Opinion Piece: Education to Create Unity in Diversity in an Era of Populism

 Garima Talwar

The importance of education to create unity in diversity—a key pillar of SHEN’s work and the theme of Cloverleaf—needs to be contextualised in today’s social, political and economic dialogue.

One cannot go through the day and read or hear about what is happening around the world without reference to the word “populism”. The emergence of populist rhetoric and the rise of populist governments worldwide is shaping our social, political and economic reality. While there are a number of approaches to understanding what populism means, most simply, populism is rooted in a belief that society is divided by “the people” and the largely corrupt “elite”. Who “the people” and “the elite” are depends on context, and can vary along economic/income, ethnic, religious, and other identities.

While I have offered a very high-level and simplified understanding of populism, the main ethos driving populism is both real inequalities (e.g., income inequalities) and falsely-perceived differences and biases. Governments that thrive on divisive rhetoric and capitalize on falsehoods about the “other” turn select political promises into policy realities, and exacerbate the inequalities and divisions that have contributed to the rise of populism in itself.

This is where the rubber hits the road. The challenge for plural societies—ones that uphold the idea of unity in diversity, the importance of truth in public discourse, and the ability of education to bring people together—is developing coherent social and economic policies that reduces the divide between “the people” and “the elite”.

This is a tall task, and I do not pretend to know all of the answers. I can, however, offer some observations that could be useful in this debate.

For example, increasing concerns about housing affordability in Canada have dominated mainstream discourse. As the cost of housing has increased dramatically in recent years, the composition of communities has changed. Although much research in urban planning demonstrates that mixed-income neighbourhoods—ones that have homes for high, moderate, and low-income families and individuals—create the best social outcomes for cities, current trends are moving towards the opposite.

Neighbourhoods in large cities that were at one time more affordable are being gentrified. Large cities are increasingly becoming only for those that have high incomes, and those with moderate and lower incomes are pushed outside of the city. As the composition of communities becomes more and more populated with like people/families, these communities are becoming less diverse.

So, what does this economic and social trend have to do with education to create unity in diversity?

Reduced diversity in our communities mean that our schools become less diverse. Although students may learn about cultures and religions around the world, they may actually not ever meet someone from those backgrounds. The only interaction that they have with these cultures is what is taught theoretically through textbooks, or most frequently, through the media that they absorb. A pluralistic curriculum that espouses the importance of education in cultivating unity and diversity cannot effectively do so if the student population has a mono-culture.

In this one example, income and social inequalities are manifesting themselves through housing trends seen in Canada. Communities outside of cities are full of “the people” and cities are for the “elite”. Students then only ever get to know those that are from families that are like them, and do not get to know the “other”. The implications of macro-level income inequalities are experienced at the household/community level as the divisions between various communities become socially solidified—creating the conditions that are ripe for populist rhetoric to take-off.

As I said earlier in the piece, I do not pretend to know the answers to these complex problems. However, I do know that coherent social and economic policies are required not only to respond to some of the circumstances giving rise to populism, but also to create communities in which the fruits of an educational system that cultivates unity in diversity can effectively be realised.