How does a school promote effective differentiation for its learners?

Abstract

This paper takes an investigative approach to explore the pedagogy of differentiation. It is based around an ethnographic case study of a secondary school and uses discourse analysis of literature, observation and interviews to identify and reveal one school’s search for effective differentiation. An heuristic is thus devised through four enquiries to aid schools and teachers in negotiating their own approaches to differentiation. The macro level explores a binary of didactic and democratic differentiation, while teachers are invited to negotiate through three key variables of social inclusion, shared practice and teacher attitude.