Monthly Archive for March, 2011

Diversity Journal Associate Editors

Published on March 23, 2011 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

diversity_frontAs part of the process of publishing The International Journal of Diversity in Organizations, Communities and Nations all submissions are sent for peer refereeing, prior to publication.

Assessment, comments and guidance by the referees are an essential part of the publication process and invaluable to the authors of the submitted papers.

In recognition of the important role of referees, the international advisory board acknowledges all referees who have refereed papers as an ‘Associate Editor’ for the volume of the journal they have contributed to.

The Associate Editors listing for Volume 10 of  The International Journal of Diversity in Organizations, Communities and Nations is now available.


Monoculturalism Is Dead: Multiculturalism Has Yet To Come

Published on March 11, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Claus Leggewie in Eurozine

Daniel Cohn-Bendit once said that he knew the ’68 movement in Germany had won by a comment from a conservative colleague: “It doesn’t work with the Muslims, they harass their women.” We’ve been hearing for years that multiculturalism has failed, and now the German chancellor – who, incidentally, could only become chancellor because ’68 and ’89 did work – has added her voice to the chorus. Gender equality a success, integration of immigrants a failure?

Despite the flak it’s coming in for at the moment, multiculturalism lives and will prevail. As the one to import the term “Multikulti” to Germany (I titled a book after Don Cherry’s eponymous band in 1990), allow me to explain not only what Cohn-Bendit, but also liberal conservatives like Heiner Geissler, meant by it. Not, namely, as Angela Merkel recently put it, in front of an audience of cheering young Christian Democrats: “Now we’ll do a bit of multikulti and live side-by-side and everyone’s happy.” Anyone who has read the original arguments and the numerous subsequent studies knows that multiculturalism was not demanding arbitrariness or the Sharia, but rather the republican integration of diversity.

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Further Reflections on Discrimination

Published on March 5, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Richard Dawkins, in BoingBoing

A scientific experiment avoids confusion by holding as much as possible constant, while systematically varying some factor of interest. When you are trying to think through a complex train of thought it can be helpful to do something similar, especially when sorting out separate arguments that might be confused. My previous Boing Boing post, “Should employers be blind to private beliefs?,” could be seen as raising four separate questions. These were in danger of being confused with each other, and it is helpful to consider them one at a time, setting the others on one side temporarily–the equivalent of holding other variables constant in an experiment. The four questions were:

1. Should Martin Gaskell have been turned down by the University of Kentucky? I got rid of this one by explicitly stating that I was not concerned with it. I shall continue to ignore it here.

2. Should employers ever discriminate on grounds of the beliefs of candidates? If the answer to this is no, there is no point in going on. I tried to dispose of it by reductio ad absurdum. I postulated hypothetical extremes (flat earth geographer, stork theory doctor, astronomer who thinks Mars is a mongoose egg). I presumed that everybody would agree to discriminate against such obviously preposterous extremes, and that we would therefore have a non-controversial baseline from which to move on to more subtle questions. As it turned out, I was wrong: I underestimated the emotive impact of the very word ‘discrimination’. I may also have underestimated the power of the relativist doctrine that all opinions are equally worthy of respect. But in any case my purpose was not to erect a straw man and knock it down. I wanted to find a baseline of agreement, which would enable us to set Question 2 on one side, while we went on to the other questions.

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Glenda MacNaughton To Speak at 2011 Diversity Conference

Published on March 2, 2011 in Conference and Newsletter. 1 Comment

Please welcome Glenda MacNaughton as a plenary speaker for the 2011 Diversity Conference.

Glenda Mac Naughton has worked in the early childhood field for 40 years and is currently a Professorial Research Fellow in the Graduate School of Education, at the University of Melbourne where she was founding Director of the Centre for Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood. Her years in early childhood have included work across all sectors as a practitioner and a manager and she has been a senior policy advisor to government internationally and across Australia. Glenda has a passionate interest in social justice and equity issues in early childhood and has published widely nationally and internationally on these issues. Her two most recently published books focus on action research in early childhood and race and young children. Details of Glenda’s work and of the CEIEC can be found on the website for the CEIEC (www.education.unimelb.edu.au/ceiec).

For more information on our plenary speakers, please visit our website.

Announcing Carole Frampton as Plenary Speaker for 2011 Diversity Conference

Published on March 2, 2011 in Conference and Newsletter. 1 Comment

We are pleased to welcome Carole Frampton to the 2011 Diversity Conference as one of our plenary speakers.

Carole Frampton is a conflict resolution trainer and facilitator. Her first role was in South Africa at the Centre for Conflict Resolution where she worked for two years. She then joined Search for Common Ground, one of the pioneers in the field of conflict resolution and peacebuilding (www.sfcg.org). Search for Common Ground implements comprehensive programs to address social issues while strengthening society’s capacity to deal with conflicts constructively. Over nearly thirty years the organization has developed a wide range of innovative tools, including radio soap operas; tv series; training; community organizing; and interactive theatre. The intention is to help adversarial groups at every level of society better understand their differences and act on their commonalities. Working with local partners the organization operates in 17 countries including Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and the United States. Carole joined SFCG as the Director of their women’s project in Burundi, Central Africa. Significantly, she facilitated a transition to local leadership and thereafter moved to the organization’s Washington DC headquarters in 2002 where she developed their outreach and training programs. She joined the Senior Management team in 2007, as Director of Institutional Learning. In this role she helped develop and articulate the organization’s methodology and was responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of its work around the world. She promoted a culture of reflection and learning both within the organization and in the field. Carole recently stepped down to have more time for her family but continues to develop training manuals, facilitate meetings and represent the organization when needed. She has a BA in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and a Masters in Gender Studies; she was ordained as an inter-faith minister in 2009.

For more information about our plenary speakers, please visit our website.