This paper develops fundamental theoretical and empirical perspectives on the ‘Verdeckung’ concept concerning Diversity in Education and Educational Research. It prepares an insight which deepens ‘Verdeckung’ regarding diversity-sensitive didactic and diagnostic contexts. Particularly concerning the interplay between education, educational research, diversity, and modern-day (Western) society. Following the results of a research initiative (Bender et al., 2023a), a contingency-theoretical perspective on contemporary democratic societies is developed as a first step. Meaning that modern democratic societies cannot and do not want to claim any final justication for themselves that legitimizes certain structures of social orders (Flügel-Martinsen, 2021). Instead, it is assumed that these orders are fundamentally contingent. Therefore, especially in the context of education and diversity, contemporary democratic societies are confronted with extensive demands for participation and inclusion. For example, the UN CRPD stands for the assumption that social orders, as well as educational practices and systems, are fundamentally changeable and diversity-sensitive and thus adaptable to individual subjects and population groups (Meseth, 2021). Assuming contingency of democratic contemporary societies, it must also be presupposed that democratic modern-day societies have also emerged from hegemonic conflicts (Laclau & Mouffe, 2020; Nonhoff, 2019). These orders that invoke contingency, equality, and participation are expected to be power-based. Consequently, specific relations of inclusion and exclusion accompany them. Structurally, the experience of inclusion is thus always linked to the experience of exclusion (Bender et al., 2023b). Even if ‘Verdeckung’ is not unique to democratic modern-day societies, it seems to play a central role there. When these societies have to legitimize themselves as orders of egalitarianism and multiplicity (Ranciere, 2002) despite inescapable inclusions and exclusions, ‘Verdeckung’ is added as a mechanism for dealing with the resulting tensions. Separate methodological considerations are necessary to understand ‘Verdeckungen’ as a component of Education. After all, the methods established in educational research predominantly aim at the orders' reconstruction itself. It means looking for the outcome of hegemonic clashes and the inclusions and exclusions they produce. In contrast, research on ‘Verdeckung’ in the diversity and inclusion context seems to focus primarily on the relationship between concrete orders of meaning and their promises of inclusion or the relationship between being and ought (Weber, 1988). With this view, it is possible to trace appearances of ‘Verdeckung’ in different contexts. Ultimately, this will be exemplified by an example of cultural education - an educational practice designed to be particularly diversity-sensitive (Kolleck et al., 2022; Keuchel, 2019).

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