Be-longing in Higher Education: Interculturality as Process and Outcome

Abstract

The students’ lived experiences of belongingness in higher education are analysed using an explanatory framework that has been developed from the findings of the Council of Europe’s report on ‘Facets of Interculturality’ (Leclercq, 2003). In this report, interculturality is defined as a process and an outcome of intercultural interactions, aimed at equity and mutual respect. Applied to the higher education context, the framework addresses four core questions that uncover the inclusivity of a curriculum, here understood as the formal, informal and hidden curriculum, and its effect on the students’ experience of belongingness. These questions relate to the acknowledgement of a student’s cultural identity in the curriculum, equity of opportunity to engage in a diverse classroom, while considering a student’s own agency and need for proximity and distance. The student narratives of their lived experiences highlight the opportunities for intercultural dialogue and learning within a diverse classroom, and for interculturality as a student outcome or graduate attribute. For this to happen, however, the ethos of the institution needs to support students and educators to embrace and act with equity and respect on the diversity that they together represent.

Citation

Gregersen-Hermans, J. (2021), "Be-longing in Higher Education: Interculturality as Process and Outcome", Kumar, M. and Welikala, T. (Ed.) Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: The Context of Being, Interculturality and New Knowledge Systems, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 159-170. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-006-820211011