DIVERSITY IN PRACTICE - PERSPECTIVES ON CONCEPT, CONTEXT, AND POLICY

Although diversity is a concept that has generated many policy initiat ives, it is also an idea that merits closer critical analysis. This ar ticle argues that many efforts to support diversity are framed by disc ourses grounded in conceptualizations of culture, difference, and iden tity that, far from encouraging genuine multiculturalism, merely serve to perpetuate the status quo. Educators and policy makers need to bec ome far more sensitive to the implicit stasis of current categories of thinking about difference so that more effective and pedagogically ap propriate model for teaching and learning about diversity can be imple mented.