Cultural diversity and school equality: Intercultural education in Spain from a European perspective

Formerly a country of emigrants, Spain has now become a receptor of immigrants from other countries. In spite of the great diversity that existed in our country's past, reflection, legislation and educational concern pertaining to cultural pluralism developed only after this phenomenon. In this paper we examine the adoption of the intercultural perspective in education in Spain, and the relationship between policy and practice. We first discuss the theoretical framework that we use. Second, we look at European policies in this area and finally we describe how cultural diversity is dealt with in Spain, both from a legislative and a practical point of view.