Authors: Bartz, Janieta
Kleina, Wibke
Title: Diversity is not the enemy
Other Titles: promoting encounters between university students and newcomers
Language (ISO): en
Abstract: In today’s globalized world with dynamic processes of political, social, and societal change (Mergner et al., 2019) the university should be a place of encounter between people with different (cultural) backgrounds. The learning arrangement presented here therefore initiates intercultural exchange and aims to help students see diversity as an asset rather than a challenge (Roos, 2019). To this end, an intercultural project was initiated at TU Dortmund in Germany in 2017. In the context of different learning environments future teachers were invited to have encounters with young newcomers through a nearly completely self‐managed learning arrangement. The students were prepared for the encounters in focused courses dealing with theoretical backgrounds and didactic concepts. They would then prepare the lessons with the newcomers. In the context of this learning arrangement the following questions were important: What did the university students expect with regard to the encounter with newcomer students from schools? How did they prepare the lessons? What did students and newcomers think about the encounters later? What have they learned? And what do these reflections mean for inclusive and intercultural teacher education at universities? In the project we could observe that the didactic approach supports the students’ level of sensitivity towards differences and encourages future teachers to train the education of newcomers in a non‐judgmental framework (Bartz & Bartz, 2018). Based on a selection of qualitative empirical findings (ethnographic approach during six lessons in a period of two years and 147 interviews including the students’ and newcomers’ points of view about their learning encounters at TU Dortmund), this article discusses opportunities to create more innovative spaces for inclusive practices and cultures under the restricted terms of a mass university.
Subject Headings: Higher education
Intercultural studies
Guided encounters
Newcomers
Teacher education
Reflective inclusion
Refugees
Self-reflection
Universal design for learning
Subject Headings (RSWK): Hochschulbildung
Interkulturelles Lernen
Interkulturelle Erziehung
Lehrerbildung
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2003/40371
http://dx.doi.org/10.17877/DE290R-22246
Issue Date: 2021-07-21
Rights link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Appears in Collections:Soziale und Emotionale Entwicklung in Rehabilitation und Pädagogik



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