Diversity 2 - Period 5

After having understood what diversity is, and how diversity works, we move on to the question: how to deal with diversity, and how to accommodate it? In this course you will design a practical (policy) intervention based on a thorough and critical analysis of that problem. Policies sometimes paradoxically reinforce the outsider status of minorities in society by singling them out. As such, the design, implementation and outcomes of interventions are precisely at stake in this course. In other words, formulating solutions to ?diversity issues? are everything but straightforward. In this course we will highlight the challenges of working with diversity, and shed light on the unforeseen and unwanted consequences of interventions and solutions. In addition, you will collaborate with students and link insights of different disciplines.

Imagine yourself as an academic who is asked to think about possible solutions or interventions for issues related to diversity, such as racial profiling or the lack of female professors at university. Imagine yourself as a journalist or a young policy adviser working on the asylum procedure, the rise of populism and citizenship models. Can you formulate possible solutions, escapes and ways out of these thorny wicked problems? Week after week we will use our theories on concrete topics, for instance on the jokes we crack, on Tinder matches, on finding an internship, on all white movie casts and Token from the animated sitcom South Park. We will reflect on the pros and cons of affirmative action, on problematic truths, like fake news, and on social change. At all times, we reflect on the following three questions during the lectures, which glue them all together.

(1) How is diversity accommodated in a given society or organization?
(2) What is problematic in current approaches?
(3) What are possible interventions? What are alternatives? How can we build other futures?

Contact hours listed under a course description may vary due to the combination of lecture-based and independent work required for each course therefore, CEA's recommended credits are based on the ECTS credits assigned by VU Amsterdam. 1 ECTS equals 28 contact hours assigned by VU Amsterdam.