Learning from Difference

Abstract

It is clear that notions of ‘unity’ and ‘diversity’ characterize a growing number of national settings where the concept ‘multicultural’ has been recruited to inform and even to shape public education and education policy. The nine national case studies included in this work all demonstrate however, the immense differences concealed by the terminology and that what abstractions like unity and diversity precisely mean are highly contingent on the perceived history of group relations in difference settings and how questions of difference relate to the material and symbolic patters in individual states. Yet, we are able to imagine and construct a conversation about comparative practices in which substantial new learning is available to us. The terms therefore, can function, for all their limitations, to stimulate the beginnings of conversations about conceptualizations and responses to difference in education practices. For example, the very concept of ‘learning from difference’ which is the title of our volume, as much as the specific content, can provide portable lessons and critical dimensions of not only approaching difference, but of responses to real world scenarios to benefit educational outcomes for larger numbers of learners in each case study.