Superdiversity, Young People, and Education

Abstract This chapter addresses the experiences and realities of young people who are studying in increasingly “superdiverse” educational institutions. It first provides a brief overview of the workings of superdiversity in the field of education, and then presents two case studies from two majority-minority cities in the Netherlands to illustrate how the concept of superdiversity can be used to overcome the homogenizing perspective that lumps students with various characteristics into one uniform category of “ethnic other”. Although the cities and the schools can be described demographically as ethnically “hyperdiverse,” the multiplicity of characteristics in the research population begs to go beyond the ethnic lens to understand the comparable experiences young people from varying backgrounds face in their pathways through the education system.