Teachers’ diversity awareness and critical consciousness - sine qua non of social justice in schools

Abstract

The present paper focuses on teacher’s role in social justice and explores how teachers perceive and react upon diversity and inequality in their classrooms. Through a literature review, we aimed to answer three research questions: 1) what are diversity awareness and critical consciousness in education; 2) why are diversity awareness and critical consciousness important; and 3) how can diversity awareness and critical consciousness be supported in teachers. The literature review has revealed that most papers on teachers’ diversity awareness and critical consciousness have been published within the last few years and that the importance of the two concepts has been recognized for a wide range of educators. There seems to be a growing interest in this topic due to the increase of the diversity in classrooms and the recognition of the teachers’ role in addressing diversity and inequality. However, large-scale studies would be a needed contribution to the field, as most of the existing studies are small-scale. Based on this review, we argue that both diversity awareness and critical consciousness need to be supported through preservice and in-service teacher professional development programs, if we are to make education systems more inclusive for all.

Keywords

• teachers
• diversity awareness
• critical consciousness
• social justice
• teachers’ competencies