The New Multiculturalism: Teaching for a Religiously Diverse World

Room: Grand Ballroom

A half-century ago, many scholars believed that modernity would stamp out religious belief. The events of the past two decades - from the heroic role that faith communities played in liberating South Africa to the horror of 9/11 – proved them wrong. Even amidst advances in science, technology and global economics, religion has endured. Moreover, communities that were once relatively homogenous now have remarkable religious diversity. Unfortunately, the loudest voices on faith in our world tend to belong to extremists of one stripe or another - people who would denounce those of other faiths, or faith period. If educators do not engage the terrain of religious devotion and religious diversity directly, we run the risk of forfeiting that territory to the extremists who dominate our headlines and our bestseller lists. In this keynote, Dr Eboo Patel will draw on his experience as Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, and on his years as an educator, to provide philosophical paradigms and pedagogical tools for educators to engage the issue of faith in their classrooms.


Eboo Patel, Founder and Executive Director, Interfaith Youth Core

Eboo PatelEboo Patel is the founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based international nonprofit working to build mutual respect and pluralism among religiously diverse young people by empowering them to work together to serve others. He is the author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation.

Mr Patel holds a doctorate in the Sociology of Religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. He serves as an online panelist for the On Faith blog, co-hosted by The Washington Post and Newsweek Magazine. He also serves on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation USA, the Advisory Board of Duke University's Islamic Studies Center, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He has written for The Chicago Tribune, The Journal of Muslim Law and Culture, The Harvard Divinity School Bulletin, and National Public Radio. He is a sought-after speaker, delivering the Keynote Speech at the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Forum and the Commencement Dress at Augsburg College in 2006. Mr Patel is an Ashoka Fellow, part of a select group of social entrepreneurs whose ideas are changing the world, and was featured in Islamica Magazine as one of the leading young Muslim visionaries in America.