This book tackles the role education can play in dealing productively and peacefully with the challenges of the localization as well as the globalization of difference. The authors focus on how the politics of difference influences and is influenced by educational programs and provisions in Canada and, possibly, elsewhere in the world. They also discuss how different theories of knowledge define and represent new and established notions and practices of schooling and social development.
Important factors, such as social class, race, and gender, are explored in the authors' investigation of the politics of difference in spaces of public schooling. Ghosh and Abdi contend that despite the rhetoric of official multiculturalism, and multicultural education, the realities on the ground still depict a Canadian public space in which cultural minorities and the peoples of First Nations continue to be, relatively speaking, marginalized. The authors conclude that with the continuities of the Euro-centred focus, these policies and their possible praxes have not hitherto achieved the desired goals of true multiculturalism.
Dr. Ratna Ghosh is James McGill Professor and William C. MacDonald Professor of Education at McGill University in Montreal, where she was formerly Dean of Education. She was appointed Member of the Order of Canada in 2000, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1999. She is also a Member of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities. Her previous books include Redefining Multicultural Education and Social Change and Education in Canada. Dr. Ali A. Abdi received his PhD from McGill University in 1998, and is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He is also the author of Culture, Education and Development in South Africa: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.
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