Intercultural or multicultural education in Europe and in the United States

In recent decades, Europe has developed responses to the increasing presence of immigrant students in schools. In particular, “Intercultural Education” is now considered by the European Union as the official approach to be used for the integration of immigrant students and minority groups into their new culture. However, despite the attempt of the EU to define common policies and practices, each European Country has developed its own approach. In this chapter, the different approaches attempting to define policies and practices will be outlined. In particular “Assimilationism,” and “Differential exclusion” will be addressed as forebears of the Intercultural model. Moreover, there is a significant gap between the EU “official” educational model for national policies. Another gap is between the official education policies and what teachers and schools actually practise. Finally, pros and cons of the mainstream European intercultural approach will be discussed and compared with the model prevailing in North America.