Confronting Intolerance: Critical, Responsive Literacy Instruction with Adult Immigrants captures the experience of adult immigrants who are improving their English literacy while confronting an intolerant political culture. It examines recent immigration policy and the anti-immigrant fervor that has gripped the United States and describes the perseverance and struggles of immigrant students to pursue their goals through literacy education.
In recent years, hate incidents, whether based on race, gender, sexual orientation, nation of origin, or any other perceived difference, have become increasingly common in schools. Students who aren't the victims of hate and intolerance are almost certain to witness it. This unstinting but ultimately optimistic book defines hate and intolerance, explores the reasons some people express hate toward others, and gives readers a blueprint for recognizing and deflecting hate with nonviolence and kindness. Ten questions for an expert, myths and facts about intolerance, and thought-provoking sidebars round out this timely volume.
In recent years, hate incidents, whether based on race, gender, sexual orientation, nation of origin, or any other perceived difference, have become increasingly common in schools. Students who aren't the victims of hate and intolerance are almost certain to witness it. This unstinting but ultimately optimistic book defines hate and intolerance, explores the reasons some people express hate toward others, and gives readers a blueprint for recognizing and deflecting hate with nonviolence and kindness. Ten questions for an expert, myths and facts about intolerance, and thought-provoking sidebars round out this timely volume.
What impulse prompted some newspapers to attribute the murder of 77 Norwegians to Islamic extremists, until it became evident that a right-wing Norwegian terrorist was the perpetrator? Why did Switzerland, a country of four minarets, vote to ban those structures? How did a proposed Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan ignite a fevered political debate across the United States? In The New Religious Intolerance, Martha C. Nussbaum surveys such developments and identifies the fear behind these reactions. Drawing inspiration from philosophy, history, and literature, she suggests a route past this limiting response and toward a more equitable, imaginative, and free society. Fear, Nussbaum writes, is "more narcissistic than other emotions." Legitimate anxieties become distorted and displaced, driving laws and policies biased against those different from us. Overcoming intolerance requires consistent application of universal principles of respect for conscience. Just as important, it requires greater understanding. Nussbaum challenges us to embrace freedom of religious observance for all, extending to others what we demand for ourselves. She encourages us to expand our capacity for empathetic imagination by cultivating our curiosity, seeking friendship across religious lines, and establishing a consistent ethic of decency and civility. With this greater understanding and respect, Nussbaum argues, we can rise above the politics of fear and toward a more open and inclusive future.
Intolerance is a complex issue, but readers are introduced to it in a way that leaves them feeling enlightened and not overwhelmed. Informative, accessible text presents a basic definition of intolerance as well as relatable examples that readers could see in their daily lives and on the news. The main text is enhanced by the use of fact boxes, graphic organizers, and eye-catching photographs. These engaging elements come together to give readers a clear picture of what intolerance is, who it affects, and how they can fight against it.
As the news shows us every day, contemporary American culture and politics are rife with people who demonize their enemies by projecting their own failings and flaws onto them. But this is no recent development. Rather, as John Corrigan argues here, it’s an expression of a trauma endemic to America’s history, particularly involving our long domestic record of religious conflict and violence. Religious Intolerance, America, and the World spans from Christian colonists’ intolerance of Native Americans and the role of religion in the new republic’s foreign-policy crises to Cold War witch hunts and the persecution complexes that entangle Christians and Muslims today. Corrigan reveals how US churches and institutions have continuously campaigned against intolerance overseas even as they’ve abetted or performed it at home. This selective condemnation of intolerance, he shows, created a legacy of foreign policy interventions promoting religious freedom and human rights that was not reflected within America’s own borders. This timely, captivating book forces America to confront its claims of exceptionalism based on religious liberty—and perhaps begin to break the grotesque cycle of projection and oppression.
Carson traces the subtle but enormous shift in the way we have come to understand tolerance over recent years--from defending the rights of those who hold different beliefs to affirming all beliefs as equally valid and correct. He looks back at the history of this shift and discusses its implications for culture today, especially its bearing on democracy, discussions about good and evil, and Christian truth claims. --from publisher description
In this work, Amos Guiora defines extremism through the lens of a comparative and empirical study in order to lay the foundations for a legal response that considers the tradeoffs that may be necessary to deal with it.
Confronting Intolerance: Critical, Responsive Literacy Instruction with Adult Immigrants captures the experience of adult immigrants who are improving their English literacy while confronting an intolerant political culture. It examines recent immigration policy and the anti-immigrant fervor that has gripped the United States and describes the perseverance and struggles of immigrant students to pursue their goals through literacy education. The book offers a powerful and vivid example of critical pedagogy blended with sociocultural perspectives of literacy education in an effort to raise student consciousness and alter the political culture. Confronting Intolerances is an ethnographic, teacher research narrative that describes a year in the life of the author's classroom with adult Latino immigrants, mostly Mexican, in a Chicago, Illinois (USA) settlement house. Specific focus is given to immigrant students' response to reading material that was selected to meet individual ambitions but was also selected to meet the concerns and anxieties that surfaced in response to the intolerant climate. The book describes students' engagement with narrative and informational reading and displays the students' evolving perspectives on politics, economics, culture, and race as these relate to Latino immigrants in the United States. Through extensive classroom dialogue and descriptions of students engaged in political activities, the book explores the students' emerging sense of what it means to become "American" amidst an immigrant backlash. It takes the reader through a year in a settlement house classroom, and reveals the hopes, dreams, and struggles of immigrants who continue to pursue America's promises-those realized and those broken.
