Ethnic Diversity in Britain - Курсовая работа

Курсовая работа Ethnic Diversity in Britain Гомель 2007 Introduction The aim of this work is to find more facts about the country concerned, to work with further sources in order to learn deeper information about the population of Great Britain, to show the contemporary information of today’s population of Great Britain. The work is divided in three chapters. The first «U.K. Ethnic Groups» includes information about the ethnic population of the Great Britain. It is also the biggest part. According to the size of the chapter it is seen that the highest degree of attention is given to this one. It is so because this chapter contains the most important and full information about ethnic groups in the U.K. The chapter is divided in five parts according to the region. Each part contains particular information about the population in this very region and figures reflecting the numbers of minorities. Also it is important to give information about the native inhabitants of Great Britain. The second chapter shows information about the population of Great Britain in general. It contains some separated parts. The fourth part includes the detailed data of the variety of the communities, the people, the origins and way of life. The information of the third chapter is the most up-to-date. It reflects the modern situation of the population. It shows the main problems of today’s Britain, such as overpopulation, and gives some reasons for that. For millions of people all over the world, Britain is the land of tradition, the Royal Family, Beefeaters, Bobbies on the beat and, above all, white people. In much of middle America, it comes as a shock for them to hear that there any black people in Britain at all. But even if people can get their head around the idea that an Afro-American might be British, the notion that he could be an MP often perplexes them. An MP Surely, one can see their eyes say, a British MP must be white. There are many lifetimes of war, conquest, history, literature, culture and myth behind the idea that Britain is a racially pure society. And in the study of history, myth is just as important as reality. But the racial purity of the British has always been a myth. From the days when the Norman French invaded Anglo-Saxon Britain, the British have been a culturally diverse nation. But because the different nationalities shared a common skin colour, it was possible to ignore the racial diversity, which always existed in the British Isles. And even if one takes race to mean what it is often commonly meant to imply - skin colour - there have been black people in Britain for centuries. The earliest blacks in Britain were probably black Roman centurions that came over hundreds of years before Christ. But even in Elizabethan times, there were numbers of blacks in Britain. So much so that Elizabeth I issued a proclamation complaining about them. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century, black people make fleeting appearances in the political and cultural narrative of the British Isles. Black people can be seen as servants in the prints of Hogarth. In Thackerays «Vanity Fair», Ms Schwartz, the West Indian heiress is obviously supposed to be of mixed race. She is gently mocked but her colour is not otherwise remarked on. Britain has always been a multi-racial society. What is new is the visibility of its racial diversity. And what is newer still is a willingness to accept that all the races can have parity of esteem. For a long time, even when it was acknowledged that there were people of different racial origin within the British Isles, there was an assumption that the white race and culture was, and should, be dominant. Racial stereotyping echoes through British literature and culture almost to the present day. And for some time, assumptions of racial inferiority coloured mainstream British perception of non-white culture and art. The Notting Hill Street Carnival is the biggest street festival and a miracle of creativity with costumes that take months to sew and wonderful music and dance. But it is only recently that mainstream press has reported it as anything other than a law and order issue. However, in recent years, people have begun to acknowledge the presence of non-white people in Britain in a positive way. And even to talk about Britain as a multi-racial Society. Although there are some people who would resist this description and pretend Britains continuing ethnic diversity doesnt exit and insist on Britain being described as a European or white country. But although the phrase multi-racial society is used quite frequently, a genuinely multi-racial society with genuine parity of esteem is quite difficult to achieve. The Caribbean is often cited as a part of the world where you can find multi-racialism in action. The national motto of Jamaica for instance is «Out of Many, One People». However, it is noticeable that even in these supposed bastions of harmonious multi-racialism, tensions have arisen