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).
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.
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