PROMOTING INCLUSIVE LEARNING FOR CROSS-CULTURAL DESIGN COLLABORATIONS

The imperative of creating inclusive learning environments remains a central focus in education, particularly within cross-cultural collaborations. While there is a broad consensus on its importance, approaches to achieving this goal vary across disciplines and contexts. This paper adopts a mixed-methods approach—including metacognitive surveys, field observations, and interviews—to explore the factors that contribute to fostering inclusive learning experiences in cross-cultural design collaborations among students from diverse backgrounds. Our research centers on international design workshops with students from universities in the USA and Taiwan, where participants collaborate to create product-service systems that emphasize sustainability, cultural inspiration, and targeted markets. Insights from these workshops reveal that, while cultural and language differences present significant challenges, these barriers can be mitigated through carefully structured instruction, clear communication of expectations, and the use of artifacts to aid design development. Moreover, design methods incorporating non-verbal and asynchronous communication strategies, such as the nominal group technique, effectively promote inclusivity, particularly for non-native speakers. The selection of topics and settings that encourage knowledge sharing and experiential exchange between students from different cultures further enhances the relevance, accessibility, and meaningfulness of the design and learning experiences. Although these findings are drawn from international design collaborations, we contend that similar strategies can benefit design education beyond the context of international workshops. We advocate for the broader application of these approaches and principles to foster inclusive and equitable learning environments across various design education settings and to create product-service systems that meet diverse cultural needs.