Education systems around the world are making attempts to address issues of social justice and equity and to respond to diversity and difference in pupil populations. The Every Child Matters agenda (HMSO, 2003) and personalisation focus described as ‘a matter of moral purpose and social justice’ (DfES, 2006) are both examples of such attempts in England. This paper marks the beginning of a research collaboration that is investigating contextual conceptualisations of diversity through theoretical and empirical inquiry. The first phase of this study, our literature analysis, examines prevailing perceptions of diversity in English school education as represented in policy and research literatures and maps efforts to address social equity for learners in terms of diversity within the macro and micro contexts of schooling. A range of enquiry modes, for example, contextually specific studies, large-scale studies and meta-analytic studies (systematic reviews), in addition to government policy documentation, generate conceptualisations of diversity at different levels (for example, individual, pedagogical, institutional and policy levels). In this paper we particularly focus on perceptions of diversity, and efforts to address diversity, applicable to the school/pedagogical level. We continue a theme from our previous studies where we have examined tensions between policy and systemic elements, on the one hand, and personal enactment and agency on the other (Kaur, Boyask, Quinlivan and McPhail, 2008, in press; Sikes, Lawson and Parker, 2007; Waite, Bromfield & McShane, 2005). So for this paper, we ask: What practices are implied by policy in order to respond to pupil diversity? How is diversity constructed for teachers?

This paper is based on a literature study examining a range of research, policy and school practice literatures which utilise a variety of enquiry modes. Subsequent empirical study intends to employ a ‘person-centred methodology’ to explore subjective perceptions and personal narratives of how diversity is embodied in the policies and practices of education in England. We are interesting in asking, for example: Do policy and structural perspectives on diversity shape or translate into school practice and subjective perceptions of diversity? How do personal interpretations and understandings of diversity reformulate policy in their day-to-day enactment?

We suggest that there exists a complex picture of how learner diversity is constructed within English school education, that different contexts construct diversity differently and that this is affected and effected by the mode of enquiry.