Diversity and Education

In his new book, Michael Vavrus helps readers better understand why issues of diversity and difference are so highly contested in the United States and across the globe. Vavrus incorporates specific education examples throughout the text to examine six contested areas: race and ethnicity; socioeconomic class and culture; multicultural and ethnic studies; language; religion; and sexuality and gender. In each of these areas, the author explores how contrasting worldviews found in social conservatism, liberal multiculturalism, and critical multiculturalism influence our understandings about difference and diversity and the educational policies we develop as a result. Diversity and Education is designed to help educators move beyond the “how can they believe that?” knee-jerk reaction toward a more informed, strategic understanding of belief systems and political affiliations.

Book Features:

• Brings a contemporary, 21st–century perspective to differing political orientations toward diversity and education.
• Examines outcomes of diversity debates on children of color, the poor, immigrants, women, and sexual and religious minorities.
• Uses critical pedagogy with a historical and political economy lens to explain current diversity issues in education.
• Critiques the diversity stance of new national teacher education standards from the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation.

Michael Vavrus is a professor at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a past president of the Association of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges for Teacher Education, and author of Transforming the Multicultural Education of Teachers.

“Through an artful weaving of historical and contemporary critical analyses, Vavrus leads us, chapter by chapter, down the rabbit holes of contentious diversity debates.”

—TC Record

“A must-read for anyone concerned about why so many policies claiming to ‘help’ diverse students fail and what alternatives exist. Vavrus clearly believes in the power of teachers who are well-educated critical thinkers.”
—Christine Sleeter, professor emerita, California State University, Monterey Bay

“Diversity and Education can not only help us have conversations about racism, institutionalizedoppression, and cultural fear, it can also offer an intervention that can movereaders towards a deeper critical consciousness about diversity and multicultural education in their own lives.”
—From the Foreword by Wayne Au, associate professor at the University of Washington, Bothell, and an editor for Rethinking Schools

"Few education scholars have offered as potent and cogent a political and economic analysis of multicultural education and diversity as Professor Michael Vavrus has in his new book. His critique of neoliberalism via critical pedagogy and his advocacy of social justice education are timely and praiseworthy."
—Ramin Farahmandpur, professor, Graduate School of Education, Portland State University