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

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the meanings and values attached to ‘cultural diversity’ as a descriptive and interpretative category in the field of education in Spain, including its application to define different groups in elementary and primary schools there. It reports from a comparative study that considers the discursive production of ‘cultural diversity’ in Spanish academia together with the discourse of teaching staff from three schools with specific programmes aimed at cultural diversity. Results attest to three different uses of ‘cultural diversity’: individualisation, difference and inequalities, as well as two different assessments: enrichment and problem. It also analyses how the discourse of teachers is more complex than those of the academy, because, among other reasons, they link diversity with situations produced by social inequality, by the fact that many students are migrants, and by a different ethnic condition. In general, the academic discourse tends to present a more institutionalised, idealised and blind vision of social inequality.