What is multiculturalism?

The first thing one discovers researching on multiculturalism is that there is no general definition of that concept. Multiculturalism is a different phenomenon in each country, mainly if it is thought from a political outlook. Depending on how each country faces it, political analysts will describe different models of managing multiculturalism: Canadian model, British model, Australian model, etc.

Another problem is the daunting amount of confusing terminology: cosmopolitanism, multiracialism, communitarianism and so on. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown distinguish between multiracialism and multiculturalism (Yasmin Alibhai−Brown et al. Multiculturalism: A failed experiment?, www.eurozine.com). The first one would be the objective coexistence of many races , the other concept would be connected with the political policies towards multiracialism that each country carry on.
It is also worrying to know that multiculturalism, such a recent phenomenon, has evolved and is now completely different from its firsts manifestations. Ted Candle, in the same article above mentioned states that “[W]e used to think of diversity in terms of four or five principal groups. Now we have 300 languages in London schools and we see a huge amount of globalisation going on. We have to think about diversity in a totally different way; a more complex approach but I think ultimately far more rewarding. Let's not just throw out the concept of multiculturalism; let's update it and move to a more sophisticated and developed approach”.

Hoever, if nobody has a good definition of multiculturalism, How to update it?

Gabriel Carpintero Román