Construction of difference and diversity within policy and practice in England |
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| Authors: | Hazel Lawson Ruth Boyask Sue Waite |
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| Institution: | 1. Graduate School of Education, College of Social Sciences and International Studies , University of Exeter , St Luke’s Campus, Heavitree Road, Exeter EX1 2LU, UK;2. School of Education, Plymouth University , Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK |
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| Abstract: | Policy and practice responses to diversity and difference in pupil populations continue to challenge education systems around the world. This paper considers how teachers’ understandings of diversity and difference and their pedagogical responses at the local level are influenced by, and can be reconciled with, policy at the general level with its impulse for categorisation, normalcy and ‘ableness’. Two frameworks around orientations to diversity and types of pedagogic need are combined in order to examine this tension and develop possible responses. This is illustrated through the example of special educational needs as a type of difference. The paper argues that for critical, ethical and socially just pedagogies, policy needs to support teachers in acknowledging and troubling difference at the classroom level. |
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| Keywords: | diversity construction of difference educational policy special educational needs |
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