Diversity Work as Mood Work in Education

This project explores how educators can respond positively to students’ racial and ethnic experiences. Racial-ethnic exclusions are produced in educational institutions and affect achievement, motivation, and well-being among students in Danish schools. Educators are aware of these experiences, but often lack the knowledge and racial literacy to address them.
Deriving from the hypothesis that diversity work is more than representations and numbers, but ‘mood work’ felt both by racial/ethnic minority and majority students, the project aims to explore the affective atmospheres that play a part in students’ racial experiences and educators’ strategies to respond to them.
The project will produce and disseminate knowledge concerning racially literate diversity work by developing a practice-based foundation for a sustainable and equality-based educational practice. The project traces promising practices through ethnographic research at two schools and a case-based learning laboratory.