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Contact: Bruce Conley
Associate Director of College Relations
Phone: (605) 274-5526
Fax: (605) 274-4903
www.augie.edu
March 22, 2007
Professor to Present Paper at Oxford
SIOUX FALLS - Dr. William Swart, associate professor of sociology at Augustana, will present a paper at Oxford University during the Oxford Round Table March 25-30 at Harris Manchester College in Oxford, England.
The title of Swart’s presentation is Strategies for Multicultural Policycraft: Cultural Pluralism and Policy Formation among US Native Americans.
The paper explores strategies for effective policymaking in multicultural settings through an analysis of policy formation among US Native Americans. Policymaking among Native Americans has historically been assimilationist, where cultural differences were ignored and Native people were expected to conform to the US cultural mainstream.
In his paper, Swart develops the concept of “multicultural policycraft” to refer to a policy formation process that affirms cultural diversity. Multicultural policycraft seeks to strike a balance between the diverse and the dominant, in this case by creating social policy that will be effective within mainstream US social institutions and simultaneously respect the cultural differences of Native Americans.
The purpose of the Oxford Round Table is to promote human advancement and understanding through the improvement of education. To this end, the Oxford Round Table provides a forum for the study and consideration of current issues facing state and national systems of education. The Round Table meets periodically and each session is comprised of a small select group of leaders from both the public and private sectors of several countries.
Invitations are sent to selected persons throughout the country. These individuals are identified through several screening processes: by nomination of previous participants in the Round Table; from recommendations to the Round Table directors who, also, are actively involved in higher education and public school leadership; from recognized presentations and awards of state and national organizations; and, to individuals in a successful university or school district. The foundation of the success of the Round Table is the assurance that this learning community will be composed of outstanding educational leaders.
Swart, who earned his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas, has been teaching at Augustana since 1997. This spring he is teaching a class on Native American Social Systems.