ABSTRACT
It is slowly becoming standard for schools in the USA to take explicitly into account the ascribed characteristics (race, class, gender, and disability) of their students and the human diversity in society. The nomenclature for these aspects of education may change-as it has over the last thirty or more years-but the attention focused on student diversity in the schools and classrooms will continue to increase. This attention is a function of: the increasing number of students of color entering schools, many of whom have a primary language other than English; the demands of women who seek to have their history, culture, ideology and pedagogy fully accepted, appreciated and affirmed in every aspect of the policies and practices of the educational system; the accelerated movement of the United States population into a ‘have’ and ‘have not’ society; and the national fear that the USA is losing its technological and economic eminence to other countries.
