Countering classism: promoting participation and equal opportunities at university

Conference venue: Old main building S103/123

The registration table is located in room 121

The zQSL-funded (LeNA) project addresses classism from an intersectional perspective as a form of discrimination and exclusion in the education and university system. The aim of the project is to visualise and raise awareness of inequality mechanisms in various educational sectors with a particular focus on studying and university. In addition to an inequality-sensitive teaching programme, regular university-wide workshops and training courses on social inequality and classism in the university context are offered and a conference with student participation is being prepared for March 2024.

This is a cooperation project between the “Pedagogy in Digitality” department and the “Practice Lab” department.

Contact:

Work area: Praxislabor

In the course of educational policy anti-discrimination and diversity endeavours, the demand and responsibility to achieve an improvement in equal opportunities within universities has grown. In line with this claim, the project aims to sensitise, support and promote students from non-academic backgrounds in particular through various educational offers and measures. At the same time, the project addresses all interested students and TU employees (teaching staff, counselling staff) by means of specific offers.

Social origin forms the starting point, while other socially structuring categories of difference are included from an intersectional perspective. The project is based on three interdisciplinary levels that are intended to help reduce inequalities: A habitus-sensitive and difference-reflective teaching concept, which was awarded the Athene Prize for gender- and diversity-sensitive teaching in 2019, university-wide workshops to raise awareness of study-relevant inequality mechanisms, as well as the organisation and implementation of an academic conference in collaboration with cooperation partners*.

Educational progression is significantly influenced by social background. Students from non-academic backgrounds are significantly less likely to achieve a Bachelor's degree than students from academic backgrounds (approx. 15% compared to approx. 63%), even less likely to achieve a Master's degree (approx. 8% compared to 45%) and only 1% achieve a doctorate. Social background has a considerable influence on the course of studies and academic success: Numerous aspects such as choice of subject, acclimatisation during studies, time spent abroad, tendency to drop out of studies and taking up further studies/doctoral studies are linked to socio-economic prerequisites. The insecurity experienced by individuals in the face of the demands of university life can often be traced back to underlying structural mechanisms of inequality. Feelings of inadequacy, orientation problems and self-doubt can lead to a (partial) process of 'self-elimination' from academic life (e.g. in the form of dropping out); the reason for this usually lies in the discrepancy that exists between the students' habitus and the requirements of the academic structures, i.e. the conditions under which the degree programme is completed..

The interlinked measures have a self-empowering effect and support students in developing study-related skills. A space is opened up for problems relating to social background that arise during studies and are not addressed, thus contributing to the creation of equal opportunities. In the course of this, the project implements the demand from TU Darmstadt's future paper to “ensure the social and linguistic integration of all members in the face of increasing diversity” and to “significantly strengthen its openness to members from different backgrounds”.

The planned measures are intended to contribute to strengthening educational equity on three levels across all disciplines:

Current information on the conference “Classism in universities and society – between taboo and appropriation” can be found on our conference homepage.

To the homepage: here

Susanne Pawlewicz, M.A.

Dr. Olga Zitzelsberger

Sevim Dylong, M.A

Student assistant research: Kassandra Wuttig

Research intern: Julia Hammer

Duration of the project: 01.01.2023 – 31.12.2024