ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with an overview of what may be called the 'crisis of difference', globally and specifically within Europe and the UK. Although not everyone agrees, the idea that religious and cultural diversity constitutes a problem which must be resolved now figures prominently in the politics of most Western countries. Although 'culture' and 'religion' as such did not figure prominently in the diversity discourse of the 1960s and 1970s, their significance emerged strongly in the 1980s and 1990s. An important landmark was the Swann Report of 1985 on mother tongue and bilingual education. Parekh was, however, but one of many reports, consultations and commissions of inquiry that have sought to address the situation of minorities in Britain over the last fifty years, and increasingly in the last twenty years. Although narratives changed, one seemingly ever-present theme in recent years has been that of 'Britishness' and 'British Values', though these signalled in Parekh and in later developments was somewhat different.
