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AbstractThis article examines the similarities and differences between multiculturalism and interculturalism, with particular reference to the impact of globalisation and changing patterns of diversity. It reflects briefly on the origins of multiculturalism—largely from a European perspective—with its focus on 'race' and the socio‐economic analysis that accompanied it. The article suggests that while multiculturalism was right to continue to focus on inequalities, it failed to adapt to super‐diversity and the multifaceted aspects of difference and 'otherness', including those based on disability, age and gender. Further, while multiculturalism became rooted in intra‐national differences, between minority and majority populations, an intercultural approach is now necessary to support the changing patterns of national identity and respond to the recent challenge posed by the growth of far‐right and popular extremist parties (PEPs).

AbstractDespite the public favour gained in Europe, interculturalism is often reduced to its theoretical abstractions or local implementations. There is scarce evidence to suggest that interculturalism mitigates the systemic discrimination of immigrant‐origin people. Looking at the Italian case, the paper analyses the coexistence of interculturalism and discrimination into multicultural schools, examining school track choices for immigrant‐origin students under the lens of interculturalism. We combine three theoretical perspectives—discrimination at micro level, critical interculturalism and school choice as a process—with an empirical analysis of qualitative data, focussing on the ambivalent relational mechanisms underneath the most discriminatory turning point in the Italian education system, the transition to upper secondary school. Different forms of student–teacher interaction, approaches to school track choice and discriminatory effects are highlighted in the research findings. Three different scenarios of interculturalism are identified and implemented through the negotiation of the school actors. Rethinking interculturalism by deconstructing discrimination appears as a collective task, to be undertaken together with teachers and students with immigrant background: intercultural policy guidelines must be combined with bottom‐up actions.

This article examines the impact of poly-ethnicity on political communities, by focusing on the symbolic aspect of citizenship. What are the symbolic 'anchors' that frame and define sentiments of belonging in a democratic polity? How do we evaluate such criteria in the light of the challenge of poly-ethnicity? Such questions are explored through a comparative conceptual assessment of the Canadian policy of multiculturalism and the Quebec's model of interculturalism.
Keywords: Сitizenship, self-identification, constitutional state, migration policy, migrant, integration, cultural diversity, minority cultures, interculturalism, multiculturalism

A multicultural society should possess the characteristics of a society in which different ethnic groups live together but with no interaction. The minority groups living therein are passively tolerated without being accepted by the majority group. An intercultural society should be defined as a society in which different groups live together and exchange their life experiences with mutual respect for their different styles of life and values. That is why a correct starting definition of interculturalism would be that interculturalism is a critique and an alternative to multiculturalism. It is possible for the members of different cultures to live close to each other and that is the most crucial characteristic of multicultural societies. An intercultural society represents a society in which we live and create not close to each other but with each other and for each other.Accordingly, the contemporary Balkan society is facing the process of its transition from the multicultural into the intercultural one, that is, the process of spreading and adopting the idea and practice of interculturalism in a multicultural community. More precisely, this implies the development of the concept of a cultural and educational policy that would foster appreciation of cultural diversity and lead to the creation of a society in which different cultures interpenetrate.At the end of the paper the measures of the public cultural politics of the Balkan countries aiming at improvement and advancement of the existing intercultural dialogue are summed up.