Themes

Themes

Theme 1: Dimensions of Diversity

• Defining the dimensions of difference — ethnicity, gender, race, socio-economic, indigenous, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability.
• Locating diversity — individuals, groups, intersections, identity layers, notions of place.
• Intersections of difference and points of intensity.
• Identifying the dynamics of diversity — exclusion or inclusion,assimilation or pluralism.
• Localism, nationalism and globalism.
• Inequalities: causes, effects and remedies.
• Social Justice: economics, education and providing access to all.
• Diversity and homogeneity in theory and practice.
• The limits of diversity.
• ‘Political correctness’ and its critics.
• Marginalisation: its causes, processes and consequences.
• Moving beyond the ‘-isms’: racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, nationalism, capitalism, socialism and communism.
• Cultural history, oral history and cultural ‘renaissance’: challenges and dilemmas.
• Democracy and diversity: questions of representation and voice.
• Between faith and state: religious freedom, intolerance or suppression.
• Marriage: civil right or religious institution?
• Globalising medicine: education, research, knowledge, socioeconomic factors, genetics, environmental factors, bio-ethics.

Theme 2: Governing Diversity — Community in a Globalising World

• Responding to global human movement and its consequences — immigration, asylum seekers, refugees, diasporic communities and settlement.
• Defining and assuring access to basic human rights: housing, medicine,immigration, food, water.
• Responding to racism — its representation, causes, effects and remedies.
• ‘The Struggle’: civil rights movements and human rights abuses.
• Developing a public service for a diverse community — towards a civic pluralism.
• ‘Mainstreaming’ versus services based on unique cultural identities.
• First nations and indigenous peoples — strategies for community development.
• The politics of community leadership — challenges for local government.
• Truth and reconciliation — examining the past for the sake of the future.
• The globalisation of human rights and local sovereignty.
• Environmental justice.

Theme 3: Representing Diversity — The Influences of Global Tourism and the Global Media

• The ‘other country’: tourism, culture and difference.
• Cultural tourism and its consequences.
• Levels of intervention: the nature of ecotourism.
• Media representations of diversity and globalisation.
• Representing the terror wars.
• Non-English media: from Al Jazeera to Zee TV.
• The media monoliths: from Hollywood to Bollywood.
• Local media, community media, national media, transnational media.
• Indigenous (and non-indigenous) representations of the Indigenous.

Theme 4: Learning Diversity — Education in a World of Difference

• The civil right to education.
• Multicultural, cross-cultural, international and global education.
• Identity, belonging and the cultural conditions of learning.
• Diversities in the classroom: cultural, gender, (dis)ability.
• Education for first nations or indigenous peoples.
• Education across cultural worldviews.
• ‘Mainstream’ and ‘minority’ learning: redefining the terms.
• Languages learning: ‘foreign’, ESL, bilingual, multilingual, global.
• Civil Rights and education.
• Education of women.

Theme 5: Working Diversity — Managing the Culture of Diversity

• Managing diversity — what does it mean to talk about ‘productive diversity’?
• Managing and developing a diverse human-resource base.
• Diversity measures — the future of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action.
• Beyond legislative and regulatory compliance — disability, harassment,discrimination.
• Mediation — cultural assumptions and practical outcomes.
• Developing multicultural policies and practices.
• Who manages culture? Celebrating differences while maintaining identity.
• Levelling the playing field: global economics, fair trade,outsourcing, equal opportunity, and coping with global markets.