How teachers and students work together

through discourse to construct their understanding

of the context they live and work in will influence,

in many different ways, the interaction

within their classrooms. This book describes an

indepth research that used ethnomethodology

and conversation analysis to study three different

groups of teachers. The study highlights

the teachers' perspectives concerning heterogeneity

in the classroom, using recordings of

discussions concerning cultural and linguistic

diversity.

Moreover, this research examines the discourse

participants' choice in the use (deployment) of

categorical descriptions and reveals the speaker

as positioned, interested and accountable for

meaning construction. Thus, "portraits" of differing

preservice and inservice teachers' orientation

towards linguistic and cultural diversity are

analysed. By recognising these categorizations

as partially bounded by previous knowledge

and partially constructed in situ, the research

sees meaning-making by teachers as a part of

their lived work of teaching. It also reveals the

social nature of these categorizations because

they are an inseparable element of the socially

constituted fabric of language in the environment

of schooling and society.