Multiculturalism between Canada and Sweden. Social Sciences Essay

Multiculturalism between Canada and Sweden
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Multiculturalism between Canada and Sweden
The purpose of this paper is to compare the multiculturalism policies between Canada and Sweden. These two societies are multicultural in nature in the sense that two or more languages and religions are practised and the people live according to various traditions. However, view countries across the world can be labelled as multiculturalist societies. Multiculturalism is an indication that governments have positive attitudes towards cultural diversity in their societies. Moreover, it implies that governments strive to ensure that cultural practices and identities are maintained and there are efforts to support social equality regardless of the cultural backgrounds. Therefore, this paper focuses on the support from the Canadian and Swiss governments to support multiculturalism in there societies. However, as much as both countries are culturally diversified, the implemented policies to promote multiculturalism vary in both nations.
From the Multiculturalism Policy Index, the periods are divided into two and differences as well as similarities can be noticed across the eight categories. To begin with, the first category of affirmation of multiculturalism across the periods in both countries was accepted. Both governments must have realized the importance of allowing cultural diversity in their countries. Therefore, the landscape of the policy across the periods remains the same. The second category of allowing multiculturalism in school curriculum records a slight difference in the periods. In 1980 Sweden did not have any policy supporting multiculturalism in school curriculum but the landscape changed in 2000 and remained the same throughout to 2010. From the 1980s the policy remained the same throughout to 2010 in Canada. For the third category of multicultural inclusion in media, there have been significant changes to this policy since 1980. Both countries waited until the 90s to implement such policies and have not relented through the years. This implies that media representatives are allowed to present cultural activities from various backgrounds to the public.
The forth category “exemption of dress codes” is where incremental changes have been witnessed with Canada being the first country to implement such policies. Sweden waited until 2000 to implement a policy that allowed immigrants to dress according to their cultural practices (Tolley, 2011). However, in Canada, the policy was partially implemented since some p...