Policies and practices for teaching sociocultural diversity. Diversity and inclusion: challenges for teacher education

Contents:

- The democratic management of diversity through education as a political aim of the Council of Europe and its member states

- Diversity and inclusion - Challenges for teacher education

- The complexity of diversity - Challenges for teacher education

- Working with diversity in transnational contexts

- Looking back, moving forward: the Council of Europe project on Policies and Practices for Teaching Sociocultural Diversity (2006-09) - Main results and lessons learnt

Case studies:

First cluster of competences - Knowledge and understanding
- Teaching history for reconciliation and tolerance in conflict and post-conflict situations
- Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches (FREPA) to languages and cultures - A tool for dealing with diversity in schools
- Quality of education from the perspective of diversity

Second cluster of competences - Communication and relationships
- Constructing social problem categories - Children of the Second World War in post-war Norway and Germany
- Diversity education and inclusion as the responsibility of a whole school – Innovative concepts and developments in German teacher education and school systems
- Key challenges for Roma education

Third cluster of competences - Management and teaching
- The European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages in the promotion of diversity and inclusion
- Social stratification in the classroom: challenges for teachers
- Teaching history using sources in multicultural classes

Appendix:
The Framework of Teacher Competences for Engaging with Diversity This fourth and final volume of the series of publications from the Council of Europe project Policies and Practices for Teaching Sociocultural Diversity (2006-09) includes case studies presented at the final conference held in Oslo (Norway) from 26 to 28 October 2009.

These concrete examples illustrate the conditions of implementation and adaptation to national contexts of the "Framework of teacher competences for engaging with diversity", which is one of the final products of the project. The competences, which break down into three main groups, namely "Knowledge and Understanding", "Communication and Relationships" and "Management and Teaching", encourage future teachers to reflect on and identify their own personal positions, in various environments, in order to develop a clearer sense of their ethnic and cultural identities and to examine their attitudes vis-à-vis different groups of students.