Importance of Classroom Diversity

The aspect of the classroom in DBA/PhD seminars influences the intellectual personality, productivity, and strength of all the participants. Given the digitization and globalization age, diversity of age, experience, race, gender, religion, ethnicity, and many other functional as well as physical attributes contribute to the beauty and richness of the environment for both learning and research. In fact, the ISM Paris doctoral seminars are aimed at sharpening the knowledge of the participants in terms of their research and area of specialty. Therefore, a diverse classroom has immense contribution to the needed problem solving, innovation, and creativity in research.

One of the most significant benefits that the classroom diversity gives is the broadening of students’ social and intellectual perspectives. The interaction between the ISM participants from different geographies introduces us to new views, value systems, judgments, and leadership capabilities. In so doing, we are gaining a more universalistic approach. Employing universalism in pursuing our studies and research work at ISM means that our research outcomes will be more valid, reliable, and usable on global platforms.

Although diverse learning environments foster the flourishing of knowledge and understanding, they also come with some challenges. Firstly, while the different angles in how people from diverse backgrounds approach an issue is intellectually and socially rewarding, it has a risk of classroom conflicts. Secondly, the fact that one is addressing people that may not be familiar with his or her political, religious, academic, or even social framework can increase anxiety, thus, making communication regrettably uneasy and ineffective. Hence, classroom diversity offers such a rich learning environment but not without some straining.