The purpose of this thesis is to clarify the concept of “managing diversity” and to describe how it appears in the Swedish school, in the classroom as well as in the organisation. To support the study, interviews have been carried out with principals and teachers in three different Swedish schools.

The thesis is divided into two sections; a literature study and an interview section where we describe the thoughts and knowledge of principals and teachers. From a diversity point of view, we discuss the relationship between documents, organisation and teaching.

The study described in this thesis shows that managing diversity has not yet had its break-through in a Swedish school context. The official curriculum of the Swedish school system values diversity, although the directives are unclear as to how the managing of diversity is to be carried out in reality. The teachers and principals we have interviewed lack the necessary knowledge of how the management should be designed to produce the best results. Therefore, the diversity is not successfully managed in the Swedish school, which re-establishes discriminative norms and values.