Social representations of teachers and university students of basic education about cultural diversity in Granada

The aim of this research is to perform a descriptive and interpretive analysis about social representations and the current situation of cultural diversity and intercultural education in the province of Granada. For this purpose, a mixed questionnaire has been applied to 128 participants who are differentiated into two educational groups: one from University students in Basic Education at the University of Granada and the other from Primary Education teachers. On the one hand, the results, among others, show that, for the most part, all participants make a distorted definition of the concept of cultural diversity. In addition, teachers adopted a negative attitude towards ethnic minority groups, while a high percentage of students had a less discriminatory attitude. On the other hand, teachers showed their rejection to the foreign students due to the conflicts in the educational center and the difficulty in the teaching-learning process. In conclusion, the results show that there is little tolerance towards ethnic groups and that a program in which the Culture of Peace is used as a method for conflict resolution and peaceful coexistence is only being carried out.