Towards multicultural societies: The European experience

Abstract

Migration at present produces, and will in the future, the encounter of populations belonging to cultures more diverse than ever before. Hence we are moving towards multicultural societies in different parts of the world. The article focuses on Europe and multicultural societies, as well as on the possibility of projects for intercultural societies. In such societies people belonging to different cultures learn to create dialogue by recognizing their own identity and that of other cultures. The article analyses the issue from the conceptual basis of unity and diversity. It also adopts a future-oriented perspective related to the capacity to devise ‘seeds of change’ which may generate visions and projects of and for multicultural or intercultural societies. It searches for evidence of European changes in relation to sociocultural dialogue among bearers of different identities and values leading to possible alternative sociocultural futures.