Arno Boudry 

University of Ghent, BELGIUM;  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3680-5238

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.36534/erlj.2022.02.07

Bibliographic citation: (ISSN 2657-9774) Educational Role of Language Journal.  Volume 2022-2(8). LINGUISTIC CONTEXTS AND DIVERSITY IN EDUCATION, pp. 78-81

                                                           

Introduction: are we all living in the same boat? How the pandemic exposed ‘diversity’

We start with some bad news: the pandemic overcame us all. Wherever you lived, what your social position or gender is, you were confronted by this calamity over the past few years. However, as the saying goes, “we are all in the same boat,” we were not. Privilege erupted like a volcano hidden deep under water and made itself appear in an uncanny way (like eruptions of volcano’s mostly do). Online teaching showed maybe more than ever how diverse children – or for that matter adults – are. Some had a warm cozy room for themselves, with parents coming to their room every hour to check if everything goes well or to bring them a freshly made fruit salad to nourish their developing brains. The sad truth is that a lot of children (and adults) had a very rough time during the pandemic. They were stuck 24/7 in an unpleasant, horrible or violent environment, with maybe even no access to a computer to attend the online classes. The concept of ‘diversity’ became very clear to all of us during the pandemic, independent of how identical and “in the same boat” we all thought we were – and indeed the pandemic made no exceptions – still the situation was for everyone different. This article aims to contribute to the development of the notion of ‘diversity’. More specifically we will try to contribute with a philosophical point of view. (…)

 

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