Examine the Claim That Britishness Is Defined by Shared Values

10. Explain and give examples of how an individual can identify themselves as belonging to a number of different groups.

Stuart Hall defines identity as an ‘already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent’. We should think instead of ‘identity as a ‘production’ which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation’ (Hall 1994 p.392). An individual’s sense of belonging to a particular group, thinking, feelings and behaviour can also be referred to as identity. One’s cultural image can construct identity; such features as hair, skin tone and height. History shapes our identity.

Present day Australia is met with the issue of outlining a sense of a nationwide community, after the breakdown of the British race patriot idea in the mid-1960s with the introduction of multiculturalism. The Euro-centric perception of Australia was annulled and it was incapable in playing a significant part in Australian policies and priorities. It triggered a calamity of national identity and meaning. The credence that Australian’s were apart of Britain, united by history, tradition and blood needed to be revised. A people who had recognized themselves so strongly with the British race now had to accede their race awareness and apprehend the notion of being a now multicultural society. The dawn of multiculturalism also provoked a quandary for balancing a respect of the British heritage with the abating relevance of the British connection and to construct a new language of community from the residues of the old British ways.

Explain how individuals identify themselves as belonging to a number of different groups. Give 3 examples:

Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.

The world has become modern and global. Identification of the self is a complicated, though, an important problem of every individual. Self- identity is based on inner values and reflections on culture, politics and social interactions. The main point is that people label themselves to any particular group in the society (Worchel etc., 1998). According to Ferguson: “Identity commonly refers to which it makes, or is thought to make

Each of my identities contributed to how I view myself today. My culture and personal experiences have had a lasting impact. I view myself as a sensitive, devoted, compassionate, thoughtful, professional, caring, patient, shy, and independent woman. My current socioeconomic status is middle class however as a young child my socioeconomic status was low income. My mother was a single parent with four children. My mother Maria was unable to further her education since she had to work to help support her family. As she became an adult and had her own family she decided to migrate to the United Stated when I was 7 years old. She wanted a different life style

Britain lives in a diverse, multi-cultural society, and so to ensure smooth functionality, we need to ensure that all different groups are able to coincide with one another so society is able to maintain it’s stability.

In June 2014, the secretary of state for education, confirmed that schools would be required to promote British values from September 2014.

Multiculturalism has split our society. Political correctness is stifling free speech”, states the Ukip manifesto. Their “Pocket Guide to Immigration” promises to “end support for multiculturalism and promote one, common British culture”. After attracting some negative publicity, it has disappeared.

Previous research on natives’ attitudes towards immigrants and ethnic minorities in the UK has focused primarily on feelings of threat or prejudice and the structure of the population at the local level in terms of ethnicity (Dustmann and Preston, 2001; Bowyer, 2009). In the UK, the trade expansion after the Second World War and its successive need for low-skilled labour contributed to a large inflow of immigration, mostly from Asia and the Caribbean, into an otherwise ethnically similar country (Dustmann and Frattini, 2013).

The challenges of identity in the English-speaking world are many. Depending on what country someone is raised in, the belief and culture will be different. There is a lot of migration caused by war and terror. The people who run from war are mostly from the Mid-East, and they usually end up in Western countries where there are completely different cultures. There is a lot of discussion around the topic of immigration. There are always questions as to what way a country should approach the immigrant situation, and if it is safe to have two completely different cultures living side by side. Many people, especially in Britain, means that all immigrants should assimilate as quickly as possible.

National identity is the transmission of each generation’s legacy to the next and the enabling of the nation citizen to take pride and identification of the country (Stephan, 2009). A nation positive unique identity breeds patriotism which consequently

Migrants are defined as all those who were born outside the UK and were known as ‘aliens’ or ‘foreigners’. Kostakopoulou calls this assumption into question, arguing that ‘aliens’ are by definition outside the bounds of the community by virtue of a circular reasoning which takes for granted the existence of bounded national communities, and that this which takes for granted the existence of bounded national communities, and that this process of collective self-definition is deeply political and historically dated. The composition of the current UK migrant population has of course been conditioned by immigration policy over the past 50 years. Immigration has become a major debate across the UK, with many different reasons given for and

As the majority of people have different definitions of the word multiculturalism as well as different views on the cultural and political impacts, I will put forward the different views throughout the chosen texts. As stated in the text ‘The successes and failures of multiculturalism’, the author defines the idea of multiculturalism as “the essence of multiculturalism is the idea that, if one makes immigrants feel welcome by allowing them to retain their culture and by seeking to address discrimination against them.” (Manning, A. 2011, page 1) This text argues that the apprehension about multiculturalism is interconnected to the conviction that in the United Kingdom, not all the minority groups that are living here consider themselves to be British, due to their ethnicity. In the table showing the Percentages Reporting a British National Identity by Ethnicity, on the second page of the ‘The successes and failures of multiculturalism’ text written by Alan Manning in 2011, it is shown that each different ethnic minority group have certain percentage of their population living in the United Kingdom that consider themselves to be British nationals, whether they were born in the United Kingdom, or abroad. Though the percentages diverge between each minority group, there are still a large number of people that consider themselves as British Nationals (Manning,