Diversity means noticing and valuing that each individual is unique, and recognizing individual differences in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, or educational background in a group or organization. Exploring and respecting these differences in a safe, positive, and nurturing environment will help organizations to enrich and grow fruitfully. Similarly, diverse learning environments have been proven to help students to gain learning outcomes such as ability to think about problems more critically, to consider multiple perspectives, and understanding (Hurtado et al., 1999). In order to achieve this aim, higher education institutions must explore best practices and innovations regarding diversity and inclusion.

This study will explore diversity-related experiences of students, academic and administrative staff utilizing the lens of Critical Theory. Critical Theory is a Marxist-inspired movement that emerged from Frankfurt School. Critique is explained by Marx as the relation between a phenomena of the material–economic world, which is commodities for Marx, and the systems of production structured by capital (Thompson, 2017). Following Marx’s explanations with regard to “critique”, Horkheimer (1972/2002) puts emancipation in the center of Critical Theory. According to Horkheimer (1972/2002), while the main aim of traditional theories is just to try to understand and describe, Critical Theory is a change-oriented approach. Therefore, the crucial core of Critical Theory is that it tries to figure out the causes of structural domination and inequality so as to facilitate equity and human emancipation (Levinson, 2011). As it tries to promote human emancipation, Critical Theory focuses on transforming the society. Thus, Critical Theory explains what is problematic with current social reality, determines the actors to transform it, and sets both clear norms for criticism and achievable practical goals for social transformation. It will help all the parties such as students, teachers, administrators, and so on, to reflect on the polies and practices in order to change the current situation, which will eventually lead to the emancipation of the disadvantaged/discriminated groups or minorities.

Higher education institutions are diverse contexts that include people from different minorities.  Pandian (2008) claims that higher education institutions play a major role in promoting diversity and multiculturalism due to the diverse student profile, the global work environment, and the diverse workforce. Furthermore, Hurtado et al. (1999) mention the importance of having diverse participants in higher education institutions due to the fact that the interaction among diverse groups increases students’ ability to think about problems more critically, to consider multiple perspectives, and understanding.  Similarly, experiences of relatively low racial tension among students and higher reported college grade-point averages and increases in personal goals to promote racial understanding are the consequences of higher perceived levels of institutional commitment to diversity  (Milem et al., 2005). It has also been highlighted by Gurin et al. (2002) that diversity promotes a myriad of educational outcomes such as active thinking skills, intellectual engagement and motivation.

Taking all these into consideration, how diversity is managed in higher education institutions is an important issue and should be examined thoroughly and solutions and suggestions should be offered based on the results of these studies. In order to explore diversity-related experiences of students, academic and administrative staff, this study will be conducted in an attempt to understand diversity related practices and experiences on the campus. It will mainly try to understand how students, academic and administrative staff interpret diversity and to what extent they think that the university is diverse. The study also aims to figure out how the policies and actions of the university have impacted diversity on the campus.

Qualitative inquiry plays an important role in educational research as it helps researchers to raise new questions, and enhance critical and intellectual dimensions of ideas (Sherman& Webb, 2005). Among several qualitative research designs, critical qualitative research design will be used in this study as it best fits the context and aim of the study. Critical qualitative research fundamentally explores what a phenomena or a concept means for several individuals of their experiences, and it aims to produce findings that can transform the organization (Creswell, 2007). Tilley (2019) also states that critical qualitave studies in education also provide a benefical framework for researchers in order to understand the experiences of marginalized groups who have faced inequal treatment within their educational context. As for data collection tools, data of this qualitative study will be collected via interviews, focus group meetings and observation (field notes) to delve into the phenomenon, which is diversity-related experiences of students, academic and administrative staff on the campus of a foundation university in this study. As Creswell (2014) states it is better to rely on multiple sources of data in qualitative research in order to obtain and make sense of data. First of all, the researcher will conduct interviews with students, academic and administrative staff. Although interviews take much longer time than surveys, they are effective in collecting detailed data since the researcher may clarify or ask further questions to make the respondent elaborate on their answers (Fraenkel et al., 2012). Purposeful sampling, which is also known as judgement sampling, will be used to interview participants. In purposeful sampling, the researcher actively selects the most productive sample to answer the research questions (Marshall, 1996). Since the researcher also works as an academic staff in the university, she will be able to choose the most productive participants by developing a framework of the variables that might impact a participant’s contribution based on the researcher’s practical knowledge of the research area. Moreover, focus group meetings will be carried out in order to make the participants provide more data for the study. Participants will be interviewed through video calls due to Covid-19 related restrictions. In addition to interviews and focus group meetings, the researcher will also use observation (field notes) as a supplementary data collection tool. Data collected by interviews, focus group meetings and observation (field notes) will be analyzed via content analysis.

Although the topic of diversity, particularly diversity in educational settings, has been studied extensively in the literature, it is relatively a new area for researchers in Europe. This research will be one of the few studies carried out in Turkey and aims to contribute to the relevant literature. In addition, while there is a growing body of research regarding diversity in learning environments, the majority of literature in relation to diversity in higher education either focus on students or teachers. Especially, diversity related experiences of administrative staff has been an under-studied topic. However, this research will study diversity from the perspectives of students, academic and administrative staff in higher education and contribute to the scarcity of studies involving the administrative staff by taking administrative staff’s experiences related to diversity into consideration as well. The study is also significant in terms of providing new recommendations for the university; namely, transforming the culture in the institution, which is also one of the aims of critical qualitative research. The results of the study will offer new suggestions on the policies regarding diversity for the university. First of all, diversity related experiences of students will give the administration a better understanding of the learning environment and activities that take place on the campus. These will lead the administration to improve the conditions for an inclusive campus environment and adopt better diversity management strategies. Moreover, the findings can be taken into consideration by the administration during recruitment and strategic planning period and procedures. Understanding diversity related experiences of academic and administrative staff will help the university administration figure out how to have a more diverse academic and administrative staff and manage diversities in these two groups in order make the university get benefit from these diverse groups.

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