ABSTRACT
Multiculturalism is not about difference and identity per se but about those differences that are embedded in and sustained by culture; that is a body of beliefs and practices in terms of which a group of people understand themselves and the world and organise their individual and collective lives. Unlike differences that spring from individual choices, culturally derived differences carry a measure of authority and are gathered and structured by virtue of being embedded in a shared and historically inherited system of meaning and significance.
