Le Prévost, Magdalena

Heterogeneity, Diversity, and Differences: On the Subject of the Equality of Students - 2010.


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The heterogeneity of schools and students, their diversity, and ways this diversity is managed reflect a modification of the symbolic and ideological educational references and recognized pedagogical models that occurred in the educational sphere in connection with the debate about equal opportunities at school. This paper analyzes the content of these new educational references in order to identify their impact on teachers’ conceptions and practices regarding school democratization. To ask whether a democratic impetus has been achieved or not is relevant while the emergence of these new educational discourses results in a high minimization and depoliticization of the impact of gender, class, and race on learning processes. The promotion of differentiated instruction and some of the new education movement’s precepts are used to transcribe those discourses into teachers’ practices, which contributes to fostering the psychologizing and decollectivization of teaching methods.