Educating for Diversity

Description

How can education respond to the complexities of engaging with diversity in ways that can that equip everyone to survive and thrive in an increasingly diverse global world? This course will critically examine a range of approaches for engaging with diversity in a variety of formal and non formal educational sites. Students lived experiences will be drawn on to explore a range of conceptual approaches for engaging with diversity, and their implications for practice will be critically engaged with. Contemporary debates concerning issues of assimilation, affirmative action and access (among others) in relation to cultures, genders and sexualities, ability, race and class will be discussed.

This course will critically examine some of the approaches used to develop equitable and inclusive opportunities in education for diverse learners. The notion of diversity reflects a wide spectrum of differences, including those that place students at risk and those that do not. Further this conceptualization of diversity embraces both individual characteristics and those that exist within and across social-cultural groups, so that students will gain an appreciation of the fact that learners who have a particular characteristic are not a homogenous group.