ABSTRACT
Opportunities for building in diversity to the curriculum will vary according to the nature of the school, its underlying philosophy of education and the nature of the student/teacher population. A school that wishes to promote international education, but within a context where it is constrained by commitment to the formal curriculum of a national system, will clearly have less opportunity than one in which no particular external curriculum is adhered to or, if it is, where that external curriculum is one that attempts to build in diversity as a means of promoting international education. Choice of formal curriculum, therefore, where that is possible, will clearly affect the possibility of diversity. Taking the definition of curriculum, however, in its broadest sense to include not only the 'subject' dimensions of the student's school experience, but also every other dimension - the informal as well as the formal - it is clear, as Thompson (1998) pointed out, that opportunities for 'interstitial learning' can be built in within and around whatever formal curriculum is espoused. Diversity can thus not only be built in terms of, for instance, the opportunity to study some subjects in greater depth than others, or some subjects in different ways from others by incorporating different styles of teaching to cater for different preferences in styles of learning; diversity can also be built in by encouraging students to be members of groups in different social and cultural contexts - perhaps by encouraging links between older and younger students, or links between students and other members of the community - in addition to the normal context of student and teacher relationships.
