The European Commission (2017) points out that teachers need to be prepared for career-long professional development, collaborative work and for dealing with diversity in their classrooms. According to the Paris Declaration (Council of the EU, 2015), due to the increasing numbers of immigrants entering the EU, the question of addressing the diversity of students is one of the most pressing challenges for educators. At the same time, TALIS results (OECD, 2019) show that teachers across the EU do not feel well prepared for teaching in diverse settings. Teachers are central to addressing a key challenge for schools in the 21st century, which is to teach different students with a variety of abilities, motivations and backgrounds to succeed in school and later in life. Diversity awareness can support teachers’ capacities to meet the needs of diverse classrooms and schools and create more inclusive classrooms. In the symposium, we will explore diversity awareness together with the social and emotional competencies of teachers and principals from several different perspectives as well as several different countries. The symposium brings together insights from two European Erasmus+ projects The HAND IN HAND: Empowering teachers across Europe to deal with social, emotional and diversity related career challenges (HAND:ET) and HEAD: Empowering School Principals for Inclusive School Culture. In the first paper, Odak and colleagues base their discussion of teachers’ role in supporting diversity and social justice in schools on an extensive literature review. The second paper by Roczen and colleagues in addition to the first theoretical paper provide empirical support by focusing on the process of measuring of social and emotional competencies and diversity awareness of teachers across Europe. The following papers bring provide further insights into diversity awareness from individual countries. From  Slovenia, Kozina and Vršnik Perše explore the role of mindfulness in fostering social-emotional competencies and diversity awareness of teachers using HAND:ET data. From Sweden, Dahlström and Oskarsson focus on practicing diversity awareness in the classroom by using empathic curiosity.From Austria, Fredericks and colleagues report on teachers' self-assessments of their well-being, and multicultural and egalitarian beliefs in the context of teaching in a diverse environment  using data from the HAND:ET project. The symposium ends with a paper of  Mlekuž and Veldin focusing on teachers and principals and their role in building inclusive schools in Croatia and the Republic of North Macedonia using the data from the HEAD project.

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