Choice Reviews Online · 1993 · 403 citations · 0 references
Social SciencesMulticultural EducationPolitical ScienceEthnicity StudiesFeminist TheoryMinority RightsCultural IdentityEthnic GroupsEthnic IdentityEthnic MinoritiesMulticultural Education FoundationsMulticulturalismCultural Identity PolicyCultural Recognition PolicyEthnic Collective IdentityMultiple Group IdentitiesPolitical Controversy DiscourseRacial Recognition
The debate over multiculturalism centers on whether a democratic society can treat all members equally while recognizing distinct cultural identities, ensuring group survival, and granting political recognition essential to dignity. The book aims to provide a historically informed philosophical analysis of the stakes involved in demands for public recognition of group identities. Taylor’s insights serve as a foundation for subsequent commentaries linking recognition to multicultural education, feminism, and cultural separatism.
Can a democratic society treat all its members as equals and also recognize their specific cultural identities? Should it try to ensure the survival of specific cultural groups? Is political recognition of ethnicity or gender essential to a person's dignity? These are some of the questions at the heart of the political controversy over multiculturalism and recognition - a debate that has raged across academic departments, university campuses, ethnic and feminist associations, and governments throughout the world. In this book, Charles Taylor offers a historically informed, philosophical perspective on what is at stake in the demand made by many people for recognition of their particular group identities by public institutions. His thoughts serve as a point of departure for commentaries which further relate the demand for recognition to issues of multicultural education, feminism and cultural separatism.