Pedagogy of alterity as paradigm of intercultural education

In this paper the author deals with the different approaches used to date in intercultural education. The conceptual differences between multiculturalism and interculturalism are analysed along with their incidence on educational practices. The "culturalist" approach in intercultural education which has been widespread in recent decades is criticized, and a new paradigm, the pedagogy of alterity, is offered based on ethical suppositions which are distinct from Kantian ethics. The experience of "the other", ethnically or culturally distinct, is an indispensable element of intercultural education. Intercultural education is solved by the recognition and reception of the specific other in all his reality.