CIICPD 2023

After these steps were taken, the previously misinterpreted picture is shown once more and explained in more detail. In the given case, it is a picture of the Semana Santa procession with people wearing the traditional garment of the Holy Week in Spain, the so-called ‘Nazarenos’. These people are frequently confused with the Ku Klux Klan. Examples like these have the potential to illustrate that unconscious bias is likely to colour our assumptions and decisions without realising it. To lessen the impact of implicit prejudice, it is important to raise awareness of it by deliberately slowing down decision-making, reconsidering reasons for decisions and assumptions, questioning cultural stereotypes, identifying one’s own biases and verifying interpretations. The DIVE Strategy may serve as a useful tool to differentiate between description interpretation and evaluation and is an effective approach to change one’s micro behaviours. Educators may use the video and the example given as a starting point and add further critical incidents and material to illustrate the mechanisms at hand more clearly. Various examples together with the possibility to use the DIVE Strategy on several occasions may encourage learners to make more informed decisions, based on analysis rather than instinct. 3. The HEAD Wheel Applied – setting the scene with international students In the following, it is sought to apply the HEAD Wheel along the lines of international students that may have a variety of different demographic traits. These differences may show in terms of age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, ideology, or socio-economic background. Therefore, the demographic diversity of international students is most likely due to their different ethnic and/or religious backgrounds compared to the domestic students. Yet, there may be more differences regarding their demographics, and such differences may translate into intersectional issues and ideologies. A second aspect where differences may come clearly to the fore are those concerning cognitive diversity, which is to say differently learned and shared value and knowledge structures. Students that had previously been socialised in cultural backgrounds different from the host country are more likely to have a broader variety of models of perception, learning strategies, cognitive styles or problem-solving approaches. Understandably, such students have the potential to enrich the international classroom by adding different perspectives that may lead to more innovative and creative approaches. This variety, however, can only become a resource if educators are aware of its benefits and adapt their entrenched teaching and learning practices with flexible and innovative classroom management and fresh and student-centred didactic approaches. As for disciplinary diversity , it is likely that these students have studied in a similar or even the same field. Yet, it is equally likely that the domestic (higher) education institution and its educators have applied a different educational or didactical focus than the one they were used to at their home university. Further, issues such as different levels of power distance, uncertainty avoidance or communication patterns may become apparent when being abroad and confronted with a foreign cultural setting. This change of behaviour may still be prominent even if the students are in the same disciplinary context; yet it may be even more apparent if the disciplinary background is also different. In addition, the degree to which interdisciplinary teamwork is

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