Diversity and Inclusion in the Context of Education

Norbert Pauser

In the mid-1990s, the social systems theorist Niklas Luhmann predicted that the questions of inclusion and exclusion would become a central issue in the 21st century. In point of fact, various processes of (dis)integration are becoming increasingly evident and/or proceeding at a rapid pace.

Diversity management is becoming widespread in the German-speaking region. It consists, as a rule, in the systematic management of workforce diversity with respect to the so-called core dimensions (sex/gender, ethnicity/skin colour, age, religion, mental/physical abilities and sexual orientation) to the benefit of the enterprise and thus for the good of “everyone”. Closely related to this are the appreciation of diversity and respect for the “individuality” of all stakeholders. Diversity management is based on the achievement of objectives through functional differentiation. Inclusion, on the other hand, is defined as the unrestricted right of participation in education processes, and its legitimation is normative and ethical. In practice, the dividing line between business logic and the principle of comprehensive social inclusion is not as easily found as it might, at first, appear. The fact is that organisations begin to talk of diversity and inclusion when it is a matter of both fair inclusion and company-relevant diversification.

But what is really hidden behind the term “diversity and inclusion”? Who is “everyone”? The highly diverse terms used to describe diversity indicate that at the moment, “everyone” generally means “others”. And as a rule, “the others” are usually enumerated first. The long-standing accusation that conventional integration has been a failure seems justified from the point of view that interprets integration to mean “assimilation”. Now that “inclusion” is being widely promoted, is it “integration” that is really meant? Inclusion obviously is not having a significant influence; in view of the Austrian debate on comprehensive middle schools alone, it is becoming obvious who, at present, is meant by “everyone”. But even reading the mission statements of businesses, for example, makes it clear that in numerous cases it is “the others” (who, despite the talk of inclusion, are quite deliberately selected according to certain criteria) that are meant. The phenomena of dominance and hierarchy seem to be factored out. The “beautiful new diversity" obviously has its limits here and there.

In contrast to conventional integration, inclusion has a considerably more pronounced organisational component, and this seems to be troublesome for schools – which are arguably rather heterogeneity-resistant units with structures that are not very permeable – or at least more than they can cope with. Schools are primarily places that reproduce societal “norms” and attempt to put the social order into practice through separation on the one hand and by working to achieve sameness on the other. In oversimplified terms, this means that very homogeneous (in other words specialised, for example the system of schools for children with special needs) units pursue the primary goal of achieving sameness (and not unity in diversity) – which, it seems to me, has become a pretty difficult undertaking.

Even the perspective of emancipatory diversity management, which challenges hegemonic structures in organisations, runs the danger of meeting its Waterloo in the company’s management. For the management organises, plans, steers and intervenes, as a rule, not against itself but in support of its (power) structures, which have grown up over hundreds of years. Here, there is a clear connection between the organisation, the management and power.

This (and a number of other things) may be the reasons why, of late, traditional integration in the sense of individual (negatively viewed) deviations from a norm (which, ultimately, is always imaginary) is being propagated under the title of “diversity and inclusion”.

It would undoubtedly be naïve to postulate the diversity and inclusion approach as a panacea for complex educational issues; after all, a democratic approach to education is a pluralistic one, and not one based on an all-inclusive dogma. At the same time, the inclusion of “everyone” remains an unachievable ideal, because it cannot, as such, be realised. Can we hope for a comprehensive removal of boundaries? In any case, diversity in education, especially in the schools, has become impossible to ignore; the question is why this phenomenon is being given so little attention and why it is being dealt with from an inadequate perspective.

Could the reason be that the application of the diversity and inclusion approach at the organisational (and at the individual) level, as well as in the organisational environment, effects certain far-reaching changes? These processes can be structured by means of indicators, measures, key figures and objectives (e.g. in the form of a “diversity scorecard” or an “index of inclusion”) into a set of verifiable and comparable parameters, with the result that inclusion and exclusion processes can be made visible and (more important) measurable.

When conventional integration, in the sense of adjustments to be made by the individual, makes it easier to cope with diversity because it continues to be considered a personal (or collective) deficit, it is not surprising that so many organisations hesitate to change their approach, on the grounds that “nobody is discriminated against here anyway”, or that they are already “highly committed”, or that “our principle is not to exclude anyone in the first place”. All this leads inevitably to a situation in which the responsibility is obviously to be laid at the door of the “others”: they “do not want to become integrated” or the political leaders are not reacting “to an adequate extent”; accordingly, the scope of action with respect to real partial autonomies of organisations is disregarded.

The new possibilities that diversity and inclusion give us have to do with meta-theoretical reflection on difference/dominance/discrimination at the organisational level. This is not just another “instrument” for more individual commitment (which in principle is amply available). Diversity and inclusion is not primarily another attempt at achieving change in educational contexts through the integration of “problem cases” at the societal level. It is the meso level, in other words the organisational level, that takes the spotlight and thereby reveals numerous organisational “blind spots” – which can at times be quite painful.

This does not mean that diversity and inclusion is not also clearly useful at the methodological, didactic level, but only that it brings about changes in a much more comprehensive sense than people have been accustomed to up to now. Diversity and inclusion involves an organisational transformation that is strategically controlled with the help of targeted methods. And this is possibly the reason why this term is already being used so often in a watered-down sense, thus obstructing – in a politically quite correct form – a clear view of the situation and proving, in the medium term, to be of as little use for “genuine integration” as all the terms that have been used in the past. However, everyone who really dares to become involved in true diversity and inclusion, will, as a rule, confirm the highly positive changes that are associated with it.

Norbert Pauser is an education expert and Managing Partner of Pauser&Wondrak Unternehmensberatung OG). Some of the main focuses of his work are corporate diversity management, the “diversity and inclusion” approach, and the core dimensions sex/gender, mental/physical abilities, interculturality and sexual orientation. Adjunct lecturer at the University of Vienna (Department of Journalism and Communication Studies as well as Gender Studies) and a journalist and author.