Running head: DIVERSITY 1

Conceptualization of Diversity in Education

Bonnie Stright

University of Pennsylvania
DIVERSITY 2

Conceptualization of Diversity in Education

Today, diversity is habitually either prized or punished. Elite schools will attempt to

carefully curate diversity on paper, parading the appearance of inclusion, while continuing to

uphold the power structures preventing a genuinely diverse body of students and staff in the first

place. U.S. public school systems today are still largely segregated, predominantly by race and

socioeconomic status, through housing discrimination, school zoning policies, curricular

tracking, and more (Rosiek, 2019). Even within diverse schools, segregation often continues in

classrooms through ability-based grouping and discriminatory disciplinary policies. Without

disrupting harmful practices to promote a genuine sense of community, safety, and belonging,

‘inclusion’ can still be largely alienating for students of marginalized backgrounds and identities.

Within literacy specifically, all students need to be taught to see themselves as writers (Paris &

Alim, 2017) – that their voices, dialects, backgrounds, experiences, and cultures are all extremely

valuable and integral parts of the classroom. Diversity must be embraced, even and especially

when it clashes with the perceived standards set by the school. Some key dimensions to the

conceptualization of diversity within literacy include employing culturally sustaining pedagogy,

a framework of rightful presence, and rejecting assimilation and integration in favor of disruption

of oppressive systems.

Posters may adorn classroom walls with vague statements of “Celebrate Diversity”, and

although well-meaning, severely gloss over the structural inequalities of harmful beliefs,

inequitable access, and discriminatory practices within schools (Nieto, 2010). When students of

color actually engage in performances of resistance (Paris & Alim, 2017) against unjust

treatment and negative stereotypes, or even simply exist within their authentic identities against

that of social norms tied to a narrow, White middle-class definition of being (Morris, 2018),
DIVERSITY 3

students are often snubbed, penalized, and/or criminalized. The result is an increasing number of

mostly students of color (disproportionately Black and/or Latinx) and identifying as LGBTQ+ in

contact with the criminal and juvenile justice systems, with one of the greatest commonalities

among them being that schools failed in establishing meaningful and sustainable connections

with these students (Morris, 2018). Schools will claim to celebrate diversity, yet with an

unwritten but largely enforced disclaimer of “as long as this diversity does not challenge

ingrained power structures”. Pushing against this, Paris and Alim’s Culturally Sustaining

Pedagogy positions learning as additive, critically enriching strengths, to sustain linguistic,

literate, and cultural pluralism (Paris, 2017). This is with the intention of fostering deep

connections with students and acknowledging performances of resistance as a way to protect and

safeguard themselves from harm.

Within the diverse intersections of identities, disability typically arises as one of the most

criminalized and neglected forms of identity, especially by schools. The social model of

disability states that people are not disabled as a result of personal impairments, but by the

disabling barriers created and perpetuated by society (Oliver, 2013). Disability rights activists

fought tirelessly for inclusion in general education classrooms, now mandated under IDEA’s

Least Restrictive Environment clause (Shade, 2001). However, an unintended result was how it

largely led to moving students from small self-contained classes of highly individualized support

to large inclusive ones with little to no supports and curriculum designed for able-bodied

students (Bricker, 1995). This ‘inclusion’, while intended to foster classes of diverse abilities, not

only harms students with disabilities, but sets them up for failure. Moreover, these conditions are

often most harmful for students of color, as instead of their diagnosis attracting more resources

and support, they are treated as warranting additional punishment, segregation, and criminal
DIVERSITY 4

justice system involvement (Nanda, 2019). Diversity without equity, criticality, and access to

resources does nothing to benefit student outcomes.

Barton and Tan argue for a teaching and learning framework of rightful presence, shifting

away from feeble attempts at ‘inclusion for all’, as inclusionary practices hold the expectation for

individuals to assimilate to the culture of power or remain marginalized from the learning

community (Barton & Tan, 2020). The framework of rightful presence focuses reform on how

learning can be transformed to engage in political struggle against systems of oppression. As

literacy education in the United States has historically been used as a tool for colonization and

cultural oppression, most notably against African American and Indigenous Peoples, genuine

effort at uplifting these voices while designing pedagogy around students’ identities, is integral in

the conceptualization of diversity. At every level – of students, teachers, community members,

parents, and administrators – authentic voices of people of color are absolutely essential for

justice in education (Ladson-Billings, 2016). Diversity is strength, allowing opportunity for

students to learn from a multitude of perspectives and find power in their own voices. It is

extremely valuable and should be treated as such, especially for students of oppressed identities

that have shown continuous resilience in the face of historical and persistent attempts to forcibly

assimilate and eradicate them.

Oppressed students do not exist outside and marginalized from society, but live within the

structures designed to other them. The solution is not and cannot be to integrate them into these

structures of oppression, but to transform the structures entirely, as to empower all students into

beings for themselves (Freire, 1970). Surface level representation of diversity will not suffice to

changing oppressive systems. Individually memorizing students’ pronouns will not do nearly

enough than teaching a disruption of the gender binary and ending assumptions based on
DIVERSITY 5

appearances or stereotypes. Providing an alternative Mother’s Day activity for a student without

a mother figure may seem accommodating, but still continues to marginalize them. Replacing the

activity entirely with a critical discussion on the diversity of families, while acknowledging

society as typically serving of a standard heterosexual two parent household pushes back against

integration to the oppressive structures and lays the groundwork for dismantlement and

liberation. Inclusion relies on an implied promise of not radically altering the status quo in order

to maintain racialized, gendered, and classed hierarchies (Martin, 2019), but combatting this

requires pedagogy to be designed entirely around the diversity of identities, experiences,

languages, abilities, backgrounds, and cultures.

Morrell notes, “we have an ethical and moral imperative to ensure that every student

receives a humanizing, impactful literacy education” (2017, p. 456). Literacy is a cultural, social

practice of how students learn, communicate, and interact with others and their own worlds.

Every student has their own diverse repertoire of literacy practices and to value some above

others, without opportunity for student autonomy, upholds and fuels harmful power structures.

Diversity works in congruence with implementing an additive, strengths-based pedagogy, and

fostering genuine connections, interest, and value in students identities, both in and out of the

classroom. Teaching criticality and embracing the diversity of identities can acknowledge

oppressions while fostering abolishment of these structures in empowerment of all students.

DIVERSITY 6

References

Barton, A. C., & Tan, E. (2020). Beyond equity as inclusion: A framework of “Rightful

Presence” for guiding justice-oriented studies in teaching and learning. Educational

Researcher, 49(6), 433–440. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x20927363 

Bricker, D. (1995). The challenge of inclusion. Journal of early intervention, 19(3), 179–194.

https://doi.org/10.1177/105381519501900301 

Freire, P., Ramos, M. B., Macedo, D. P., & Shor, I. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed.

Bloomsbury Academic. 

Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (2016). Toward a critical race theory of education. Critical

Race Theory in Education, 10–31. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315709796-2 

Martin, D. B. (2019). Equity, inclusion, and antiblackness in mathematics education. Race

Ethnicity and Education, 22(4), 459–478. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1592833 

Morrell, E. (2017). Toward equity and diversity in literacy research, policy, and practice: A

critical, global approach. Journal of Literacy Research, 49(3), 454–463.

https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296x17720963 

Morris, M. W. (2018). Pushout: The criminalization of black girls in schools. New Press. 

Nanda, J. (2019). The construction and criminalization of disability in school

incarceration. Columbia Journal of Race and Law, 9(2), 265–322. 

Nieto, S. (2010). The light in their eyes: Creating multicultural learning communities. Teachers

College Press. 

Oliver, M. (2013). The social model of disability: Thirty years on. Disability & Society, 28(7),

1024–1026. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2013.818773 
DIVERSITY 7

Paris, D., Alim, H. S., Kinloch, V., Bucholtz, M., Casillas, D. I., Lee, J.-S., Lee, T. S., McCarty,

T. L., Irizarry, J. G., Pedro, S. T., Wong, C., Peña, C., Ladson-Billings, G., Haupt, A., Rosa,

J., Flores, N., Lee, S. J., González, N., Gutiérrez, K. D., … Lee, C. D. (2017). Culturally

sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. Teachers

College Press. 

Rosiek, J. (2019). School segregation: A realist’s view. Phi Delta Kappan, 100(5), 8–13.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721719827536 

Shade, R. A., & Stewart, R. (2001). General education and special education preservice teachers'

attitudes toward inclusion. Preventing school failure: Alternative education for children

and youth, 46(1), 37–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/10459880109603342