Responsibly competent: Teaching, ethics and diversity

Abstract

This article reports on a Council of Europe project, Policies and Practices for Teaching Sociocultural Diversity, undertaken between 2006 and 2009. The project was undertaken in three phases and involved a survey of teacher education policies and practices in relation to sociocultural diversity across Europe, a conceptual analysis and the development of a framework of teacher competences for sociocultural diversity. The article charts the process of developing the framework and reports on the engagement with the key stakeholders - policy makers, teachers and students. The features of the competence framework, informed by Levinas and emphasising the teacher's responsibility to the Other, are discussed.