Handling cultural diversity: Developing an innovative textbook for and with teachers

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A competent way of dealing with migration-related diversity is a great challenge, particularly for teachers, as they are to treat their students as equals and also as different from each other: They are to treat them as equals in terms of enabling equal educational chances, and they are to treat them as different from each other by taking different learning conditions and life circumstances into account in order to realise equal educational chances. Besides, they are challenged to recognise and acknowledge their students in their particularities and uniqueness, including their sociocultural origins and belongings (Helsper et al., 2001). And furthermore, the teachers are also requested to teach their students, how they themselves shall deal with and participate in a pluralistic and globally interconnected society (cohep, 2007).

Such a profile of requirements is highly complex and inherently contradictory, so that the appropriate way of acting depends on the circumstances and needs to be found in the respective situation. Scientific studies provide insight into relevant interconnections, however, they offer only little for the translation into the concrete teaching practice.

For this reason, we pursue a project in which scientific evidence and the challenges of teaching practice are brought together. They are not only brought together in terms of content, but also in the form of cooperation: In a cooperation between the scientific and the professional community, we develop a collection of concrete school cases and reflect on the questions of the appropriate ways of dealing with them.

As a result, we put together a case collection on the questions of dealing with migration-related diversity, which shall serve pre-service and in-service teachers as a source of reflection and Inspiration. The book has been published by hep Verlag in April 2019: https://www.hep-verlag.ch/auf-den-zweiten-blick (only in German).

The book is now available as open acces: >> Free Download «Auf den zweiten Blick» [in German]