Diversity management in transnational project teams. A case study about EDINA.

Abstract

Through the Erasmus+ programme, the European Union has now provided funding for 65.500 projects across Europe that provide the possibility to professionalize by stimulating mobility of personnel, strategic partnerships and policy development in the educational sector. The programme has led to the establishment of teams in which parties from both different countries and different professional fields collaborate. This means that the teams are dealing with workforce diversity on various levels. Additionally, the outcomes of the project should be made publicly available, so that any interested party can use it for professionalization purposes. For the projects to be successful, effective diversity management is essential. In this research, the case of the EDINA project was studied in terms of diversity management and universality of the end product. EDINA is a transnational project in which universities and municipalities of Helsinki, Ghent and Utrecht jointly develop professionalization material for teachers and other stakeholders of education that are dealing with multilingual and multicultural classrooms. A qualitative analysis has been conducted on the educational contexts of every participating country, the working process of the team and the professionalization material that was developed. It was found that, as educational contexts and teacher training varies in the three countries, it is important to create common ground on beforehand, in order to avoid misunderstandings and unfounded expectations. The EDINA team has created common ground by drawing the educational contexts of every country, discuss the definitions of certain concepts and identifying relevant stakeholders and partners. However, the use of the final professionalization material is still unclear, as learning and teaching are culturally sensitive aspects. With regard to collaboration, EDINA has recognized the need for regular meetings, as it was during these meetings that misunderstandings came to light and they were considered to be productive and fruitful. Finally, the end product is suitable for use in other European countries, under the condition that the educational context of the new country is sufficiently studied, the most important issues that need improvement are explicitly identified, and the purpose and use of the material is properly introduced and explained.