Engaging with Diversity and Inclusion: Unwrapping Layers of Practices

Other conference contribution, 2022

Internationalization is part of over 90% of universities’ key strategies and student mobility is a key part of that strategy. At the same time, home and international students do not tend to mix. Recent government initiatives in Sweden have stressed the need for all students to develop their intercultural competence, yet only a small minority will travel.

The concept of internationalization at home argues that students can benefit from the exchange of ideas and broadened horizons on their own campuses, through bringing together home and international students. The aim of this presentation is to investigate the process of integration from a student perspective (both home and international), in particular, the effect of practices like intercultural pair and group work on academic and social integration. For engineering students, intercultural group work is an essential skill for the global workplace many will work in.

Using a co-constructivist approach, the presentation will present data collected through interviews and student diaries, to build a picture of student experiences of integration into engineering education.

The results show that intercultural pair work has the potential to bridge some of the academic-social divides experienced by many students in the international environment.