Moral Justifications for (Ethno)Cultural Diversity Management in the Educational Space

Abstract

This article is aimed to analyze the moral guidelines of ethnocultural diversity management in the space of the Russian school. For this purpose, based on the analysis of the content of educational books, diversity management practices are compared depending on the target group of the textbook (the dominant population – children from families of representatives of ethnic and cultural minorities). As an analytical framework, the typology of the moral motives of social integration is used. The analytical potential of the chosen framework is demonstrated by analyzing the content of textbooks for the initial stage of education published for children of the Russian-­speaking minority in the so-called limitrophe states (Latvia and Poland) in the 1920s. The chosen framework is based on the division of group-­oriented moral motives into the motivation of social order and social justice and focused on the attitude to diversity. The framework allows for explicating moral assessments of ethno-­cultural diversity involved in textbooks that contribute to the formation of patterns of support for appropriately oriented social policy programs. It is demonstrated that the choice of a diversity management strategy is a practice rooted in a system of value orientations and moral norms. It is proved that the assessment of the context by the community, which is the subject of constructing and broadcasting strategic guidelines and everyday practices to new generations, acts as the basis for the moral regulation of diversity. Based on the analysis of the content of textbooks for elementary (The World Around) and secondary school (Social Studies), published before and after 2014, it is argued that the essentialist approach to culture and ethnicity characteristic of Russian pedagogy, inspired by security values, becomes the embodiment of the repressive morality of the social order, focused on the homogenization of community and the assimilation of representatives of ethnic and cultural minorities.