creating a discourse of difference

Abstract

Recent educational policy has attempted to alleviate glaring achievement gaps within increasingly diverse student groups in the USA. Despite these efforts districts not making yearly Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) are predominantly in disenfranchised areas or may be serving very diverse students. This article showcases recent research, which has produced some significant results in closing achievement gaps within traditionally marginalized groups. Despite many years of research within the coexisting fields of inclusion, bilingual education, diversity and overrepresentation of minorities in special education, a cyclopic system unable to address the increasing diversity within our schools perseverates. This article will also investigate underlying ideologies that seem bent on defining micro-boundaries within differences, thereby continually redefining conditions for exclusion from a mythical homogeneous mass. Inclusion is seen as the unifying thread for an increasingly fragmented public education system. The process of coherence making is further illustrated and supported by theoreticians such as Clark, Dyson and Millward, and Fullan.