Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Diversity in Europe: An Overview of Issues and Trends

This chapter considers developments surrounding ‘Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Diversity’ in Europe in recent years. It has three purposes: (1) to elaborate on the rise of the concepts of diversity and multiculturalism as they have emerged in the academic world and engaged public debate and policy development; (2) to give an overview of the academic literature concerning two key forms of diversity, namely religious and linguistic diversity, and (3) to analyse the recent critical debates on the concepts of multiculturalism and diversity in various national contexts. It is intended to be indicative of the major trends and topics, but does not claim to be exhaustive to the issues or literature. Diversity and multiculturalism The rise of diversity issues Alongside the growth of immigrant communities in Europe (as well as in Australia, the USA and Canada) from the 1960s there emerged a growing rejection of policies and public pressure calling for immigrant and ethnic minority assimilation – usually conceived as an expectation that migrants would discard their values and practices and adopt those of the majority society. In various countries and contexts this rejection found voice among politicians, academics and proponents of a broad civic rights movement. Significantly, the rejection of assimilationism was high on the agenda of nascent immigrant and ethnic minority movements and organisations themselves. This arose especially when, in the 1970s, family reunification and strategies toward long-term settlement came to change the nature of what had been previously thought of as mainly temporary, single male immigrant populations. From the 1960s through the 1970s much public discourse in immigrant- receiving societies highlighted notions of tolerance, representation, participation and group/cultural/minority rights – including the freedom to congregate, worship, speak one's own language and engage in other cultural institutions and practices. Campaigns to promote such notions within policy, governance and public awareness came to be described as an emergent ‘politics of identity’ or ‘politics of recognition’, regarded by many advocates as a necessary counterpart to anti-racism and anti-discrimination. By the 1980s, many of these concerns around immigrants (now settled and considered ethnic minorities in many countries) and the growing cultural, linguistic and religious diversity they brought to receiving societies led to public measures that were subsumed under the broad rubric of ‘multiculturalism’.

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