Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Transversal study on the theme of cultural policy and cultural diversitylevel, often translate into practice much more patchily at the level of the local andmetropolitan administrations which are responsible for providing services for newimmigrants. In spite of Canada’s formal commitments to multiculturalism, thestrength of this commitment in cultural policies has varied over the period sincethe 1970s with economic objectives tending to prevail over diversity considerationsthroughout most of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. There was also a tendencythroughout this period, and since, to connect questions of cultural diversityto Canada’s wish to maintain the integrity of a distinctive Canadian culture, andcultural industry, in face of the all-too-palpable threat of Americanisation. Theperiod since then has seen a renewed commitment to cultural diversity on the partof the Department of Canadian Heritage. Key priorities include:i. the need to develop a more critical, conceptually coherent and empiricallygrounded approach to policy formulation and implementation;ii. the need to sharpen the focus on institutional diversification and sectoralchange, including developing better measures and indicators to assess changein cultural institutions and systems of cultural production;iii. the need to direct greater attention to the local level in cultural policy and planning,and to find a new role for national policy in the local/global nexus.LuxembourgMapping diversityThe major autochthonous forms of diversity in Luxembourg are organised in relationto the three officially recognised languages – Luxembourgish, as the nationallanguage, and French and German. While Luxembourg has a long history of immigration,questions concerning the position of immigrants in Luxembourg haveassumed a distinctive significance in the period since the 1960s. This reflects theincreased tendency over the period since then for immigrants who come toLuxembourg for reasons of employment to stay there rather than, as had been theearlier tendency, returning to their countries of origin. Immigrants now comprise36% of the population with a particular concentration in the City of Luxembourg.Immigration is mostly from within the European Union with 13% of those classifiedas foreigners coming from Portugal, 5% from Italy, with Germany, Belgiumand France being the next main sources of immigration. Portuguese and Italianimmigrants tend to be concentrated in manual or service occupations, while immigrantsfrom the other main European Union countries and America tend to be inprofessional or managerial occupations. Cross-border workers add a specificdimension to Luxembourg’s daytime diversity, bringing the total of the immigrantand cross-border composition of the workforce to over 50%.Governmental and constitutional provision for diversityThe principles of trilingualism for the promotion of Luxembourgish, German andFrench are protected and promoted by a range of constitutional provisions ensuringthat official publications, schooling, the press, and broadcasting use all three39