CDH Scholar-at-Risk profile: Nihat Kotluk
Nihat Kotluk is focusing his studies on equity and diversity in STEM education © 2021 CDH EPFL
Nihat Kotluk is completing his postdoctoral research in pedagogy as a Scholar-At-Risk researcher in EPFL’s College of Humanities (CDH). He is focusing his studies on equity and diversity in engineering education alongside CDH researcher Roland Tormey.
Scholars At Risk (SAR) is an international network of universities that aims to protect academics who are under threat, prevent attacks on the scientific community, and promote academic freedom around the world. The CDH is actively supporting this mission, this year by hosting Nihat Kotluk, who is studying engineering ethics, equality, and diversity issues in engineering education with pedagogical expert Roland Tormey. Kotluk benefits from a Scientific Exchange grant set up by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in order to support SAR activities in Switzerland.
“Demographic changes are predicted to continue for many years in Switzerland. To enhance equity in engineering education, all of those voices and cultures must be equally represented,” Kotluk says. “EPFL is the perfect environment for people who want to research these topics. Many cultures, sexual identities, races, and ethnicities are represented in EPFL classrooms.”
Matching curricula to student diversity
Kotluk started his career as a physics teacher in 2008 in Turkey, where he developed a passion for education. However, he also felt immense frustration over the lack of resources for preparing teachers to handle classes of culturally and socioeconomically diverse students, particularly when it came to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).
“The effect of culture and diversity on learning-teaching processes was ignored,” he says.
Despite earning a master’s degree in STEM education with a specialization in physics in 2012, Kotluk still felt a strong desire to improve the disconnect between science curricula and students’ experiences. In 2014, he pursued a PhD in pedagogy at Yuzuncu Yil University, focusing on culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP). After encountering a lack of access to expertise and literature on CRP in Turkey, he set out to learn as much about the subject as he could, contacting experts via email and meeting with others in the field. Eventually, he was able to not only help launch an international CRP scholar network, but also to spark a new pedagogical movement.
“We opened a new discussion in the academic community in Turkey. Now, many other academics have started focusing on equity in education and culturally responsive teaching.”
A second home in Switzerland
Kotluk says that it is thanks to his “second home” at CDH that he has been able to take his research even further. He is currently collaborating with University of Florida researchers Julie Brown and Niki Koukoulidis on a new study on CRP in Europe. He has also contacted more than 50 CRP researchers to invite them to share their experiences, with the goal of creating a relevant academic network for future projects in European countries. He has so far received several research visit invitations in response from universities in Germany, Sweden, and Finland.
“If EPFL and CDH had not precisely supported academic freedom, it would have been impossible to plan these visits,” Kotluk says, adding that it is imperative to improve the “insufficient” research base for CRP education practices in Europe.
“Culturally responsive teaching techniques are crucial if we are to make progress in reducing the achievement gap, and encouraging educational equity in STEM. Our next generation of STEM students may depend upon it.”