The Benefits Of Diversity To British Society And As To How Such A Essay

The Benefits Of Diversity To British Society And As To How Such A Diverse Society May Cause Its Own Tension And Conflict - Essay Example The migration of people into Britain including work permit holders in 2003 was 119000. When the increase in the population was 2.2 million, 1.14 million was from abroad. Birmingham, Bradford, Leicester and Oldham have Pakistanis and Indians. French, Portuguese, Greeks, Poles and Zimbabweans make up smaller proportions of the foreign- born. However when the second generation who are citizens are considered, the number just swells (Wood et al, 2006, p. 2). The debate on the diversity issue is an ongoing one. Originally the issues dwelled on how many people Britain could accommodate as new citizens. The conservative right viewed immigration as a threat to the national perspective (Banting and Will, 2004). Tensions are possible in 2 situations: the â€Å"heterogeneity/redistribution† tension and the recognition/ redistribution. In the first, social policies are difficult to implement because of the difficulty in eliciting trust and national solidarity among the ethnic groups or different races. Occasionally the multiculturalism policies increase the tension between diversity and social solidarity. Both reduce the support for redistribution. A British sociologist, T.H.Marshall, believed that citizenship must possess a feeling of community and have the feelings of trust, reciprocity or mutual obligation. The immigrants having been awarded many social benefits called social citizenship, developed a national consciousness (1950, p.8) . Social capital is hindered by ethnicity issues. Trusting one’s neighbours and getting involved in the social networks supports the capacity for collective action (Putnam, 2000). It is difficult to earn the trust of minorities when compared to the majority; trusting across racial differences is a challenge. However other factors like income, gender, age and social spending appear to score over ethnicity. The level of social spending in ethnic diversity depends on the amount of economic development, age distribution of the