1 Introduction

Nowadays, when one examines the history of the introduction of the compulsory school, our attention is drawn principally to the humanist dimension of providing schooling to everyone (but not including native and populations under colonisation), inherited from the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment in favour of citizenship. However, we may too hastily overlook the nationalistic, Eurocentric and colonialist attitudes associated with the expansion of Western schooling.

Thus, it is through an understanding of its historical roots that this first chapter will explore the factors which have encouraged the school to take an interest in the multiple aspects of cultural diversity. In the first instance, we will draw attention to the school’s original purpose as an instrument likely to blend socio-cultural differences. Then, we will present the way intercultural approaches became credible in the second half of the twentieth century. The chapter’s third and fourth sections will be devoted respectively to an analysis of international organizations and certain thinkers at the origin of the development of intercultural approaches.

2 Formal Education as a System for Cultural Homogeneity

Compulsory formal education spread progressively throughout Europe at the end of the nineteenth century as a system for national cultural uniformity. The public school was one of the institutions made responsible for unification on the political, cultural and linguistic levels in societies displaying strong regional diversity. While it was created on the basis of a rupture with the Church, the public school, a legacy of the Age of Enlightenment, in fact undertook on its own the system for the unification and profound transformation of people and social groups. To put it simply, mass literacy took the place of religious education (Beillerot, 1998).

Formal education derives its legitimacy from three principal sources—religious institutions, positivism and nationalism—which led to a triple advance: “for each individual in whom it refined all the faculties, for the society to which it contributed to develop unity and to humanity which it civilized and improved” (Dubreucq, 2004, p. 45).

Positivism and the Age of Enlightenment’s political inheritance had a profound influence on formal education. Indeed, positivism inspired the school with the concept of scientific reasoning, since it is a theory of rationality explaining natural events originating with Auguste Comte and opposing individual convictions (Schurmans, 2011). The dissemination of scientific knowledge by the school was designed to overcome ignorance and to liberate individuals from traditional archaic ideas. For the Age of Enlightenment, education had been the vehicle of social progress and political emancipation. It would bring mankind out of its particular cultural and social isolation in order to create a national, responsible and rational being. With Condorcet and the educators of the French Republic, the school became the vehicle for universal values which began in Europe and spread progressively to the rest of the world. We will discover that it is this same universalism which can undermine intercultural approaches to education.

The school was also created to serve the consolidation of nationalism and the formation of a patriotic spirit among future citizens. It is no accident that, in numerous situations, compulsory schooling followed the widespread introduction of compulsory military service. Indeed, the country/Nation needed an efficient system to blend regional cultures and identities with the nineteenth century’s national cultures. In addition, for Barrère and Jacquet-Francillon (2008), the school “[…] was defined—and is still defined—by the achievement of cultural unity (p. 6).” It was in this way that the inhabitants of Brittany had to abandon their language when they were compelled to enter the French formal education system. In the same way, the children of First Nation populations in Canada or the Aboriginals in Australia were taken away from their families and placed in boarding schools so as to become “educated and civilized” in English and absorbed into the national culture. We will describe further on in this book the trauma, which continues to this day, that these generations of native children experienced.

The school’s cultural unity, as well as its special relationship with the question of national identity, brings us to interrogate the issues of nationalism and patriotism. Some authors differentiate between the two concepts. Nationalism establishes itself best as a mobilized ethnicity. The mobilization of a culture and a common history were combined with increasing economic growth and widespread social mobility. Nationalism promised to restore dignity and to efface the humiliation to which people had been subjected. It is on this foundation that nazism took root in Germany before the Second World War. Patriotism is the unifying concept for immigrant societies, such as those in the United States and Canada or even the new States created in the post-colonial period. The myth of a common origin cannot be employed in the face of a variety of religions and different languages (Adam, 1995). Stated another way, nationalism originates in love of the nation and its influence, while patriotism arises from love and defence of the homeland. Nevertheless, these two terms are subject to an ambiguous relationship. For instance, when nationalism suffers from a bad press, politicians can rely on patriotism without abandoning nationalism.

Even today, numerous children, both in the North and the South, participate in daily or weekly ceremonies paying homage to the national flag and anthem. The school class described by Foucault (2014) is inherited from a military context. According to this author, the school environment is structured like a learning machine, but it is also there to survey, to establish a hierarchy, to standardize, to reward, while excluding any doubt and anything unforeseen. This preparation of minds and bodies is intended to facilitate transmission which is reduced to the obedient reproduction of standard school exercises. It would seem that the search for unity is one of the principal purposes of schooling and, we may frequently observe, is among the objectives of national cohesion.

As a result, we can say that formal education has been constructed from the beginning in an ethnocentric way in relation to certain social groups (colonized peoples, women, rural dwellers, disadvantaged populations, minority cultures and migrants, etc.). In truth, the compulsory school’s explicit initial objective was to form citizens, educated of course, but also conforming to the dominant political agenda of the time, and firmly cast in a nationalist mould.

It seems to us that any true democratization of the political arena (or, in other words, the acceptance of disparate values, of different political ideas or even other interpretations of the nation and of living together) will disrupt the founding myths of State education and its mission to bring about cultural homogeneity. In this context, intercultural approaches represent a healthy questioning of the schooling. Liberating no doubt for some social groups, but also oppressive and alienating for a large number of others, from its inception the school has shown that it has little respect for minority and regional cultures, and even less for native and colonized peoples, arbitrarily considered as remote from the definition of good civilization. To be educated also means to accept and to pass on the values and beliefs that are far from being shared by all the potential learners. For the disadvantaged groups in Europe and worldwide, the school is supposed to bring civilization and well-being, for example to rural populations.

It is therefore crucial, in the context examined in this book, to understand the school’s difficulty in accepting difference and cultural diversity, since its initial historical purpose was to achieve uniformity—the reassuring standardization and cultural homogenization of individuals and groups into the mould of the national monocultural and often colonizing State, including socially disadvantaged populations.

It is important to point out that our reproaches about this type of education with regard to the promotion of cultural diversity do not diminish the immense services it has rendered to modern societies, such as scientific progress, the promotion of girls’ education or the massive dissemination of knowledge between generations and countries, to mention only a few. Formal education must therefore always be examined at the same time as its contradictions and its paradoxes.

3 Cultural Diversity Becomes Legitimate Within the School

During the second half of the twentieth century, three factors allowed the place and power of the monocultural school, serving a nation designed and conceived as culturally homogeneous, to be called into question. They were decolonization, the spread of democracy in public life and the internationalization of migrations.

In the first place, the independence of the majority of Asian and African countries over the period 1945–1960 was the outcome of a long process of emancipation. The school, as inherited from the colonizer, was called into question, since its ethnocentric attitude was a source of disdain for local cultures and languages. Moreover, this form of colonial school had been set up specifically for the colonizers’ benefit. During this period the school had become what Kane (2003) called “an ambiguous adventure”; it was both an instrument of cultural alienation, but, if the colonized person managed to take advantage of it, also one of the routes to emancipation in the anticolonial combat and the struggle for equality. Nevertheless, one should avoid any temptation to consider the result of colonization in Africa as entirely positive.Footnote 1

Secondly, the increasing democratization of political and social lifeFootnote 2 contributed to the greater visibility of cultural diversity in the majority of human societies, including those that considered themselves to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. In a large number of countries, following the mobilization of civil society and political reforms, educational programmes promoting minority cultures and languages were introduced. On this subject, there was the unavoidable impetus of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. This originated at first within the African-American community and contributed to the abandonment of the racial and educational segregation preserved up to the beginning of the 1950s (see Chap. 5). In the wake of this movement, the Spanish-speaking community obtained the right to use Spanish in bilingual formal education programmes. This second event demonstrates that any liberation or democratization in the public sphere and in the construction of a State founded on justice opens up a debate about how cultural diversity should be tackled in the school. For example, in Latin America, the progressive waning of military dictatorships at the beginning of the 1980s allowed a discussion to begin on cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity in the school.

The emergence of human rights’ movements in the world was characterized by a wide diversity united by mobilization. For example, the civil rights’ movements in the United States were organized initially on an ethnic basis: the African-Americans against educational segregation and the Mexican-Americans for the acceptance of Spanish in the school. In Latin America, the civil rights movements opposing dictatorships were mobilized through political and social slogans, and were grouped principally around progressive churches, trade unions and left-wing political movements. It was much later that the civil rights’ movements were joined by indigenous groups demanding political, social and educational rights. In Europe, the organization of migrants and their progeny in the form of civil rights’ movements was more discreet. Thus, in France, the “Marche des beurs” [March for Equality and Against Racism] in 1981 (by the descendants of North African immigrants) brought together young people from the suburbs with some encouragement from left-wing trade-union movements and churches.

In third place, the increasing mobility of workers and migrations taking place at the national and international levels has resulted in miscellaneous societies as far as their socio-cultural composition is concerned. International migrations, whether voluntary or involuntary, lawful or clandestine, have transformed the school in a large number of countries and have obliged it to consider seriously the learners’ cultural diversity.

It is under the impetus of these three structural factors taking place over the long term, and to different degrees depending on the country and the epoch, that intercultural approaches have gradually infiltrated certain Western situations. It is an educational reform movement which is necessarily international and has a multitude of forms. It affects the world’s countries and regions in various ways depending on their socio-political, economic and historical context. This change is, without any doubt, a key component in the future of modern education systems. The cultural element, combined with the social milieu variable, suggests a true change of perspective in our understanding of the culturally different pupil. He or she is no longer simply the one who has come from a family socially estranged from the formal school, but may also have arrived from a distant country or from another continent, the cradle of a different culture, a different language, a different religion or a different way of interacting with the school.

According to Pagé (1993), intercultural approaches aim at three main objectives: (1) recognizing and accepting cultural pluralism as a social reality; (2) contributing to the creation of a society equal in rights and equity; and (3) participating in the establishment of harmonious inter-ethnic relationships. Any conflicts that arise must be settled through negotiation and a democratic debate (Parker, 2015).

The concept of equity is necessary for an understanding of and an introduction to these objectives. It supports the idea of an approach adapted to particular situations so that each individual is able to benefit from equal access to the range of social and economic provisions in education. It is not a case of viewing Others as deficient as a result of their personal, physical or cultural characteristics, but rather of analysing a situation leading to inequalities in order to propose an alternative. Demeuse and Baye (2005) highlight four conditions for equity: equity of access; equity of teaching empathy; equity of educational outcomes; and equity of social ambition (OECD, 1993, quoted by Demeuse & Baye, 2005). This last meaning refers to the capacity of an individual to prosper in society (Demeuse & Baye, 2005).

We should mention here the multitude of forms that so-called “intercultural approaches” can assume. From assistance to pupils who are different to the struggle for social justice, a large number of movements find themselves for one reason or another branded with this label (see, for example, Sleeter & Grant, 2009). In general, intercultural approaches in education aim first of all at more equality, more equity and more diversity at all levels of the education system (Loubet, 2015). The danger of cultural separatism and communitarianism, sometimes wrongly associated with intercultural approaches, has no meaning, because its principal objective is community isolation or the search for difference at any price and not equality of rights. The development of the single-group studies' movement in the United States is a good example of this tension between communitarianism and the search for equality and equity. This movement, criticized for its tendency to favour communitarianism, in fact brought to the fore the need to study cultural and social groups as a separate entities so as to develop more profound knowledge about them contributing to justice and equity (Sleeter & Grant, 2009).Footnote 3

Ultimately, intercultural approaches in education refer to the changes necessary so that education systems can face the multicultural reality of modern societies. It implies parallel efforts of understanding and acceptance between individuals, groups and countries. It suggests a dynamic and evolving conception of culture, since it is subject to internal pressures and external influences. In this way, the historical and enduring national culture is a myth incompatible with even the very idea of an education system that accepts diversity.

The legitimacy attained by cultural diversity in the school remains fragile and is constantly called into question. It is mistakenly blamed for the omission of concepts of equality and brotherhood, and it is sometimes accused of being at the origin of disunion and antagonism. We observe all over the world that cultural assimilation, viewed as the only real prospect for living together, is gaining ground and is given new relevance by a wave of unbridled nationalism and far-right movements.

4 Two International Organizations that Pioneered the School’s Opening to Diversity

Among numerous institutions concerned by intercultural approaches to education in the world, we would like to mention the contribution of UNESCO and the Council of Europe.

From its foundation in 1945 to its most recent publications, UNESCO has been a major player in the promotion of cultural diversity. In its Preamble, the Constitution of UNESCOFootnote 4 proclaims “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”. The Constitution places strong emphasis on justice and the struggle against discrimination:

The purpose of the Organization is to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations (UNESCO, 1945, p. 6).

In 1952, UNESCO published a series of studies on racism. The anthropologist Lévi-Strauss made a particular contribution with his book entitled Race and history (Lévi-Strauss, 1952). He criticized the proposition of Gobineau (1816–1882), an author who proposed the existence of three races—one black, one white and one yellow—whose capacities were not equal, with interbreeding only leading to degeneration. Lévi-Strauss (1952) counters this proposition claiming that the strength of a culture can only gain from its contacts with other cultures.

In 1955, UNESCO organized a symposium in Paris on the theme of “The positive contribution by immigrants”, followed by a conference in Havana in 1956 on “The cultural integration of migrants”. These conferences and their ensuing publications signalled the beginning of a common international interest in the phenomenon of migration and cultural diversity.

In 2006, UNESCO’s guidelines for intercultural education were published (UNESCO, 2006). Since that time, there have been a large number of books, speeches and documents by the organization contributing to improving the image of diversity, both within the education system and elsewhere. One of its most recent publications, the Education 2030 Agenda (a text written by various international organizationsFootnote 5 and published by UNESCO), devotes a large place to the respect of cultural diversity and the rights of minorities, as well as the need to introduce education for global citizenship (UNESCO, 2015a). Since 1945, the attention paid by UNESCO to the multitude of cultures and improving their image has not weakened; nevertheless, it can be observed that it is undergoing transformation and adaptation to keep pace with changes in societies.

The second international organization that we will deal with here is the Council of Europe, which is deeply interested in the way cultural diversity is considered by education systems. It is actually one of the pioneer European organizations which, since the 1970s, has promoted awareness about pupils from different cultures so that they can learn the major culture’s language and can integrate into national education programmes. It was during this same decade that the organization called for the pupils’ first languages to be recognized and it participated in an institutional drive designed, amongst other things, to set up language courses and lessons on cultures of origin (Auger, 2007). As with UNESCO, the Council of Europe’s work concerning intercultural education has evolved over time and in response to changes taking place in the world. In the first place, its message referred to a scheme focused on those who are “culturally different” and moved on to education for all, discovering otherness and skill training so as to master the dynamic of diversity (Perotti, 1994). In the 1980s, the Council of Europe promoted a project on integration aimed at education for all pupils based on the discovery of diversity and the learning of skills and attitudes likely to improve intercultural relations (Porcher, 1981; Alaluf, 1982, Rey, 1983, 1984). In the 1990s, it recommended a humanist project assessing national education systems according to their capacity to satisfy the contemporary socio-cultural demands of Europe, such as those transmitting knowledge and skills allowing citizens of diverse origins to participate fully in a democratic and multicultural society.

For this purpose, the Council of Europe assigned varied and very ambitious objectives to intercultural education:

  • to promote knowledge and understanding about inter-racial relationships;

  • to oppose racial discrimination;

  • to denounce racism;

  • to describe the history of migrations and power relations among States;

  • to encourage equality of opportunity in education;

  • to reinforce the self-confidence and status of minority groups;

  • to harmonize contacts between migrants and the dominant groups;

  • to work towards the creation of a multiracial society;

  • to promote studies on culture (Cammaert, 1987).

Today, several new objectives have come to the fore (cooperation between individuals, collaboration, critical perspective, etc.) (Huber & Mompoint-Gaillard, 2011; Huber, 2012) and demonstrate the constant adaptation of approaches to the evolution of intercultural changes. On this subject, there has recently been a new focus on such themes as religious diversity or education for democratic citizenship (Council of Europe and Keast, 2007; Tibbitts, 2016).

Two books—The case for intercultural education (Perotti, 1994) and Particularisme et universalisme: La problématique des identités [Particularism and universalism: the problem of identities] (Dadsi, 1995)—have given a thorough description of the wide experience acquired by the Council of Europe in the field of intercultural education. This body has turned its attention both to the schooling of migrants and also to that of Roma communities, as well as to teacher training (see, for example, the “Pestalozzi” series) and even North–South relationships (through setting up the North–South Centre in Lisbon in 1989).Footnote 6

The Council of Europe (2012) considers diversity as an advantage that can be a source of innovation bringing valuable benefits to organizations, communities and businesses, when managed with competence and in the spirit of inclusion. Thus, the advantage of difference is also the result of policies that unlock the potential of diversity while minimizing the risks related to human mobility and cultural diversity.

If these two organizations (UNESCO and the Council of Europe) have played a major role in the development of intercultural approaches in education, we should not forget that in several places local or national associations have also contributed to change. For example, in the United States and Canada, where the influence of UNESCO and the Council of Europe is rather limited, local organizations have participated in intercultural approaches in the school. We will discover in the analysis of different national experiences that some movements were supported by civil society and, among others, by the actions of associations.

5 Landmark Thinkers Who Tackled Diversity

Some thinkers and activists in civil society were involved in opening up intercultural approaches for access to education. For lack of space, we will limit ourselves to presenting three authors here: Martin Luther King, Frantz Fanon and Nelson Mandela. Our choice is based on the fact that these three figures are iconic symbols of the civil rights and decolonization movements.

Martin Luther King stands at the beginning of the legitimacy of cultural diversity in the public institutions of the United States; he is an emblematic figure for civil rights movements anywhere in the world. In his speech “I have a dream”, delivered on 28 August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC in front of thousands of civil rights demonstrators, Martin Luther King declared:

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

While proclaiming the necessary end to the injustices suffered by Black Americans, he stresses the call for a peaceful settlement remote from any spirit of retaliation, ethnic nationalism or revenge. His contribution is key inasmuch as he emphasizes the preliminary concept that underlies all intercultural approaches: awareness, at the political level, of the need for a more just and equal society for all the groups that compose it. It is moreover in the same spirit of the Civil Rights Movement that intercultural approaches came to the fore. Martin Luther King’s inheritance is rooted in intercultural approaches in a process of constructive interaction between cultures and ethnic groups in order to create a more just society, far from cultural separatism and communitarianism.

In another context altogether, that of the decolonization movement, Frantz Fanon sought to analyse the psychological consequences of colonization, both on the colonizer and on the colonized. He called into question the colonial regime’s structure, which he considered as “pyramidal” and fundamentally racist (Bouamama, 2014). For Fanon, colonization brought with it depersonalization leaving the colonized person in a state of “infantilism, oppressed, rejected, dehumanized, uncultured, alienated, ready to be taken in hand by the colonial authority” (Fanon, 1961, pp. 53–54).

From his experience as a minority Black living in French society (which, however, considers itself as the cradle of human rights and the guardian of republican values) and his observations on colonial Algeria, Fanon published Black skin, white masks, a book in which he denounces racism and “linguistic colonialism”. He examines particularly the racism to which he had been subjected in the Parisian intellectual community (Fanon, 1952).

Fanon (1956) shows that the anticolonial struggle is also a struggle for the survival of colonized cultures.

The implementation of the colonial regime does not automatically lead to the native culture’s demise. On the contrary, it follows from historical observation that the objective sought is more a long agony rather than a sudden eclipse of the previous culture. This culture, previously dynamic and looking to the future, closes in on itself, frozen in its colonial status, imprisoned in the iron collar of oppression. Both present and mummified, it betrays its adherents. It condemns them without trial. Cultural mummification leads to a mummification of individual thought processes. The so universally present apathy of colonial peoples is simply the logical outcome of this procedure. The reproach of inertia continually directed to the “native” is the height of bad faith. As if it were possible for a man to evolve other than in the framework of a culture that he recognizes and accepts freely (Fanon, 1956, p. 124).

Frantz Fanon’s book shows that the implementation of intercultural approaches demands considerable effort in deconstructing the mechanisms of colonial domination. Today, a great deal of work, particularly for intercultural approaches, is rooted in the paradigm of decolonialization and the struggle against the domination of cultural or social groups (see, for example, Gorski, 2008, 2009; Sleeter, 2013).

More recently, Nelson Mandela became the figurehead of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. After the collapse of this regime of oppressive racial segregation against the Black majority, he did not react “to narrow Afrikaner nationalism with a narrow African nationalism” (Gumede, 2013, p. 16). He saw diversity as an “appropriate tool to overcome divisions based on race, gender or class and access to resources (Gumede, 2013, p. 17).” By supporting equality of rights between Blacks and Whites in post-apartheid South Africa, Mandela brought about Desmond Tutu’s dream: the creation of a “rainbow nation” (Baines, 1998). His action also resulted in the school paying attention to all the languages that exist in this country.

Nevertheless, economic inequalities and latent segregation in South Africa illustrate the long road that remains to be covered to achieve success for South African multiculturalism (Gouws, 2013; Reygan & Steyn, 2017).

We note that the three iconic intercultural figures that we have selected to illustrate the advent of intercultural approaches can be distinguished by their ability to cross cultural and ethnic boundaries. Their work is trans-cultural and draws attention to the interest, particularly for education systems, to make an effort to cross these same frontiers. In this context, their efforts have been very valuable in the need for and development of intercultural approaches.

6 A Multiplicity of Terms

One of the hazards encountered by those concerned with intercultural approaches to education (both professionals and researchers) is the multitude of terms used in this field. As a result, we must try to throw light on the different terms, their differences and how they are used. Table 1 sums up the most frequently used terms from three points of view: English, French and international.

Table 1 The multitude of terms used in intercultural approaches to education and where they are used
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The multitude of terms reflects the numerous opportunities of introducing—or not—intercultural approaches in education. Figure 1 presents some of the terms and shows the links between them.

Fig. 1
figure 1

The four basic paradigms in managing cultural diversity

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Monoculturalism corresponds to the image of a tree rooted in cultural ground believed to be homogenous. According to this line of thought, difference is regarded with suspicion, while cultural differences are not perceived and not accepted. Monoculturalism claims the advantage of using a single teaching language for all children. Multiculturalism and interculturalism are two attitudes promoting diversity and cultural differences. Multiculturalism corresponds to the image of a mosaic in which all cultures have their place, but do not mix (remaining side by side), while interculturalism may be illustrated by the image of weaving, in which all the cultures are in contact with each other. A carpet uses all the threads that make it up to create an attractive design. Finally, transculturalism refers to a significant level of hybridization among cultures, for which the reference to a single culture is inconceivable and the crossing of cultural boundaries is tolerated. Transculturalism opens up new areas for learning and interbreeding. Rather like a chameleon, the transcultural person can partake of flexible and changing identities; he/she is allowed to stray from cultural references, including those of his/her origins. While the chameleon adapts yet remains the same, the transcultural person crosses the boundaries of identity, making them permeable, without giving up his/her hybrid identity.

At this point of conceptualizing intercultural approaches, it would seem necessary to return to the inter/multicultural duality. Beyond their precise linguistic use in French-speaking (inter) and English-speaking (multi) contexts, the considerable differences between multiculturalism and interculturalism have also been mentioned by some authors, fundamentally French-speaking; for instance, Abdallah-Pretceille (2011) considers that multiculturalism is a way of dealing with the majority while recognizing the presence at the same time of distinct and homogenous groups. On the contrary, the prefix “inter” of “interculturalism” indicates the relationship and how interactions among groups and individuals are considered.

In a report to the Council of Europe, Camilleri-Grima (2002) expresses the same idea, in the belief that there is a considerable difference between the two terms:

A clear difference should be made between multiculturality and interculturality. When one speaks of bi- and multicultural knowledge, it is based on the principle that culture is a historic and invariable concept, and that it could gain through access to information concerning it. With interculturality, on the other hand, one is concerned with another level of knowledge, also including cognitive, affective and behavioural competences permitting transfers from one culture to another (Camilleri-Grima, 2002, p. 56).

UNESCO (2006) also makes a distinction between inter and multi educations:

There have traditionally been two approaches: multicultural education and intercultural education. Multicultural education uses learning about other cultures in order to produce acceptance, or at least tolerance, of these cultures. Intercultural education aims to go beyond passive coexistence, to achieve a developing and sustainable way of living together in multicultural societies through the creation of understanding of, respect for and dialogue between the different cultural groups (UNESCO, 2006, p. 18).

Other authors, mainly English-speaking, are more sceptical about any true differences between “multiculturalism” and “interculturalism”. As Rocher (2015) states correctly, multi- and interculturalism are polysemic and politicized terms.

Let us say to begin with that the terms multi- and interculturalism are similar. In the widest sense, they refer to the presence of several cultures in the same country. However, they also assume several meanings depending on the way political, social and research personnel use them. Therefore, they may designate a sociological reality, a state ideology, a group of public policies or a social system for standardization (Rocher, 2015, p. 34).

According to Meer and Modood (2012), the positive characteristics of interculturalism (communication, the recognition of dynamic identities, the promotion of unity) are also found in multiculturalism. They even suggest that multiculturalism at present goes beyond interculturalism as a political attitude capable of recognizing that social life consists of different individuals and groups. Both the groups and the individuals must be included in the formal and informal division of power, and reflected in an ethical conception and not simply an instrumental conception of citizenship.

While the conceptualization of intercultural education in the previously mentioned UNESCO document is clearly compatible with multicultural education as understood in the United States, the rejection of multicultural education by UNESCO alienates the American public and thwarts important potential collaboration (Sleeter, 2018).

Rather than resolve the terminological debate of multiculturalism versus interculturalism, it seems more useful to analyse their respective contributions to social justice in the school. On this subject, it is sufficient to emphasize that the terminological option chosen, either “inter” or “multi”, is not necessarily final. All education systems are faced with inequalities associated with the pupils’ cultural and ethnic origins. The process that created these inequalities may be different, but they are nevertheless present everywhere (Farnen, 2017). For example, in the United States, the rate at which cultural minorities earn secondary education diplomas is lower than that of the majority White population. Fortunately, the gap between these two groups is reduced when it comes to access to employment (Rumberger & Lamb, 2003; Lutz, 2007).

In France, the rate at which young people from immigrant families gain the baccalauréat is very similar to that of young students of French origin (Vallet, 1996). Nevertheless, the gap widens between the two groups when it comes to access to employment and social integration, especially for young people of African origin (Zylberberg et al., 2017).

Multi/intercultural approaches are designed to achieve the liberty, aptitudes and competences required to tackle our own cultural or ethnic boundaries so as to establish interactions with other groups and other cultures. They must help the students to develop awareness, knowledge and the necessary attitudes for full participation in a democratic and free society based on access to citizenship for all. In other words, to learn is the search for liberty, autonomy and the simultaneous recognition of oneself and others.

In an attempt to pinpoint the action of multicultural education, Burnett (1994) divides the approaches and programmes employed into three categories according to their priority target: (1) programmes focused on the content of education; (2) programmes focused on the pupil (the learner); and (3) programmes aimed at social action.

The main objective of programmes focused on the content is to introduce into the curriculum elements concerning minority cultural groups present in the classroom so as to stimulate knowledge and the recognition that the other pupils have of these groups. One of the major difficulties is to find the way and the place to present the diversity of cultural heritages present in the classroom. These programmes must also avoid the hazards of folklorism likely to elevate some cultures into stereotyped models:

Imagine the school administrators who want to develop a program to address racial injustice and end up hosting Taco Night or the International Dance Showcase—events that often inaccurately highlight superficial aspects of a culture while ignoring the ways in which members of the groups being “celebrated” are marginalized (Gorski & Goodman, 2015, p. 4).

Programmes focused on the pupils are specifically destined to satisfy the educational needs of minority pupils. A typical example that falls into this category is the promotion of bilingual education or courses in the original language and culture. The reception of pupils upon their first arrival also falls into this category. It implies commitment on the part of the school to facilitate the reception and educational and social integration of migrant and refugee students.

Programmes aimed at social action attempt to reduce interethnic tensions in the classroom. Educational desegregationFootnote 7 and all the measures designed to improve the school’s social environment are examples of activities undertaken in the framework of this third type of multicultural education programme.

7 Conclusion

To conclude this first chapter, we can place the advent of intercultural approaches to education in the context of the international epoch of decolonization and the promotion of civil rights initiated by various groups who had been oppressed in the past. These latter groups sought in the first instance to halt injustice and discrimination so as to live together with equality and respect. These approaches were designed so that the education system reflected the diversity and multiplicity present at the demographic level in the classroom and to combat the structural educational inequalities and discrimination faced by a large number of minority populations and migrants.

The use of a wide variety of terms is noted at the international level concerning intercultural approaches to education. This diversity reflects the fact that they are always rooted in a social, political, legal and historical context. A contrast is often noted between multicultural approaches and intercultural approaches. The former limits itself to the level of recognizing the difference, while the second is the expression of priority accorded to interactions. Nevertheless, it seems pointless to overemphasize this contrast, not only because numerous education systems are confronted with similar problems (inequality, injustice, discrimination, segregation), but also because of the international circulation of knowledge about multi- and intercultural approaches and innovations.

Given the historically ethnocentric and monocultural characteristic of most education systems, intercultural approaches encounter different types of obstacles. Some people are opposed to their development since the recognition of cultural diversity could bring with it the risk of the society, the school and the curriculum breaking down. Others perceive it as superfluous and even a luxury. In these contexts, these approaches do not represent a central part of the formal education programme available to all pupils. They are often relegated to extra-curricular activities or reserved for a certain number of disciplines: history, geography, art, languages, and are sometimes earmarked uniquely for classes containing a large number of immigrant children. These attitudes have a negative effect on intercultural approaches, making them liable to be applied on an ad hoc basis, infrequently and cursorily (Gay, 2004).