Service of SURF
© 2025 SURF
Calls for greater diversity, especially in relation to the appointment of arbitrators, have been prevalent for some time in the international arbitration community, followed by several initiatives being set up to address the issue. While the primary focus of the diversity debate has been on gender, there have also been calls to expand and diversify the profile of the arbitrator pool to include more non-Western and non-White arbitrators. For several years, scholars and practitioners have argued for countless benefits of increased racial diversity, such as an increased acceptability and legitimacy of the arbitration process. There is a consensus that in a deliberative process like ADR, practitioners should reflect their claimants’ demographics. The existence of diverse panels helps further the aims of meticulous and accurate fact-finding approaches. Similarly, they argue that the lack of racial diversity may directly and negatively affect the quality of arbitration awards. This blog post will focus on the lack of diversity of African arbitrators appointed to resolve international arbitration proceedings, as well as initiatives that are being set up to address such issues. The focus on African ethnicity is given for two reasons: 1) African countries are no strangers to arbitration. Nearly 100 arbitral institutions exist across Africa. 2) There has been an increase of arbitration proceedings emanating from African regions, while there has been a minimal growth in the ethnic diversity of arbitrators appointed to resolve these disputes. This article was originally published on https://commercialarbitrationineurope.wordpress.com/2021/06/29/diversity-in-arbitration-the-lack-of-racial-diversity-in-international-arbitral-tribunals/
MULTIFILE
The higher education sector has become increasingly aware of how the increasing diversity in society affects their institutions. The student population has become more diverse and future employers increasingly require trained students who are able to meet the demands of dealing with a more diverse market/clientele. In this regard, education institutions need to align their strategic approach to diversity within their organization. The purpose of this paper is to examine strategical reasons to diversify in different education teams in relation to two different diversity practices: attraction and selection of culturally diverse lecturers and utilization of cultural differences in team interaction.
LINK
BackgroundIn the Netherlands, there has been a strong increase in diversity among students in recent decades. Even though access for previously underrepresented groups based on economic status, ethnicity or culture has been realised to a certain extent, differences in student performance between groups persist. Research shows that teacher performance influences student achievement and that this influence is more pronounced for 'non-western students'. This creates a need for reflection on the way teachers cope with their increasingly diverse student population. This paper explores the attitudes of Dutch teachers in higher vocational education towards their diverse student population and the translation of these attitudes into teaching practice.MethodsTwenty-five teacher teams at two universities of applied sciences participated in this research. The teams came from a broad range of programmes that educate students for different future professions. A mixed method methodology was used to gather data, in which the qualitative method was most substantial. Focus group interviews on diversity and student achievement were held with each teacher team. Additionally, a questionnaire was distributed to all 274 participants, which was completed by 215 teachers. Data from the questionnaire were analysed using SPSS. In order to analyse the qualitative data we used AtlasTI. Because we applied a grounded approach, allowing teachers to form their own ideas on both diversity and student achievement, we used a similar approach in the first analytical phase. In a second phase, we compared the concepts arising from the grounded theory approach with concepts from the literature.Results and conclusionsAround 40% of the teachers repudiated the influence of diversity on student achievement and did not take student diversity into account in their teaching practice. Problems regarding the student achievement of students or groups thereof are considered as something that the students, the educational institution or society at large should cope with, not teachers themselves. Of the teachers, 60% recognised diversity among students, but mainly based on students’ shortcomings and perceived problems. A minority of this 60% not only recognised but also understood diversity’s effect on student achievement. Teachers do not always translate this understanding into their teaching practice. They feel they lack the skills, knowledge or time to do so. Teachers seemingly translate their understanding of diversity into their didactic and pedagogical approaches only when these conditions are met.
Er bestaat groeiende belangstelling bij musea, goede doelen en grote festivals voor Virtual Reality. Deze instellingen hebben vaak interesse voor complexere interactieve VR-installaties met een duidelijke persuasieve intentie, zoals attitude- of gedragsverandering bij het publiek. Dit onderzoeksvoorstel richt zich op de ontwikkeling van een ‘grammatica’ voor het ontwerpen van interactieve VR installaties die zich richten op ‘reflection’ en ‘persuasion’. Uitgangspunt daarvoor is het ‘model for dimensions of interaction in VR’ dat in een eerder Raak MKB project is ontwikkeld. Het model beschrijft vier verschillende vormen van interactie in VR. Met dit onderzoek wordt een belangrijke nieuwe stap gezet door het conceptuele model te concretiseren en te onderzoeken in hoeverre deze ingezet kunnen worden voor de doelen persuasion en reflection. In hoeverre kunnen interactieve design elementen bijdragen aan het effect van VR als ‘perspective shifter’? In Fase 1 wordt het conceptuele model ingekleurd door een analyse van interactie strategieën in bestaande VR-installaties. De analyse van de installaties wordt vergezeld door interviews met de makers waarbij gevraagd wordt naar hun motief voor de implementatie van deze interactieve elementen en hun reflectie daarop. In Fase 2 worden de aldus verkregen inzichten en hypothesen gekoppeld aan theorie over media effecten, toewerkend naar een format voor VR als perspective shifter. Dit format vormt de basis voor Fase 3, waarin in samenwerking met kennispartners een concept voor een VR installatie met het thema VR for Diversity wordt ontwikkeld. Deze installatie wordt geproduceerd door één van de consortiumpartners en zal ingezet worden voor een serie experimenten waarmee wordt nagegaan hoe VR als perspective shifter kan dienen en welke rol interactieve (verhaal)elementen daarbij kunnen spelen. Parallel aan het onderzoekstraject worden experts meetings en workshops georganiseerd en zal de verkregen kennis worden bestendigd binnen onderwijsafdelingen aan de Hogeschool van Amsterdam en Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht.