How can we promote and celebrate cultural diversity in the classroom?

​Nowadays, schools and educational programs are welcoming a wide variety of people whose socio-cultural backgrounds are very diverse. To help students adjusting to a new cultural environment, on the one hand, and to model critical and open minds valuing and celebrating diversity rather than rejecting it, on the other, is one of the biggest challenges for teachers.  

How can we promote and celebrate cultural diversity in the classroom, transforming a multicultural classroom into a classroom that is inclusive of all diversities?

To answer this question, 10 teachers coming from Spain, Germany, Croatia, Norway and Austria met from 14/11/2021 to 20/11/2021 to take part in the course “Intercultural learning and cultural diversity in the classroom”. They all shared a mutual need and desire to improve their intercultural skills and to enrich their toolbox to shape an inclusive classroom.

​The course started with acknowledging the importance of reflecting on the meaning of words. The participant altogether tried to build an understanding of what “intercultural learning” means to them and explored the differences between “multicultural”, “cross-cultural” and “intercultural” to become more attentive in describing an interpreting the interaction of different cultures.

We explored the link between culture and education, and the need to take into account how culture influences the way we approach teaching and the way student interpret their expected behaviors in the class. The model served as an eye-opener on the mismatch between teacher and students expectations. When we isolate specific cases of other-culture students, the model can help identifying possible cultural patterns in the learning process we need to pay attention to.

​The course went on discussing the role of teachers and education in supporting students’ identity. Together we acknowledge that encouraging students to develop a sense of who they are at individual and group levels is the first step towards increasing awareness, respect and openness to diversity.

​Through inspiring metaphors and visual tasks the group practiced first hand multiple perspectives and ways to talk about ourselves.

Participants engaged then in practical activities and reflection exercises to build a stronger understanding of the vicious cycle of stereotypes. It was a chance for them to  reflect on real cases they experience at school every day, whereby the reiteration of stereotypes leads to prejudices and discrimination generating a vicious cycle that strengthens the stereotype itself. As put in a inspiration TED Talk we saw - “Show a people as one thing — as only one thing — over and over again, and that is what they become.

In the last thematic area of reflection, participants reflected on the importance to foster respect, awareness, emapthy and membership in their classes as desired outcomes of a inclusive classroom. To do so the group engaged in challenging and engaging simulations activities. We learned, while having fun, that behind the ambuguity and misunderstanding that may arise in cross-cultural communication, we can find the key to ackowledge the complexity of “intercultural communication”. The activities can be proposed in the class to make students questioning assumptions about what they consider to be “the norm”, while embracing the willingness to find connections and common grounds of understanding and respect among different cultures.

Another round of group activities was performed around the concept of memebership and empathy.

​The group challenges proposed can be adapted to different subject and classroom activities, allowing students to understand the importance for every member of the class to bring valuable contributions and to empathize with other classmates’ needs and diversities. 

As part of the learning process and the (inter) cultural offer of the course, participants had the chance to meet a representative of a local association in Bologna dealing with intercultural projects. They were thus given the chance to see Bologna from another perspective, making them even more eager and curious to put the knowledge gained in classroom into action while discovering the city and interacting with our locals. Not only they discovered hidden places but they recorded their discoveries in a Padlet, enriching a collection of local experiences perceived through mutliple glasses! ;)

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​More info on the course “Intercultural learning and cultural diversity in the classroom” at this link: https://www.erasmustrainingcourses.com/diversity-and-intercultural-learning-in-the-classroom.html