It is essential that diversity be respected in the classroom and that the teacher strive to promote social justice.  I believe that the latter goal is easier to achieve than the former one because as a social studies teacher I can set the curriculum in a way that focuses on groups of people in the world who are marginalized, disenfranchised or persecuted.  Consequently, students will see the faces of First Nations, Native Americans, Muslims, women, black slaves, and other people who are generally ignored in history books because of their lack of power.

The issue of diversity, however, is a little bit more challenging.  How can I integrate the ideas of acceptance into my class when there are students who are not interested in accepting diversity because of their own culture or political values?  This issue is compounded by the fact that one group could misconstrue an honest discussion in which I defend other groups as an attack on their own culture.  For example, if a discussion arose about the rights of the LGBTQ community and a Muslim student were outspoken about her disdain for gay people, my defence of this group may be construed as me ‘disrespecting’ the Islamic religion since it says in the Quran that homosexuality is immoral.  This is an issue I have been quite thoughtful about for some time and in this situation I would probably defend LGBTQ rights, and if the discussion got heated, I would talk to the conservative student after class and explain to her that I appreciate her comments in class and am glad that she is willing to explain her worldview to the people in the class, but that it isn’t appropriate to say disparaging things against the LGBTQ community because there are gay people in the school as well as Muslims.