Themulticulturaleducationandtheinterculturaleducation.docVIP

PAGE  PAGE 7 Multicultural and intercultural education Course: Multiculturalism in Western Europe and North America Lecturer: Mrs. Laubeova Alvarez, Irene and Lorenzo, Maria A) Introduction The multicultural education and the intercultural education are two terms that have been spread rapidly and have become fashionable recently. The first term appears at the end of the sixties, the second one in the seventies. In a quarter of century they have passed of being a nascent topic when to be converted into a field of investigation, into university disciplines and worry of the teachers, executives, technical personnel and politicians of the education. But they neither have born as proper constructions of a certain theory there nor has been translated in a theoretical - practical model specific only one of educational intervention. It is a question rather of the review of the old problem of relations between peoples and social groups, from the vision of the cultural anthropology, that it is receiving summit during the century XX. This problem is very complex, since it includes the social reality in all its set, affecting, therefore, the political, economic, work, juridical, ecological, sanitary, educational relations, etc. The birth and growth of the multicultural programs owes to social specific problems of different populations. It is true that the answers to these problems are diverse according to the political, social forces, the ideologies that inspire them and the interpretive theories that they guide to the executors of the respective programs. Precisely this complexity demands that - in the theoretical studies - are analyzed thoroughly the theories and proposed models and that - in the programs and practical applications of multicultural education - the social reality is studied thoroughly, since otherwise we traverse the risk of touching only the symptoms or superficial aspects, without to face, to look for the reasons and to realize the authentic sol