One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Being Actively Aware of Your Students
Students differ and have varying interests and needs. To ensure everyone a successful education, the university needs to take these differing needs seriously. This can be achieved through policies that expect difference rather than assuming a common norm. For example, students who also have jobs, have family obligations, or who travel to campus in a wheelchair or on crutches particularly rely on having a schedule that is compatible with other aspects of their lives. Flexible policies such as early seminar registration, significantly longer sign-up and cancellation periods, or a lower student-to-lecturer ratio, can be helpful in this area.
Not every strategy chosen to counter the unequal treatment of a specific social group needs to make sense for every member of that group. This relates to the intersectionality of discrimination and inequality. Activities that aim for gender parity should make sure that these supportive efforts benefit allwomen – and not just a few.
As a lecturer, when you present the life stories of scholars and scientists, you can make sure to include women from diverse backgrounds – not only from Europe. By now, especially in the natural sciences, there is a lot of available material providing students with a broader range of learning and role models.
Weiteres dazu unter: Fachspezifische Zugänge
Literatur:
Collins, Patricia Hill, und Valerie Chepp. 2013. Intersectionality.
Walgenbach, Katharina. 2014. Heterogenität - Intersektionalität - Diversity in der Erziehungswissenschaft. 1. Aufl. Stuttgart: UTB.
Version April 2017. Unless otherwise stated, this content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence.