The unseen half : theories for educational practices

Although diversity is apparent in all educational settings, it is often undervalued, positioned as deficit or difficult, and rendered invisible (Mills & Keddie, 2012). Thus, diversity within an educational community, or a particular aspect of diversity, may be metaphorically understood as constituting an ‘unseen half’. This metaphor is central to this chapter and in less explicit ways is a concept depicted throughout this book. It carries multiple meanings. It refers to the individuals or communities who are present in educational settings but are rendered invisible by the day-to-day practices of schooling. Thus, the unseen half reflects the diversity of children and families who are in many ways insufficiently catered for by educational, curricula, institutional and government policy, teacher pedagogies, and classroom, centre and playground practices. These individuals are marked by their ‘difference’ from the ‘mainstream’ and, as such, are often constructed as problematic. Ironically and contradictorily, despite being overlooked, their difference from the socially constructed norm renders them visible in particular ways, scrutinised and under surveillance. As they consciously or unconsciously challenge, contradict or resist society’s taken-for-granted truths about who and what one should be, how one should act and what one should think, they are positioned by others as problems requiring policing and regulation.