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This article adds to new ways of understanding the institutionalisation of Whiteness as subtle workings of race and racism within education policy. It presents a critical discourse analysis of how Whiteness works through the use and meaning making of the term 'cultural diversity' in six Norwegian teacher education policy and curriculum documents. These documents are positioned as promoters of social justice. This article, however, aims to contest this position. Framed under the theoretical perspectives of critical Whiteness studies, discourse analysis and Goldberg's theorisation of racialised discourse, the findings indicate that Whiteness is embedded in the usage of the term 'cultural diversity' , manifested in discursive patterns of (1) three hierarchically arranged pupil group categories, (2) descriptions that place the pupil group categories as either superior Norwegian or as inferior non-Norwegian, and (3) the role of student teachers as 'political actors of assimilation'. I argue that despite these educational documents being explicitly positioned as promoters of social justice, they are nonetheless both a product and producers of racialised discourses of Othering and exclusion-a result of the Norwegian 'imagined sameness' ideal and a socially accepted 'pedagogy of amnesia' that blinds itself to the current workings of the imperial and colonial legacy of race and racism.

‘Othering’ can be conceptually defined as the manner in which social group dichotomies are represented in language via binary oppositions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The article aims to contribute to a methodological approach for differentiating the concept of othering in educational settings. We will introduce new ways of conceptualising othering based on findings from an empirical critical discourse analytical study of how teacher educators talk about the term ‘cultural diversity’. The study is based on transcriptions of interviews with Norwegian teacher educators. The findings illustrate that teacher educators talk about cultural diversity using seven different ways of othering. These ways of othering are important because teacher educators’ discourses influence preservice teachers, in turn, influencing their future teaching in schools. We argue that a critical linguistic awareness of the ways in which pupils are ‘othered’ is an important tool in counteracting social exclusion and promoting social justice and equity.

Cultural diversity is assumed to be a central component of Western education and even though it has been extensively investigated in international research on teacher education, little knowledge exists about its usage and meaning making in teacher educator discourses. This article provides insights into the usage and meaning making of the term cultural diversity based on semi-structured individual interviews with a total of twelve teacher educators from two Norwegian teacher education institutions. Drawing on the theoretical perspectives of discourse theory and critical Whiteness studies, we find that the term cultural diversity is used in a double meaning making pattern: Cultural diversity is presented as desirable and positive by teacher educators, yet it is also aligned with the notion of otherness. We discuss some possible methodological tools with which teacher educators can detect meaning making patterns and thus counter the production and reproduction of socially unjust discursive patterns. 

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