of life (on the other), Taylor attempts tochart a middle course. He suggests an ‘hospitable’ variant of liberalismthat should not claim complete neutrality. He also touches upon theextended demand that not only should all cultures be given some degreeof support, but also that we ought to recognize their equal worth. But areall cultures really equally worthy? Taylor sensibly observes that whilejudgments of equal worth require investigation, we might reasonablystart from a presumption of equality. His essay sets the stage for furtherand more detailed work that has only gained in importance (see, e.g.Kymlicka, 1995a, 1995b).Appearing at the same time as Taylor’s book were two other treatmentsof multiculturalism, the more polemical of them by a very eminentAmerican historian. The title of Arthur Schlesinger’s (1992) book TheDisuniting of America provides a rather strong hint about his viewsof multiculturalism, and the work is essentially a panegyric to the