Diversity-Conscious Education

Diversity is an increasingly recognized educational challenge. The differences underlying the notion of diversity are never neutral. They are subject to discourses of power, can represent privilege, and can serve as projection screens for discrimination. At the same time, individuals often define themselves by those very differences that are subject to discrimination in order to be able to stand up for their rights, be it in terms of linguistic-ethnic minorities, disadvantaged gender, religious affiliations, social disabilities, diaspora communities, socio-economic or otherwise conditioned inequalities. This is where both the destructive and the productive potential of difference and diversity lie. Inequality relations, globally and locally, in the classroom and in social reality, require a critical perception of difference, not defining those affected but rather recognizing the potential for empowerment and transgression in their claims and contradictions.