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A strong current in contemporary Catholic thought -- the theology of interreligious or interfaith dialogue -- stresses the importance of dialogue and collaboration with followers of other world faiths. This article proposes that religious education in Catholic schools, particularly at post-primary level, needs to engage more with this theological resource in order to promote mutual understanding and collaboration in today's climate of growing cultural and religious pluralism in Western Europe. Such work, it is also argued, is particularly challenging and urgent given the reality of the limited and limiting approaches to religious education, especially in regards to Islam, currently found in state schools in England and France. The paper proposes the development of models of religious education predicated on valuable theological insights inherent in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and subsequent post-conciliar and theological reflection. It begins with some comments on Western Europe's changing social, cultural and religious circumstances.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Russia experienced a considerable lack of teachers. In this situation, foreign migrants became Russia's preferred teachers for more than a century. Foreigners were particularly welcome to teach languages and a whole range of other subjects such as history, geography, and mathematics. All teaching was done in a foreign language. Foreigners became important actors in cultural transfers from Western Europe to Russia. Social elites (the nobility, particularly its upper strata) became the main clients of these foreign teachers. This process ended up producing several generations of aristocracy possessing a sort of hybrid culture, both Russian and Western-European with a particular predominance of French culture starting from the generation of the middle of the eighteenth century. In my paper I will first analyse the national composition of the teaching staff in some major Russian educational institutions, first and foremost the institutions for the nobility or in which noble students were present, and in private education; then I will give a brief overview of the geographical origin of the students in these institutions. I will finally analyse the positive aspects as well as the problems caused by this situation and will show what reactions the predominance of foreign teaching staff in Russia provoked in Russian society.

Background: Migrants account for 35% of HIV diagnoses in the European Union (ECDC/WHO 2014). Little is known about the impact of such a lifelong infection diagnosis on lives that are already disrupted by migration. In this paper, we assess the impact of HIV diagnosis on activity, union, well-being among African migrants living in France, the second group most affected by HIV after MSM. We compare it with the impact of the diagnosis of Hepatitis B, another lifelong infection affecting African migrants. Methods: We use the ANRS PARCOURS survey, a retrospective life-event survey led in 2012–2013 in 74 health structures in Paris greater area which collected 926 life histories of Sub-Saharan migrants living with HIV and 779 with Hepatitis B. We modelled the probability year by year since 18 years of age until data collection to lose one’s activity, to experience a conjugal break up and degradation of well-being and we estimated the impact of migration and of HIV and Hepatitis B diagnoses on these probabilities, after adjustment on other factors, thanks to discrete-time logistic regressions. Results: Migration entailed loss of activity and conjugal break up, though HIV diagnosis after migration did not statistically impact on these outcomes. Yet HIV diagnosis had a massive negative impact on well-being (aOR = 11.31 [4.64–27.56] for men and 5.75 [2.79–11.86] for women). This negative impact on well-being tended to diminish for persons diagnosed after 2004. The negative impact of HIV diagnosis on African migrants’ well-being seems to be attenuated in the last decade, which hints at a normalization of the subjective experience of HIV diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the massive riots of the immigrants in French city suburbs in the autumn of 2005. First, the authors give an account of the immigrants' social position and the violent behaviour of these young and marginal groups as identified by eminent sociologists and other experts. On this they build their hypothesis that the revolt of the second-generation young immigrants is an autochthonous French, European and Western revolt. It should not be viewed as a manifestation of some Huntingtonian clash of civilizations i.e. a political and cultural contest between Islam and the West. The authors prove this hypothesis by analyzing various manifestations and social underpinnings of the French riots. The causes of the riots are primarily the marginalization of the second-generation Arab and African immigrants who believe there are no institutional and socially desirable means to achieve the major cultural goals of the western society, and who see an enormous gap between the formal-legal treatment of immigrants as equal citizens and their real status as second class citizens. Although vital for Europe -- particularly regarding the increasing demand of many Western European (and even some transitional) countries for labour due to the processes of depopulation and population ageing -- these young immigrants are a sort of European aliens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The incidence of multiple sclerosis (MS) changes from generation to generation in ethnically different immigrants compared with native-born people. We aimed to determine whether there are generational changes in MS phenotypes among North African immigrants in France. Methods: Cohort study with data from a population-based MS registry to compare the clinical characteristics of 80 first (NAG1) and 167 second (NAG2) generation North Africans with MS living in France with 5200 native-born Europeans. Adjusted Cox models were used to test the association between scores of 3 and 6 on the expanded disability status scale (EDSS) and the “origin/generation” variable. Results: Cox models for EDSS scores 3 and 6 showed a higher risk of score 3 (hazard ratio = 1.738, 95% confidence interval 1.237 to 2.444; P = .002) and 6 (hazard ratio = 2.372, 95% confidence interval 1.626 to 3.462; P<.0001) for NAG1 than Europeans. Being NAG2 was not significantly associated with higher hazards of scores 3 and 6. Conclusions: We found two different phenotypes among NAG1 and NAG2 MS patients in France. NAG1, but not NAG2, have a higher risk of disability than Europeans. This raises the question of environmental factors in MS expression, and advocates appropriate patient management according to generation in immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: HIV testing is an important tool in the management of the HIV epidemic among key populations. We aimed to explore the dynamic of first-time HIV testing in France for sub-Saharan migrants after their arrival. Methods: ANRS-Parcours is a retrospective life-event survey conducted from 2012 to 2013 in healthcare facilities in the Paris region, among 926 sub-Saharan HIV-infected migrants and 763 non-infected migrants. After describing the time to first HIV test in France and associated circumstances, we performed a discrete-time logistic regression to analyze the influence of socioeconomic position, contact with the healthcare system and sexual behaviors, on first-time HIV testing in France in migrants who arrived after 2000. Results: Median first-time HIV testing occurred during the second year spent in France for non-infected men and women in both groups, and during the first year for men of the HIV group. The probability of testing increased with hospitalization and pregnancy for women of both groups. For non-infected men unemployment and absence of a residence permit were associated with an increased probability of HIV testing [respectively, OR = 2.2 (1.2–4.1) and OR = 2.0 (1.1–3.5)]. Unemployment was also associated with an increased probability of first-time HIV-testing for women of the HIV group [OR: 1.7 (1.0–2.7)]. Occasional and multiple sexual relationships were associated with an increased probability of first-time testing only for HIV-infected women [OR: 2.2 (1.2–4.0) and OR = 2.4 (1.3–4.6)]. Conclusion: Access to first HIV testing in France is promoted by contact with the health care system and is facilitated for unemployed and undocumented migrants after arrival.However, testing should be offered more systematically and repeated in order to reduce time between HIV infection and diagnosis, especially for deprived people which are particularly vulnerable regarding HIV infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies a seeming paradox – the adoption of multi-culturalist strategies and arguments by the neo-fascist European New Right. Why would neo-fascists adopt such a theoretical framework, and why has multiculturalism failed in Europe? In this article, I argue that the European New Right employs a multiculturalism framework, which I define as a recognition/exclusionist one, in order to create a new discourse of ‘legitimate exclusionism’ of non-authentic European immigrants. In short, multiculturalism, by celebrating differences between ethnic and cultural groups, inherently admits that there exist such differences between individuals. This allows neo-fascists to distinguish between themselves and ‘others’, immigrants not sharing their cultural heritage, and to claim the need for protecting such a cultural heritage through exclusion of others. As this article attempts to claim, immigrants will not benefit from multiculturalism, but the right of the radical integralist in its different versions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]