ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how to make knowledge work through diversity sensitive learning in Higher Education. The chapter surveys, through an empirical approach, three courses offered by the social sciences department of Wageningen University in the Netherlands: Intercultural Communication, African Philosophy, and Visual Research Methods.
Wageningen University is an international university in the Netherlands with a student population of approximately 13,000 students, comprising over 100 different nationalities (WUR 2020b). In doing so, it aims to identify and describe design principles which are shared across the courses and can be of relevance to other social sciences courses in making learning more sensitive to diversity. The chapter concludes that, to align contemporary learning environments with a changing world, it is necessary to look through a lens of diversity sensitive learning and to adopt a systemic approach to designing learning spaces. Such a look incorporates—besides diversity in people and content—considering diversity in processes. To learn within these diverse spaces, it is useful to articulate the following three design principles explicitly: (1) Situating knowledges, (2) Enabling dialogical encounters, and (3) Integrating experience and reflection.
