Because of immigration processes schools have become more linguistically and culturally diverse. These processes have lead not only to a shift of content in terms of policy making, but also to shifts in teaching due to multicultural classes. Consequently, there have been changes on a educational policy level and on an individual level. However, not every school system seems to be able to deal with the changing roles of teaching and learning. Several studies, for example the PISA study, show that countries achieve different results in dealing with this diversity. Germany is scoring quite low (OECD 2006).

This paper will focus on the special situation of children from a low socio-economic background and children from an immigrant background within the German school system. This analysis presents an overview of research results showing a strong over-representation of these two minority groups within the special education system – in particular within the special school for students with learning difficulties. This paper emphasizes the exclusionary and inclusionary processes within the German school system. It shows that the strong tendency towards homogeneous grouping in German schools leads to disadvantages for minority students. Even though the German society has become more heterogeneous, the schools seem to "resist" these changes. For example, one can still find a "monolingual habitus" (Gogolin, 1994). This paper will discuss the implications for teachers' work in a increasingly multicultural society.