The growing diversity of student populations at the global level has increasingly prompted schools to develop institutional and instructional practices for building multicultural and inclusive learning contexts (Griffith et al., 2016; Banks, 2020), allowing students and school communities to foster positive attitudes toward diversity (Solhaug, 2018). The concept of diversity embraces a wide range of socially ascribed or perceived differences, such as by sex, age, ethnic/social origin, language, religion, nationality, economic condition, or special learning needs (Daniels & Garner, 1999; Council of Europe, 2008). In this scenario, civic and citizenship education plays a key role for the promotion of knowledge and respect for other cultures and the inclusion of diverse groups into society (Schachner et al., 2019). ICCS 2022 included diversity as one of its focus areas. The study assessed a wide range of issues related to diversity, that concern the affective-behavioural area (e.g. students’ attitudes toward gender equality and equal rights for immigrants) and the contexts of school and classrooms (Schulz et al., 2023). The paper will present ICCS 2022 results related to how learning environments acknowledge and deal with diversity. After a brief overview of the relevance of the topic of diversity and inclusion within learning objectives, it will analyse data from teacher and school questionnaires concerning teachers’ self-reported preparedness to teach diversity and inclusiveness, their participation in training programs, schools and classroom activities dealing with diversity, and teachers’ opinions regarding the influence of cultural and ethnic differences and of socioeconomic differences on teaching activities. Findings showed a positive picture of how schools and teacher deal with diversity, however, there were considerable variations across countries. At the school level, activities to promote teaching to young people from diverse backgrounds, to foster tolerance toward diversity, and to support students with special learning needs were reported widely in most ICCS 2022 countries. Majorities among teachers reported to have conducted activities to address diversity in their classrooms and considered diversity as an important resource for education. More than half of them also reported attendance of pre- or in-service training courses on diversity and inclusiveness (Schulz et al., 2024). Based on these results, the final section of this contribution considers the interplay between democracy and intercultural dialogue (intended in its broader sense, see Council of Europe, 2018) as well as the implications at the school and classroom level for the promoting a democratic and intercultural learning environment for civic and citizenship education.

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