Part 6: Diversity and Inclusion

ABSTRACT

Engagement with diverse perspectives helps individuals learn more deeply and broadly. Diversity can include not only race and ethnicity, but also language, religion, ideology, physical ability, culture, cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, age, gender, and sexual orientation. Since much instruction is designed for groups of students with individual strengths and weaknesses, it is a challenge to be responsive to diversity in educationally sound ways. This column introduces important insights from educational psychology on how to use diversity to enhance critical thinking, help make students feel at home in their learning environment, encourage learners to challenge assumptions, and design instruction to meet diverse students’ needs.

KEYWORDS:

• Diversity
• stereotype threat
• intergroup dialogue
• differentiated learning
• universal design for learning