Interculturality, Identity, and Decoloniality

Introduction: Interculturalism – A Concept Under Discussion

The concept of interculturalism or multiculturalism has been of great importance for the development and implementation of educational policies, guiding the development of curricular proposals and training of teachers. Thus, Muhammad Ayaz Naseem (2012) examines the conceptual perspectives in which teachers and professionals engaged in educational research seek to understand the dynamics of multiculturalism policies from a Canadian context. These perspectives include among others conceptions of conservative multiculturalism, liberal multiculturalism and liberal leftist, critical multiculturalism, anti-racist and anti-oppression education. Ayaz Naseem (2012) believes that these views do not entirely represent the conceptual possibilities used by academics and professionals. Nor are they monolithic designs and/or consensual, since each of these trends constitutes a theoretical basis of intense debate.

A diversity of proposals and intercultural perspectives prevents us from producing effective simplified schemes. Even so, this makes the debate particularly open and creative. Beyond the theoretical and political terminological polysemy on multiculturalism, interculturalism and transculturalism, this field constitutes an area of debate that becomes paradigmatic precisely because of its complexity: its richness consists of multiplicity of perspectives that interact and cannot be reduced by a single code and a single schema proposed as being universally transferable model.

However, the fundamental conceptual perspective in which the issues and considerations in this emerging field lie is the ability to respect differences and integrate them into a unit where they do not overrule each other. On the contrary, such a concept should activate the creative potential and the vital connections between different agents and between their respective contexts.

Marie McAndrew et al. (2012) examine interculturalism conceptions in the Canadian educational context that guide the training of educators, through diagnosis of the state of pre-service teachers’ training in relation to the ethnocultural, religious and linguistic diversity in universities in Québec. The study shows that, despite the fact that this field has experienced a significant expansion in undergraduate education in the last twenty years, both in terms of course offering and pedagogical innovations, such a development happened in an unplanned manner. There is diversity and ambiguity of conceptual grounding requirements, and the absence of clear and ministerial guidelines in relation to legitimacy and objectives that should be pursued.

In a critical analysis of different conceptions, as well as the policies and the educational practices that constitute the complex field of inter-multiculturalism, Adeela Arshad-Ayaz (2012) points to the need to reconceptualise and redefine multicultural education according to the needs of the globalised and interconnected world of the 21^st Century. Indeed, the current model of multicultural education prevalent in the Canadian context is inefficient and has had limited impact due to the fact that educators and teachers are caught up in a structure with major flaws in its construction, which is mainly focused on the national cultural context and obscures aspects of social justice worldwide.

In Brazil, the term “cultural diversity” has been used as multiculturalism, especially by the general public, revealing distinct propositions. Maria Conceição Coppete et al. (2012) highlight the concept of diversity in the legal field, through the social sciences and reaching its cultural dimension. She introduces the concept of intercultural education and its implications for pedagogical practice. Within this approach, different cultures are understood as complex contexts and the relationship between them produces clashes between different views of the world. This education favours the construction of a common project, in which it is possible to integrate dialectical differences. Its direction is focused on building a plural, democratic and eminently human society, capable of articulating equality with identity politics.