Ethnocultural Groups In The 20th Century

Introduction

As we are living in the globalized world, there is no point in denying that nowadays the majority of population of developed countries consists of different ethnic groups. In each country and even in almost all regions of these countries two types of ethnic groups can be distinguished: dominant group, or the majority (for example, Russians in the Russian Federation), and various non-dominant groups, or the minority (e.g. Asian Americans or Latin Americans in the USA). Of course, people belonging to different ethnic groups interact with each other and, therefore, perceive each other in different ways. And here psychology is greatly involved, because in a place where different people communicate with each other, obviously, various

The aim of this policy in Canada consisted in breaking down discriminatory attitudes of dominant ethnic group toward non-dominant groups. It was supposed to be done by supporting ethnocultural communities in their wish to maintain their heritage cultures and, at the same time, by ensuring full participation in the larger society. The basic idea was that if people from non-dominant ethnic groups coming to, or living in, Canada got an opportunity to maintain links with their culture and simultaneously got an opportunity to participate in a larger society, both dominant and non-dominant groups would be at advantage. In other words, the fundamental goal of the policy implied enhancing mutual acceptance among all ethnocultural groups (Berry,

Another concept, relevant to the multiculturalism hypothesis, called Multicultural Ideology was measured as well. This concept assumes a point of view that “cultural diversity is good for a society and for its individual members, and such diversity should be shared and accommodated in an equitable way” (Berry, 2006). Research by J. Berry started more than 30 years ago in Canada and continued in 1995. Overall, the results of these two studies showed that Canadians, in majority, endorse multicultural ideology and, in general, have a positive view about the policy of multiculturalism (Berry, 2006). As far as the concept of security is concerned, correlations between cultural and economic security were calculated (+ .46), as well as correlations of the security scores with scores on attitudes (for example, the correlation of cultural security with multicultural ideology was + .52) (Berry, 2006). All these correlations were significant and moderate or even strong. Thus, the research in Canada supported the multiculturalism