ABSTRACT
Although issues of gender and ethnicity now tend to be integrated into American texts and training across the professions, today’s professionals will be practicing in settings, and a world, in which understanding issues of global culture will be the new necessity. For example, students in the public schools in my hometown of West Hartford, Connecticut, come from homes in which 65 languages are spoken. No professional can hope to come to a deep understanding of dozens of cultures, but this chapter frames specific examples of moral development research and issues within an overarching frame of core moral values that can help the practitioner make sense of the multitude of cultural variations she or he will face in practice. Let’s begin our exploration of global perspective with a moral dilemma we often discuss in my moral development classes. Dilemma of the Day
You may be aware that in 2004, in the wake of rioting by Muslim youths and growing European Islamophobia, France passed a law banning any conspicuous religious dress or apparel in public schools and universities. Although the law also covered items such as large crosses and Jewish skullcaps, it was clear that the real aim was to ban Muslim headscarves and coverings. France has long practiced a brand of secularism that removes religion from the public sphere. While endorsing freedom of worship, the state also expects immigrants to embrace common public values of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Many Muslims protested: The state, they insisted, should not tell young women how to dress. In the meantime, stories of girls forced to wear scarves by tradition-minded fathers abounded. When lawmakers tugged at those scarves, they found underneath not just Muslims demanding the freedom of religious expression, but also barbed questions about citizenship. Does a girl’s right to an education belong to her parents? Or to her 75as a future adult, a citizen whose education should enhance her ability to choose her own life?
(Cohen, 2007)What do you think? Should the right of a state to promote its core values, maintain public order, and protect the rights of others, justifications offered by the French government (Boustead, 2007), override the rights of public school students to wear religious clothing?
How about the 2011 French law that bans covering your face in public (e.g., with a full-faced veil or niqua, a burqa, or a ski mask)? Again, the French government cited the need to protect the public. Might such laws be necessary for security in a world increasingly using surveillance cameras to monitor crime and possible terrorist activity? Would you feel safe if people who covered their faces with black ski masks walked around your campus? (People from Minnesota are excused from answering this question—having lived through seven Minnesota winters, I can attest to the need to take extreme measures when the temperature drops to negative numbers.)
