Bateson (1987, p. 386), the brilliant American anthropologist and cyberneticist, wrote the importance of grasping the “difference that makes a difference.”¹ Reading the articles in this edition of the Journal of Transformative Education, this phrase of Bateson’s has come to back to me repeatedly. I have in mind differences of three sorts: first, how a dramatic change in social circumstances affects one’s response and interpretation of any set of texts; second, the extent to which this the search for the difference that makes a difference is one of the animating themes of this journal; and third, the very diverse ways transformative educators and researchers understand the role of difference pedagogically and theoretically.

中文翻译：

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编者注：产生差异的差异

出色的美国人类学家和控制论者贝特森（1987，第386页）写道，把握“差异的差异”的重要性。¹阅读本期《变革性教育杂志》中的文章，贝特森的这句话已经反复回到我的脑海。我想到了三种差异：第一，社会环境的急剧变化如何影响一个人对任何文本集的反应和解释？其次，这种寻求差异的差异在多大程度上是该期刊的动画主题之一；第三，变革型教育者和研究者通过多种方法从教学和理论上理解差异的作用。