Who are diverse?: conceptualisations of cultural diversity in schools behind desks and at chalkface

Abstract

This paper analyses the meanings and values attached to‘culturaldiversity’as a descriptive and interpretative category in the fieldof education in Spain, including its application to define differentgroups in elementary and primary schools there. It reports from acomparative study that considers the discursive production of‘cultural diversity’in Spanish academia together with thediscourse of teaching staff from three schools with specificprogrammes aimed at cultural diversity. Results attest to threedifferent uses of‘cultural diversity’: individualisation, differenceand inequalities, as well as two different assessments: enrichmentand problem. It also analyses how the discourse of teachers ismore complex than those of the academy, because, among otherreasons, they link diversity with situations produced by socialinequality, by the fact that many students are migrants, and by adifferent ethnic condition. In general, the academic discoursetends to present a more institutionalised, idealised and blindvision of social inequality