Multicultural Variations

Contrary to mid-twentieth century predictions, ethnic pluralism has increased dramatically in North America and significantly in Europe. Neither the post 9/11 emphasis on international border security nor anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism movements have affected the fifty year trend of increasing labour mobility and sustained levels of migration. The ethnic pluralism accompanying this powerful trend has fueled academic research and public debate. Contributors report on and develop a conceptualization of ethnic social incorporation and multiculturalism in Canada, the United States, Germany, Greece, Bulgaria and Italy. This group of countries displays a remarkable variety of both ethnic diversity and public policy responses to ethnic social incorporation over the past four decades. It includes two countries (Canada and the United States) built upon very large-scale immigration over the course of more than a century, two countries (Greece and Italy) which until recently were characterized by large-scale emigration but now are grappling with immigration, one country (Bulgaria) that was until the 1990s insulated from extensive migration and faces a demographic slump, and one (Germany) that has experimented with isolating temporary populations but is now addressing the responsibilities of permanent immigration. Multicultural Variations includes national reports describing each of the six countries under investigation and is book-ended by introductory and concluding chapters that present a new understanding of and synthesis on multiculturalism that is distinct from either enthusiastic support or ideological critiques. Contributors include Mathias Bös (Philipps-Universität Marburg; Germany), Antonio Chiesi, (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy), Jason Edgerton (University of Manitoba, Canada), Barry Ferguson (University of Manitoba, Canada), Nikolai Genov (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany), Louis Hicks (St Mary's College of Maryland, USA), Paul Kingston (University of Virginia, USA), Laura Maratou-Alipranti (National Centre for Social Research, Athens, Greece), Lance W. Roberts (University of Manitoba, Canada), Sonia Stefanizzi (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy), and Susanne von Below (Johann Wolfgang Goethe- Universität Frankfurt, Germany),
Lance W. Roberts is professor of sociology at the University of Manitoba.

Barry Ferguson is professor of history at the University of Manitoba.

Mathias Bös is professor of sociology at the University of Marburg.

Susanne von Below is an official in the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany. How symbolic rather than institutionalized multiculturalism characterizes ethnic social incorporation for new groups experiencing the recognition of ethnic pluralism.
Each volume in this valuable reference series provides a comprehensive profile of social change in an industrialized national society during the period 1960 to 1990. The subjects examined range from kinship to computerization and from perceptions of the future to societal values.

The series is prepared by the International Research Group for the Comparative Charting of Social Change, an international body of scholars working in national teams. This collaborative effort aims at preparing a comprehensive, numerically grounded description of recent social trends in industrialized societies; identifying similarities and differences among these societies with respect to ongoing social trends and subjecting these similarities and differences to comparative analysis; developing a non-traditional model of social change to accommodate these data; and establishing benchmarks for future tracking of social change. All volumes in the series consist of seventy-eight trend reports grouped under seventeen main topics. Each of the reports has four sections: an abstract of findings, an explanatory text, a collection of statistical charts, and a bibliography of sources.

A firm grounding in fact i