Diversity Skills

Diversity skills – the ability to recognize, appreciate and live, without bias, in a society full of diversity – are of ever-increasing importance both at the workplace as well as in daily life. Since the launch of the company initiative "Charta of Diversity" in 2006, various companies and public offices have been making a greater effort to create a work environment that supports diversity and is free of discrimination. Globalisation, migration and a change in demographics are some of the factors that have brought about a change in the mindsets and values both of society at large and the working world. At ZESS, the Diversity Skills programme offers students exposure and training to the modern developments and demands of diversity in society and the working world. Students are able to acquire skills in the discourse-and-action aspect of diversity (diversity theories and dimensions, intersectionality, sociological approaches, political and legal backgrounds, business management diversity approaches etc.) as well as learn essential practical skills, social skills and strategies in their approach to diversity, i.e. the diversity of human biographies, lives, behaviours, identities and capacities in daily life, social settings and the working world. A crucial learning objective of this programme is the gaining of awareness of power and discrimination, as well as learning to interact with others in full respect of their diversity.

The training sessions in this programme emphasise participation and are practical in nature. They offer students the chance to put their diversity knowledge into practice through group exercises, such as mini team projects, as well as in the contexts of daily life and work. The Service Learning Module enables students to realise their own concepts and ideas in co-operation with companies and social and cultural institutions.

The Diversity Skills programme currently comprises the following modules:

SK.AS.DK-03: Diversity Skills: Perspectives and potentials of society models for daily life, within communites and at the workplace

SK.AS.DK-01: Diversity Skills: Ethnic-cultural diversity in daily life, within communities and at the workplace

SK.AS.DK-02: Diversity Skills: Dis-able and en-able people to highlight chances for diversity and inclusion in society and at the workplace

SK.AS.DK-04: Diversity Skills: Social background, access to education, career opportunities - approaches to improve social equality in educational systems and at the workplace

SK.AS.FK-03: Leadership Skills: Intercultural communication skills

SK.AS.FK-05: Leadership Skills: Diversity management

SK.AS.FK-20: Leadership Skills: Finding balance between career and family

SK.AS.FK-23: Leadership Skills: Aging in the workforce - new challenges for companies, leaders and teams

SK.AS.FK-24: Leadership Skills: Aging Societies

SK.AS.WK-16: Knowledge and Self-Awareness: A change in perspective - attending university with physical disabilities 'A Day in a Wheelchair'

SK.AS.DK-07: Diversity Skills: Gender diversity within the community and at the workplace

SK.AS.DK-05.Mp: Diversity Skills: Methods to achieve self-empowerment and self-efficacy in your career and at university