"Cultural mosaic" (french: "la mosaïque culturelle") is the mix of
ethnic groups
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
,
languages, and
cultures
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
that coexist within society. The idea of a cultural mosaic is intended to suggest a form of
multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...
, different from other systems such as the
melting pot
The melting pot is a monocultural metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" with a common culture; an alternative being a homogeneous society becoming more heterogeneous throug ...
, which is often used to describe nations like the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
'
assimilation.
Overview
An ethnocultural profile of Canada prepared by
Statistics Canada
Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...
describes a nation that, at the outset of the 21st century, has become progressively more and more multi-ethnic and multicultural. The introduction to the report describes this in the following way:
Immigration to Canada
According to the 2021 Canadian census, immigrants in Canada number 8.3 million persons and make up approximately 23 percent of Canada's total population. This represents the eighth-largest immigrant population in the world, while the proport ...
over the past 100 years has shaped Canada, with each new wave of immigrants adding to the nation’s ethnic and cultural composition. Half a century ago, most immigrants came from Europe. Now most newcomers are from Asia. As a result, the number of visible minorities
A visible minority () is defined by the Government of Canada as "persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour". The term is used primarily as a demographic category by Statistics Canada, in connect ...
in Canada is growing. And, Canadians listed more than 200 ethnic groups in answering the 2001 Census question on ethnic ancestry, reflecting a varied, rich cultural mosaic as the nation started the new millennium.
In the 2016 Census, there were more than 250 ethnic groups in Canada.
Origin and use of the term
Victoria Hayward described the cultural changes of the
Canadian Prairies
The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie Provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provin ...
as a "mosaic" as early as the 1920s:
Another early use of the term ''mosaic'' to refer to Canadian society was by
John Murray Gibbon
John Murray Gibbon (12 April 1875 – 2 July 1952) was a Scottish-Canadian writer and cultural promoter.
He was born in Ceylon on 12 April 1875 the second son of William Duff Gibbon a tea planter and Katherine née Murray. Gibbon was educated at ...
, in his 1938 book ''
Canadian Mosaic
''Canadian Mosaic'' is a book by John Murray Gibbon, published in 1938. Gibbon's book, the full title of which is ''Canadian Mosaic: The Making of a Northern Nation'', heralded a new way of thinking about immigrants that was to shape Canadian imm ...
''. Gibbon clearly disapproved of the American melting-pot concept. He saw the melting pot as a process by which
immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
and their descendants were encouraged to cut off ties with their countries and cultures of origin so as to assimilate into the American way of life.
[Valee, F]
Vertical Mosaic
The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Dominion. Retrieved on: 2011-09-22.
In 1965,
John Porter John Porter may refer to:
Politicians
* John Porter (portreeve), 1390–94, Member of Parliament (MP) for Taunton
* John Porter (Illinois politician) (1935–2022), Illinois politician, U.S. Representative
* John Porter (MP for Bramber) (died 1599 ...
published his influential sociological study, ''The Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada''. The study examined equality of opportunity and the exercise of power by bureaucratic, economic and political elites in Canada, with Porter arguing that "not unlike other western industrial nations", Canada relied "on its elite groups to make major decisions and to determine the shape and direction of its development." In the work, Porter also argues that certain ethnic groups tended to fare better than others in regards to measures of income, education and health than others, and as such classified them as "elite groups", who tended to be overrepresented among Canada's
elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...
s in
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
,
economic
An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...
and
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
spheres.
[
Porter’s findings have been tested in several studies since 1965 and have been modified slightly. For example, the economic disparity between ethnic groups has narrowed somewhat and ]Francophones
French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the la ...
are better represented in politics and government. However, the socio-economic
Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...
elites in Canada remain dominated by people of British origin.[
]
Influence on multiculturalism policy
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Canada has been one of the world's major immigrant-receiving societies. Until the 1960s immigrants were expected to assimilate into the mainstream society. Arriving as it did during a time of social upheaval, Porter's work had a marked influence on Canadian social policy
Social policy is a plan or action of government or institutional agencies which aim to improve or reform society.
Some professionals and universities consider social policy a subset of public policy, while other practitioners characterize soci ...
. The view of Canada as a mosaic of cultures became the basis for the Trudeau government's multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...
policies in the early 1970s.
The Canadian government established the Official Multiculturalism Act
The ''Canadian Multiculturalism Act'' (french: Loi sur le multiculturalisme canadien) is a law of Canada, passed in 1988, that aims to preserve and enhance cultural diversity, i.e. multiculturalism, in Canada.
Background
On 8 October 1971, Pr ...
in 1971 and appointed a minister responsible for multiculturalism in 1972. In 1973, a Canadian Multiculturalism Council was established, along with a Multiculturalism Branch within the Department of the Secretary of State.
Criticism
The "cultural mosaic" theory is not without critics. Some pundits, such as ''The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
''s Jeffrey Simpson
Jeffrey Carl Simpson, OC (born February 17, 1949), is a Canadian journalist. Simpson was ''The Globe and Mails national affairs columnist for almost three decades. He has won all three of Canada's leading literary prizes—the Governor Genera ...
and Carleton University
Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning World ...
journalism professor Andrew Cohen, have argued that the entire melting pot/mosaic dynamic is largely an imagined concept and that there remains little measurable evidence that American or Canadian immigrants as collective groups can be proven to be more or less "assimilated" or "multicultural" than each other.[Gardner, D. (September 24, 2008)]
"We're often more like Americans than we're like other Canadians."
Canwest.com ''Ottawa Citizen.'' Retrieved on: 2009-11-20.
See also
*Multiculturalism in Canada
Multiculturalism in Canada was officially adopted by the government during the 1970s and 1980s. The Canadian federal government has been described as the instigator of multiculturalism as an ideology because of its public emphasis on the social im ...
*Multicultural media in Canada Multicultural media in Canada, also referred to as “ ethnic media” or “third media” (as it may use languages other than Canada's two official languages, French and English), is media that responds to the needs of ethnic minorities of Canada ...
*Multiculturalism in Australia
Multiculturalism in Australia is today reflected by the multicultural composition of its people, its immigration policies, its prohibition on discrimination, equality before the law of all persons, as well as various cultural policies which pro ...
*Salad bowl A salad bowl is a serving dish for salad. It can also refer to:
* Salad bowl (cultural idea), a cultural idea referring to the United States
* Salad Bowl (game), a defunct, annual, post-season college football bowl game
* Salad Bowl strike, a seri ...
References
Further reading
*
*Gibbon, J. 1938. ''The Canadian Mosaic'', McClelland & Stewart Limited, Toronto.
*Porter, J. 1965. ''The Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada''. University of Toronto Press.
External links
Statistics Canada ''Canada’s ethnocultural portrait: The changing mosaic''
"Vertical Mosaic" ''The Canadian Encyclopedia online''
Multicultural Canada
{{Multiculturalism in Canada navbox
*
Canadian political phrases
Multiculturalism in Canada
Metaphors referring to objects