Diversity

To explain what diversity and participation is about, I will start by breaking the terms Diversity and Participation a part.

Therefore I will try to find out, what the term Diversity covers.

My own understanding of diversity, is an positive strength, for the cooperating classroom.
According to Tony Booth, the term ´diversity´, do not only refer to certain groups or persons with special needs. But it is seen as an process, that challenges everybody, on the behalf of everybody got different beliefs and values. In that perspective diversity occurs when individuals are interacting. 
In that matter, values comes to surface by our actions in the everyday life. What we say and how we justify our actions therefore become a reflection of our values.
In that case, values is seen as a dynamic process, that continually change due to the context the individual is a part of.
In that matter I would like to refer to the Austrian physic Heinz Von Foerster’s cybernetics.
Cybernetics comes from the greek word kybernétes, meaning “The art of steersmanship”. In this case cybernetics sees every individual as an system, that constantly is change in accordance within its input/stimuli, causing a circular causality. As a metaphor he use the circumstances, when a steersman has to park his boat. The steersman, constantly has to take the change of wind and waves op to consideration, when he is steering the boat to place. This causes a input (in this case a increase of the wind), and then a negative feedback mechanism that makes him steer slightly more contra the wind. This will cause a negative output, and therefore a balance in the system, that keeps the steersman on the right track, and successfully parks his boat. If the steersman instead was steering with the wind, or not took the caution of the wind, it would end out in a positive feedback mechanism, causing the system feeding itself. The output would then be self-reinforcing, causing the boat to crash. 

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Why is cybernetics relevant in the matter of diversity?
On behalf of Tony Booth’s statement »that we all got different values and beliefs, and these are

surfaced when we act«.I find it relevant to try and describe, on what behalf the individual is acting from.

According to the cybernetics, we will have to focus on the input, and how the individual is responding

via feedback mechanisms. Therefore we have to assure that the individuals will correspond with feedback

mechanisms that keeps the system balanced.

For this to happen, my belief is to see any social arena from a poststructuralistic view.

From this view the individuals feedback mechanism, will be contextual and therefore a breakdown of stereotypes. We will in that case let the true diversity come to the surface, and can therefore describe, the individual pupils actions on behalf of the environment surrounding it. In this case I find it important, not only to see the surrounding environment as the school or classroom, but also draw references to the pupil´s Micro, Meso, Exo and Macro system.

To describe the different systems influence of each other I would like to refer to the Russian-American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner. Urie Bronfenbrenner is famous for his ecological model, describing how different systems, surrounding the individual, has an direct impact on one another.