This proposal examines some of the findings observed in the first stage of research funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, R&D/Innovation (ref. EDU2010-15808), the fundamental purpose of which is to: analyse and understand the processes of transformation in teaching and their significance in Spanish state primary schools with regard to the management of cultural diversity. This ethnographic research is being conducted over the course of three years (2011-2013), in 3 stages (theoretical grounding, field work and interpretative analysis) although these stages overlap and both the questions raised and the research findings interact with one another throughout.

The context for this research is Spain and the subject matter was inspired by the framework of study surrounding the arrival of immigrant populations as well as the observation of how the presence of the children of non-EU immigrants in schools has opened up the debate surrounding Interculturality. A great deal of analysis has been conducted from an educational and political perspective about how their treatment is managed not only in terms of administrative measures but also the discourses and meanings that have accompanied these measures. The latter analytical focus found in the literature -largely socio-anthropological, more than pedagogical in nature- questions, criticises and reflects on the inadequate, confusing, essentialist and dangerous use of discourses and practices towards the immigrant population which ‘allegedly’ aspire to be intercultural (which has led them to reveal their homogenising pitfalls). In other papers, we have also examined these analyses and shared similar results in this regard. Having taken these findings on board, we have also noted that little effort has been made to highlight the educational experiences which, from a perspective of innovation and educational improvement, develop a series of organisational and axiological actions that are ‘apparently’ in harmony with interculturality. We concur with the views expressed by Apple and Beane (1999) in their analysis of democratic schools in the US, noting that these experiences are fairly infrequent and out of the norm. These cases interest us and we are conducting research into them: the meaning of their transformation and their significance in relation to the management of cultural diversity.

Within this study context, the theoretical framework of our research has taken us to the framework of democratic schools, as well as innovation and school change. Theoretical discussions and going out into the field have sparked questions such as: Does the intercultural debate offer a revision of the early and mid-century pedagogical debates, concerned and interested in democratic schools? What coincidences, ‘emergences’, reinterpretations does it spark? What does the intercultural focus bring to the pedagogical debate regarding educational improvement and the improvement of citizen education? And, conversely, to what extent does the immigrant population provide an excuse to test out / take up old desired or projected schooling models? Our poster proposal revolves around these questions.

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