Por uma abordagem intercultural da educação: levar a cultura a sério

The importance of taking into account the cultural dimension of education is increasingly recognized by researchers and practitioners in education, but also by those responsible for educational systems. Yet one does not always know what it exactly means. This article presents a reflection on the various facets of the cultural dimension of education as well as on the pitfalls of the concept of culture, so difficult to define. In its effort to counter the universalist discourse that denies or minimizes the cultural dimension, intercultural education opposes a discourse that sometimes drifts into culturalism, fixing the Other in immutable differences. To avoid the pitfall of the sacralization of cultures, interculturality is to be conceived as a dialectic between the value of difference and the value of equality. It is then possible to take culture into account, and therefore cultural difference, but not as a factor of division among human beings