The present paper focuses on teacher?s role in social justice and explores
how teachers perceive and react upon diversity and inequality in their
classrooms. Through a literature review, we aimed to answer three research
questions: 1) what are diversity awareness and critical consciousness in
education; 2) why are diversity awareness and critical consciousness
important; and 3) how can diversity awareness and critical consciousness be
supported in teachers. The literature review has revealed that most papers
on teachers? diversity awareness and critical consciousness have been
published within the last few years and that the importance of the two
concepts has been recognized for a wide range of educators. There seems to
be a growing interest in this topic due to the increase of the diversity in
classrooms and the recognition of the teachers? role in addressing diversity
and inequality. However, large-scale studies would be a needed contribution
to the field, as most of the existing studies are small-scale. Based on this
review, we argue that both diversity awareness and critical consciousness
need to be supported through preservice and in-service teacher professional
development programs, if we are to make education systems more inclusive for
all.