Bridging Divergent Diversity Standpoints & Ideologies: Organizational Initiatives and Trainings

‘Who Are Diverse?’ Conceptualisations of Cultural Diversity in Schools behind Desks and at Chalkface

“…These studies point to ambiguity around the concept and in its application to a diverse range of fields and groups. Its meaning depends on institutional goals and priorities, taking on contradictory connotations (Oliha and Collier 2010;Marvasti and McKinney 2011;Vertovec 2012). Cultural diversity can be a descriptive and structuring level of social and educational reality or an ideological and political concept with regard to defining the most appropriate goals for organising and managing relations between social groups (Bell and Hartmann 2007).…”

“…One aspect that has received great attention in the analysis of discourses about cultural diversity pertains to its connection with the conceptualisation and interpretation of social inequality in classrooms. Its ethnocentric, assimilationist and segregating implications have been questioned in relation to those groups classed as different (Oliha and Collier 2010;Berrey 2011;Carrasco 2015;Gotsis and Kortezi 2015;Hartmann 2015), along with its reifying and essentialist effects with regard to how cultural difference is established (Orellana and Bowman 2003;Ahmed 2007). Furthermore, it has also been found that, despite the aspirational recognition and celebration of cultural differences, discourses about diversity often do not inquire into situations of lower status, disadvantage or marginalisation of groups, or consider processes of inequality (Van Deventer Iverson 2007).…”

“…At the same time, the proliferation of its usage has been accompanied by multiple, imprecise and ambiguous meanings (Vertovec 2012). In fact, it is used as a euphemism or a renaming of other concepts such as inequality, race or multiculturalism (Ahmed 2007;Oliha and Collier 2010;Unzueta and Binning 2010;Hartmann 2015), which makes it even more complex to understand.…”