Leveraging diversity through purposeful flexibility: towards a redefinition of the international classroom

To date, participation in an international classroom has been positioned as a means to prepare most Dutch higher education students to live and work in a globalised world. Nevertheless, it is not clear how the international classroom is defined and how lecturers should be equipped to deliver on its potential for Internationalisation at Home, especially within culturally diverse, practice-oriented universities of applied sciences. Through a Delphi study engaging 28 expert lecturers and policy makers from five Dutch universities of applied sciences, this study offers a new definition of the international classroom, framing it as an approach that centralises diversity across the classroom as an asset in the design and facilitation of education. Drawing on the panel’s collective experience, it proposes eight competences that lecturers need to implement this approach, providing a framework to rethink professional development, curriculum innovation and human resource policies within and beyond Dutch universities of applied sciences.