DIVERSITY IN BRITISH SOCIETY

Diversity in British Society

DIVERSITY IN BRITISH SOCIETY

The world has become a global village these days and the evidence to support this idea is the multi-cultural environment in many parts of the country. Countries like Britain, USA, Canada and Australia are top destinations these days for people to immigrate in these countries. Britain has one of the largest multicultural societies in their country. There are lots of immigrants settled in the country and even more people are planning to immigrate in the future. There are vast amount of ethnic societies such as Asians, Arabs, Africans and Whites that belong to various religions such as Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism which brings lots of diversity in the country. Therefore, UK has become a melting pot for various communities of the world. (Featherstone 1990, pp.89)

The various institutions in Britain particularly in the urban areas are undergoing lots of changes due to the growing emigration, immigration, international mobility and globalization. The emerging multi-ethnic colleges and universities will continue to be a certain objective in countries like Britain in the backdrop of international socio-eco-political developments. However, it's not easy to manage numerous and diverse ethnicities and it is emerging one of the serious issues for the society. (Robertson 1992, pp.41)

Diversity and difference in the contemporary British society can be considered as strength for the community's integration and cohesion because of the various aspects which will be explained in the following paragraphs. It's important to mention some of the influential ethnic factors such as the religion that forms an integral part of the multi-ethnic society. However, acknowledgment of religion as a factor of influence for the construction of an individual's identity has not been explored completely in UK, but local people have started to work on this issue. Most of the people in UK felt that priorities are given more to ethnic and racial groups rather than religious groups. Normally, in UK people avoid the issue of religion because there were certain events in the past like 9/11 and July 2005 bombings. These incidents created a temporary negative impact in the minds of people against Muslims but soon all things became normal like before. (King 1991, 131)

However, the interaction of various religious groups can remove all the bias against each other which is in fact happening in UK. The role of media is even vital for the integration of society. In the past, the local media has played a vital role in spreading and perpetuating the atmosphere of mistrust and resentment among the masses. The generalizations from the various sections of the media, or elsewhere, has increased the level of misunderstandings and ambiguities which affected the normal lives of the people like teachers, students, bankers, doctors etc that was not a positive thing for the diverse environment in Britain. The acts of stereotyping and misleading assumptions create a negative impact negatively on the youth that tries to adjust itself in the multi-cultural ...