Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | Can multiculturalism work? Can people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds liveside by side peacefully and, even better, enrich each other? There are two ways socialscientists can deal with this question. The first one, which I would label as “macro”, focuseson statistics and opinion surveys. A macro approach would, for instance, analyze the effectsof an increase in religious and ethnic diversity on social indicators such as trust inneighbors, civic engagement or political participation (Bloemraad: 2006; Kesler &Bloemraad: 2010; Heath & Demireva: 2014). The second one, which I would label as“micro”, focuses on the skills citizens need for a better management of cultural diversity(Ruben: 1976; Bennett: 1986; Hammer et. al.: 2003; Walton et. al.: 2013). This paper fallsinto the second category and will provide support for two claims: (1) training forintercultural communication should focus first and foremost on empathy; (2) ancientrhetorical exercises offer an effective way to develop empathy.To support the first claim, it will be argued that for a multicultural society to be peaceful,citizens need to be willing and able to use empathy when interacting with their fellowcitizens of different religious, ethnic or ideological background (section I). A method todevelop empathy using rhetorical exercises will then be described (section II)[1]. Finally, Ipresent the results of an experiment to test its effectiveness with secondary school teachers(section III). |
