“…In this sense, I have argued that multiculturalism -understood here as a political as well as a pedagogical and theoretical movement that tries to provide answers to cultural diversity in various fields, including education -can contribute to the thinking about curriculum and teacher education attuned to a project of identity construction that is open to cultural plurality and to the challenge of discourses that demonize the 'other' and perpetuate stereotypes (Canen, 1999(Canen, , 2000(Canen, , 2001(Canen, , 2003aCanen & Grant, 1999;McLaren, 2000;Souza Santos, 2001;Peters, 2005). However, multiculturalism has not only one, but many, meanings, with different implications for teaching and learning practices (Canen, 1999(Canen, , 2003aMcLaren, 2000;Canen & Oliveira, 2002), varying from more liberal, folkloric perspectives -generally perceived as valuing diversity but stopping short of challenging prejudices and the construction of differences -to more critical ones, which seek to challenge racisms, sexisms and other forms of prejudices. As discussed by authors such as McLaren (2000), Canen & Oliveira (2002), Hickling-Hudson (2003) and Peters (2005), critical post-colonial multiculturalism can help in achieving critical aims in that it both interrogates discourses that construct differences, problematizing them, and also builds on the contingency and hybridity of identities, therefore transcending essentialized approaches to them.…”