Facilitating safe and reflective environments to approach, analyse, and act upon diversity in (engineering) education

Abstract

The global shift against diversity underscores universities' vital role in embracing diversity beyond mere representation. A key challenge is recognizing diversity beyond cross-cultural boundaries of, for example, gender, ethnicity or nationality. We suggest universities to foster an intercultural approach that recognizes the co-existence of multiple forms of difference and the agency of continuously shaping one’s identity. By fostering the development of a diversity competence throughout and beyond the curriculum, we envision universities not only as places for learning how to make projects or innovations on time, on budget, and with functional quality. Universities are also places for reflecting on which type of society these projects contribute to and what role one plays. Do we want a society and engineers that build bridges between people or set walls between them? Overlooking diversity in the engineering practice can lead to growing pressures overtime within and between diverse groups. We write this manifesto from our teaching experience about intercultural relations. First, we outline the impact of ignoring diversity on sustainable development. Then, we discuss diversity in theory and how our technical university embraces it. Finally, we reflect on the students’ perspectives on our attempts to shift from managing diversity to developing competencies. We call for each course and project where teamwork occurs to facilitate a safe and reflective environment to approach, analyse, and act upon diversity at three levels: at the professional level, by recognizing how (technical) work involves both making and caring; at the project level, by navigating biases and teamwork challenges; and at the societal level, by recognizing the project's (unintended) impact and role.