Solving intercultural conflicts with international students

In the wake of growing nationalism and anti-immigrant attitudes institutions of Higher Education are called upon to facilitate the development of “inclusive societies” (European Commission 2017). While internationalisation constitutes a top priority for most HEIs, its implementation in practice in the sense of ‘internationalisation at home’ remains lacking. Only rarely institutional practices are put into action aiming to further development of intercultural skills of students and staff or the strengthening of intercultural dialogue in the institutions.

In order to generate sustainable processes of intercultural learning, the SOLVINC project transfers the proven methodology of critical incidents by Cohen-Emerique (2015) to the Higher Education context. By collecting and analysing first-hand experiences of international students, the project will compile a broad knowledge base from which strategies for conflict negotiation and resolution are developed as well as training material for Higher education staff to be better equipped to deal with an increasingly diverse student population.

SOLVINC aims to facilitate the development of intercultural and conflict management skills among international students, local students and HE staff and to further the implementation of intercultural student encounters in HEIs, thereby contributing to the promotion of inclusion in practice.