Chapter 6: Differentiation as a teaching strategy

Over the five and a half millennia of the evolution of institutionalised education, two interrelated salient trends stand out. The first is the shift from elite to mass education. The second change involves the transition from schools being blatantly used to bludgeon a population into submission and uniformity—reinforcing an officially sanctioned hegemony and suppressing any trace of diversity—to a valuing of diversity. Since the 1960s, at least two major global societal tendencies have constituted a force working against schools being instruments for imposing dominant cultures. These two are the growing multicultural or diverse societies across the globe and the rise of the Creed of Human Rights as a moral code for a globalised world. Together, these trends have contributed to a one hundred and eighty degree change, as diversity has come to be valued in education (institutions and systems). Dimensions of diversity acknowledged include cultural diversity, religious diversity, diversity in terms of gender and sexual orientation, and diversity concerning ableism. This chapter focuses on the concomitant differentiation needed in teaching.