Multiculturalism(s) - The results of a debate

The present article presents the concept of multiculturalism as 'the new global religion' that also involves France. The emergence of the term dates from 1978 in a publication of the Comite de liaison alphabetisation et promotion that aimed at cultivating the cultural differences in society. A complex concept, defined in different manners from media to scientific publications. The article examines the contents of the notion of multiculturalism and turns to both its influence on and from the social sciences. The article is divided in 5 parts: 1) discusses two opposed sides in France, those promoting the republican integration and insisting on the cultural objectivity of the nation, and as opposites those open to diversity and cultural differences; 2) discusses the difficulty of the exact formulation of the term multiculturalism, part of several scientific domains and at the same time part of several national contexts; 3) discusses the polymorph and heterogeneous multicultural discussion and managed or corporate multiculturalism, and the liberal, egalitarian and democratic versions. In a subsequent part of the article, the theoretical foundations and analytical categories are discussed within a triple context: race, class and gender. A last part discusses multiculturalism as a cultural phenomenon, emerging from a social phenomenon with its characteristics and dynamics. Adapted from the source document.