Diversity as problem, diversity as solution: a critical exploration of diversity discourses and their workings in school lives

The paper provides a critical exploration of discourses of diversity and manifestations in school lives in England. Set against the rollback of equality and inclusion frameworks, it aims to offer insights to rethink, recalibrate and defend diversity. I begin by unpacking competing discursive configurations of diversity in the literature. I then explore manifestations in school lives drawing on teachers’ accounts in two secondary schools with different demographics. Despite celebratory rhetorics, diversity emerged as a problem in the urban school and involved racialised perceptions of certain ethnic-religious backgrounds as barriers to modern liberal values. In the rural school diversity emerged as a solution, as a lack of multicultural experiences and attachment to locality was seen as limiting students’ horizons. In both schools, diversity worked towards demarcating the limits of desirable and valued conduct, producing and normalising the forms of difference that count as diversity, thus reflecting rather than interrupting power/knowledge hierarchies.