When schools silence diversity: The interplay between diversity othering and school belonging

Nationalist and neo-liberal policies are limiting inclusion and marginalising diversity in many educational contexts, undermining the democratic aims of education. Based on these premises, this paper frames diversity as a critical lens through which to observe the (re)production of practices of school inclusion and exclusion and to rethink the role of schools as democratic and emancipatory spaces. In this regard, we will focus on the complex interplay between diversity, othering, and school belonging to observe how the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion are developed in the classroom. Based on these theoretical frameworks, we propose a re-examination of the notion of ‘school belonging’ to identify new trajectories that can re-centre diversity in inclusion processes.