Diversity, it has been widely noted, cannot be read against a universal set of criteria, and that the moral claims surrounding diversity are contextually specific. Traditionally these claims have been nationally defined. In this paper, I will argue that this approach to thinking about diversity is no longer sufficient, and that while the national context still remains pertinent, in the era of globalization, it has become transformed by the emerging processes of transnationalism. Using a number of narratives, I will suggest that the multiple ways in which people now experience, interpret, negotiate and work with diversity are affected by factors that are deeply shaped by the emerging patterns of global mobility and interconnectivity. This recognition has major implications for educational research, requiring new conceptual resources that enable us to ‘read’ diversity as a product of complex interactions between national articulations and their re-constitution by transnational processes.