Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; List of figures; List of tables; List of contributors; Foreword; Preface: the benefit of analysing national public commissions on diversity for research and policy making ; Acknowledgements; Introduction: national commissions on diversity: when reflective processes happen in parallel within several nation-states; Purpose and nature of the various diversity commissions discussed; What is a commission?; A hazardous exercise; Britain, France, Quebec and Belgium: other comparative conclusions; Layout of the book; PART I Britain, France, Quebec and Belgium.
1 National commissions on collective identity and diversity: Britain, France, Quebec and BelgiumComparable societies?; National models: between unity and diversity; Various approaches to issues of religion; Conclusion: similarities and differences; 2 'Stories are the secret reservoirs of values': personal recollections of two commissions in the United Kingdom; The Future of Multi-ethnic Britain, 2000; Report on religion and belief, 2015; Learning points; Concluding note; 3 Assumptions of power subverted: media and emotions in the wake of the Parekh Report; On becoming intellectual.
Complex, multiple receptionsReceptions of the recommendations: partial?; Omissions and silences; Conclusion; 7 Debating intercultural integration in Belgium: from the Commission for Intercultural Dialogue to the Round Tables on Interculturalism; Introduction; The Commission for Intercultural Dialogue (CID); The Round Tables on Interculturalism (RTI); Conclusion; PART II Comparative and theoretical perspectives; 8 The commissions: caught between media simplifications and political interests; Booby traps: the media, minorities and religions; The commissions in the media cyclone.
Media reactions to the Parekh ReportThe ambivalent identity of the report; Elites and vulnerability; Conclusion; 4 From Stasi (2003) to the Machelon Commission (2006): the use of commissions in religious regulation in France; The three main roles of a commission; The decision to create commissions; The working methodologies of the commissions; The Stasi versus the Machelon Commission: laïcité versus freedom of religion; The posterity of the reports; Conclusion; 5 The outcome of the Stasi Report in France: much ado about nothing?; Introduction: the neglected recommendations.
The Stasi Commission's hallmark: a strong laïcitéTwo implemented recommendations; Implementing the legal principle of laïcité; After the Stasi Report; The actors of laïcité; Conclusion; 6 The Bouchard-Taylor Commission in Quebec and reasonable accommodations: collective creation and multilevel reception; Moving the legal debate over reasonable accommodation to political and identity issues; Tensions between the commission, media and political arena; Contents of the report: open secularism and interculturalism; Genesis of the report in the previous work of the co-chairs and experts.