Interculturalism: Conceptualisation

Abstract

The concept of interculturality is not new and can be traced back to 1959, while European perspectives date from the 1980s and 1990s (James, 2008). In the UK, there has been little by way of academic development, or agreement over the term; neither has it been adopted in policy and practice to any great degree. In other countries, such as Germany, Greece, Russia and Spain, the term has been employed (Meer and Modood, 2011), though seemingly often in relation to education programmes. It has also been used in Canada (Bouchard, 2011) but in this context may be more properly regarded as a progressive variant of multiculturalism — adding to the confusion over an already contested term used in many different ways.