Ethnicity generally refers to a person’s cultural identity, which may or may not include a shared language, shared customs, shared religious expression, or a shared nationality (especially outside that nation’s borders).
EUR's approach towards Ethnicity
The approach begins by acknowledging five guiding principles:
- Ethnic inequalities are a significant issue within higher education. These inequalities are not necessarily overt, isolated incidents. Racism is an everyday facet of society, and ethnic inequalities manifest themselves in everyday situations, processes and behaviours.
- Higher education in the Netherlands cannot reach its full potential unless it can benefit from the talents of the whole population and until individuals from all ethnic backgrounds can benefit equally from the opportunities it affords.
- In developing solutions to ethnic inequalities within EUR, it is crucial that they are aimed at achieving long-term institutional culture change, avoiding a deficit model where solutions are aimed at changing the individual.
- Minority ethnic staff and students are not a homogenous group. People from different ethnic backgrounds have different experiences of outcomes from/within higher education, and that complexity needs to be considered in analysing data and developing actions.
- All individuals have multiple identities, and the intersection of those different identities should be considered wherever possible.
Relevant networks
Erasmus University Rotterdam holds several student organisations centered around themes of ethnicity.
- Erasmus Multicultural Associations (EMA)
- Afghan Student Association (ARIA)
- Association of Students of African Heritage (ASAH)
- Avicenna - Medical Multicultural
- Chinese Student Association (CSA-EUR)
- Hindu Student Association (HSFN)
- Turkish Student Association (Mozaik)
- Indonesian Student Association (PPI)
- Surinamese Student Association (SSA)
- Eastern European Students Association (EESA)
External Networks and Resources
These are relevant external networks and resources concerning themes of race and ethnicity.
LGBTQ+
- Colour Ground: Online meeting place for LGBT youth with different cultural background.
- Mil Colores: For LBT woman of color (adults).
- Respect2Love: A community for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth with a bicultural background.
- Out&Abroad: The organisation for Chinese LGBTQIA+ in the Netherlands.
- I-psy LHBTI-poli Amsterdam: focuses on LGBTI migrants, expats and refugees with psychological problems.
- Prisma Groep: Dutch organisation for bicultural and/or Muslim LGBTQI+ (incl. refugees).