Shared Values, Particular Values, and Education for a Multicultural Society

Abstract

At the political level, liberal democratic value allows for equal recognition of personal worth and dignity to which all individuals are entitled. This paper argues that within that framework, there are values which we all share (i.e. universal values) and values which are particular to ethnic groups (i.e. particular values). These latter values form the core elements of the culture of ethnic groups. Thus the pressing educational need, as seen by the paper, is to try to find a way to combine these two sets of values. Social harmony may well depend upon the integration of these two sets of values in the life of every individual. Education can play a key role in developing these values especially if it is informed by the principle of multicultural education as described here. Such an education would lay greater stress on cultural development rather than cultural maintenance. Such an education would not focus exclusively on shared values, however, since this would contravene the principle of equal recognition and consequently to do so would be to unjustly discriminate against individuals on the basis of their culture. The paper argues that cultural development would better take place in a school system that caters for all classes, races, sexes or cultures. Such a system should allow for a number of cultural options from which students can choose. A shared framework of values that overarch all groups could also result in a modification of the norms of all groups — both majority and minority groups. For this is what cultural development implies.

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