Unfulfilled promises: how inventories, instruments and institutions subvert discourses of diversity and promote commonality

2007/10/01 by Leonora Ritter · 2 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Learning Styles and Cognitive Differences #Evaluation of Teaching Practices #Innovations in Educational Methods #Diversity (politics) #Reductionism #Style (visual arts) #Competition (biology) #Cognitive style #Personality #Higher education #Psychology #Cognition #Sociology #Social psychology #Political science #Epistemology #Ecology #Geography #Biology

paper · doi:10.1080/13562510701595119

openalex publication_date 2007/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

This paper looks at the paradox of how recognition of diversity through research into individual differences, in such areas as learning style, cognitive style and personality, has had the reductionist effect of promoting commonality. This has been the outcome of the competition between inventories; the reduction of diversity to characteristics which can be defined, categorised and measured; and the application of these theories of diversity to facilitate and justify the tendency to promote commonality in learning and teaching behaviour in universities.

Citations

• Cultural Ways of Learning: Individual Traits or Repertoires of Practice

Cited by

• Problematising Style Differences Theory and Professional Learning in Educational Psychology
• Learning styles [wikipedia]

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