The consortium, including dr. Jana Vietze, prof.dr. Marieke Meeuwisse and dr. Daudi van Veen (ESSB, EUR), has been awarded an Insights into Educational Innovation grant of €200.000 by NRO (Netherlands Initiative for Education Research). Together with Zehra Colak (Utrecht University) and Mees Kok (University of Applied Sciences Utrecht), the consortium will investigate whether, how, and in which settings podcasting can increase the sense of belonging and diversity competencies of students and teachers in higher education, enabling them to identify and challenge existing structures that hinder diversity and inclusion.
Dutch higher education institutions face the unique challenge of educating an increasingly diverse student population. While teachers feel underprepared to create an inclusive learning environment, students with family heritage outside of the Netherlands (i.e., cultural minority students) often feel structurally underrepresented in teaching staff and materials, which leads to lower feelings of belonging and study success. Simultaneously, students and teachers with Dutch family heritage (i.e., cultural majority members) want to feel proud to study and work at an institution that is inclusive to all students, regardless of their background.
Cultivating belonging and diversity competencies among students and teachers
Within the Podcasting in Higher Education project, we will (a) improve students’ and teachers’ belonging and diversity competencies by using podcasting as an innovative, effective, and curiosity-driven teaching method, (b) equip teachers with a concrete and effective tool (i.e., a podcast intervention) that uses co-created educational materials (i.e., podcast episodes) to ensure an inclusive learning environment for all students, and (c) generate usable knowledge for researchers and educators on the working principles of educational podcasting in general - and our podcast intervention targeting cultural identity and inclusion in higher education in particular. We will reach these goals by scaling-up the (Re)Searching Identity Podcast intervention (Vietze et al., 2024) and by employing a mixed-method study design.
This project has three main objectives:
- Impact: to improve belonging and diversity competencies of cultural majority and cultural minority students and teachers in higher education through a podcast intervention;
- Education: to equip teachers with a concrete and effective tool (i.e., podcast intervention) that uses co-created educational materials (i.e., podcast episodes) to ensure an inclusive learning environment in which all students can belong and succeed;
- Research: to know the working principles behind educational podcasting: How does it work? And for whom?
About Jana Vietze (consortium lead)
Jana Vietze is an assistant professor in the team Educational Sciences at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, teaching and resaerching cultural diversity in education and development. She studied Psychology and Sociology at the University of Vienna (Austria), obtained her Ph.D. (magna cum laude) in Psychology at the University of Potsdam (Germany) in 2019. She started at the Erasmus University as a postdoc (2019-2022) and has been assistant professor at ESSB since 2022. She is a founder of the (Re)Searching Diversity Podcast project, which has been awarded for outstanding science communication. Relatedly, she has received multiple research grants and fellowships regarding educational innovation and podcasting in higher education.
About NRO educational innovation grant
This grant round will fund research projects that foster knowledge and expertise on the working principles of educational innovation in higher education. Lecturers and researchers carry out the research jointly to increase the relevance of the research for educational practice and to the further professionalisation of those involved.
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