We don’t have diversity here, but inequality, that’s in the design of the education system: Tunisian teachers, diversification and the defunding of education

Is diversity an asset or a challenge in education? Does it make managing a classroom easier or more difficult? With increasing awareness of different needs and experiences of children from different ethnic, religious and migration backgrounds, attention has increased to issues of diversity in education. But how do people in different parts of the world react to the invocation of diversity? Is diversity another way to talk about inequality or is it a way to mask it and avoid difficult discussions about it? How can insights from contexts in the global South contribute to our understanding of diversity in education in the context of a global learning crisis? In my research on education in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia, I ask teachers how diversity, inequality and migration shape their experiences of the classroom. I focus here on Tunisia, the intersections of diversity and inequality in teacher narratives and how they can texture our understanding of both diversity and educational transformations in the global South. I draw on fieldwork I conducted across the country from September 2022 to June 2023, where I interviewed over 60 Tunisian teachers, in addition to union leaders, experts, researchers, former ministers and other stakeholders.