Culture Counts

Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another (Hofstede 2007, p. 413).

The concept of culture is hugely problematic. Societies are comprised of diverse individuals and are situated in a world that is: “characterised by increasing degrees of plurality, multiculturalism, interdependence, hybridity and complexity” (Mason 2007, p. 169). Even more problematic is the concept of “national culture” which seeks to describe the culture of often ethnically, religiously and “culturally” diverse people. In response to this, Singh (2005) warns of the: “psychosocial imaginings of absolute differences” (p. 10) and Mason (2007) suggests researchers can: “face accusations of stereotyping of treating culture as monolithic and overstating its influence in a hybrid world characterised by complex interactions and influences” (p. 166).

However, spending time in schools in Russia, South Africa, India, Nepal, UK and New Zealand, has convinced me that the place of culture in teaching and learning must be explored. When it is not understood, it can disrupt communication and easily cause misunderstanding (Prescott & Hellsten 2005). There is a danger that we presume the host culture is somehow neutral and its philosophies are automatically universal. When those from other cultures don’t understand things the way we expect, or thrive in the environment, we blame them seeing their culture as “deficit”. With the huge student mobility in our globalised world, this question needs to be addressed (Countries like Australia and New Zealand have almost 20 percent of tertiary students from overseas).

It may be that we as educators face two equal but opposite errors: the first is to stereo-type and imagine that cultures are fixed and that all people fit neatly into boxes; while the second is to imagine that our ways of teaching and learning are based on universal principles and the truth, not realising that the way we make sense of the world is born out of our own cultural constructs.

Now open access for comments

Hi everyone - I have now changed the settngs so that anyone can comment and not need to be signed up to Blogger - sorry about any inconvenience!

Instrumentalism - response to Bob

I started to respond to Bob's question in the comments section and then realised that it was more like a posting than a comment - so I moved it to here.

Bob asked: what do you see as the drivers of instrumentalism in internationalisation? Kerry Kennedy & John Lee (2008) mention governments' desire to combat terrorism, the failure of international bodies such as the UN to coalesce to handle global issues, the fear of disintegration (e.g. the old USSR), the importance attached to TIMSS, PISA and other international league tables, and the rise of business concepts being applied to education (managerialism). Would these match your experiences?

I must admit both my experience and my focus have been quite narrow. Global political trends, such as neo-liberalism, the reduction of state welfare, and the the resulting need for universities to raise revenue has:

"propelled universities to function less as institutions with social, cultural and intellectual objectives and more as producers of commodities that can be sold in the international marketplace" (Naidoo & Jamieson 2005, p.39).

It is this 'managerialism'- selling education to markets that I was thinking of and I have a (very) little experience of. In my previous in institution I was part of group putting together a programme "for the international market" and am currently involved in a project looking to support the learning of international students who will heading in my direction as the result of their government's contract with the University.

While neither of these universities are examples of the more aggressive commercially orientated organisations that see overseas students as “cash cows” and indulge in “crass marketization” (Singh, 2005), their internationalising practices are indicative of global trends.

Bob's question has provoked me to broaden my perspective on this - his question shows how there is more to instrumentalism than economic goals. Of course governments and international bodies can use education as a vehicle to transmit ideologies - while we might think of the Nazis as a really obvious example of this, there are, albeit more subtle examples much closer to home.

A conversation today with Greg about the impact of globalisation at primary and secondary level also got me thinking. The book that Bob quoted above deals with this (by the looks of the blurb I was able to download). Global flows of ideas are impacting education at all levels. Ideas of 'good practice' seem to be jumping borders at amazing speed - but so do their political and philosophical underpinnings. Are such things built upon universal principles, or are they culturally constructed and only locally applicable? Do some ideas travel well, but others not?

Internationalisation of Education

Well here goes, the first post. I hope to be able to use this blog to explore a range of issues relating to education, internationalisation, globalisation, culture and justice. I'm hoping that some of you might engage with me, challenge me, and make me think along the way.

I thought I might start by thinking about the internationalisation of education. Like most things, this means many things to many people. The most helpful definition that I have read comes from Steir, a Norwegian academic who suggested that it is comprised of three ideologies; idealism, educationalism, and instrumentalism. I can see how all three of these fit with my experience. I am an idealist, and I have got to say that for me education is a 'public good' and a right. Education in general and particularly international education should be about working towards a more just, equitable, and harmonious world.

I also identify with the educationalism ideology; some of my most powerful learning has come from travelling and enagaging with other cultures. Without my expereinces in South Africa, I very much doubt I would have become a teacher. Living in Nepal enriched me, and challenged me enormously. This type of experience ties in very closely with Mezirow's theories of adult learning. He explains that new situations can cause us to replace our (ill fitting) meaning schemes or paradigms. Many students and lecturers from Liverpool Hope Uni' attest to the significance of Hope One World placements overseas - for many the word 'transformational' sums up the impact of the experience.

The most topical of the three ideologies is instrumentalism. Its key ideas are explored in the literature under a variety of related though not synonymous labels: commodification; Taylorisation; McDonaldisation, and managerialism These labels all attest to a powerful movement in higher education which is dethroning the notion of education for the public good',and is reshaping it into a commodity to be traded.

If education is a commodity to be traded - as the World Trade Organisation consider it to be, it raises all sorts of ethical and practical questions. I will try to engage with some of those in this blog.

Well I think that is probably enough for the first posting - I don't want this to turn into an essay!