Education Today

As teachers, it should never be far from our consciousness that we and our students live in a dangerous world. It is a world replete with incidents of genocide, terrorism, violence, starvation, war, and nuclear proliferation. In this world, specific cultural paradigms often serve as “justification” for heinous acts and atrocities on both the macro and micro scales. Most of the actors involved in our planet’s serial drama of brutality have likely never questioned the pernicious paradigms informing their decisions and actions. Education is likely the key to ameliorating much of the world’s difficulties and our underpaid and underappreciated teachers are frankly saving the planet one lesson at a time (Ivers, 2021). However, ironically, the current condition of many college campuses in the United States may be exacerbating world problems. Instead of setting an example to the world of a microcosm of peace, respect, mutual understanding, freedom of expression, and a proliferation of olive branches, some American universities might resemble a kind of mild police state where fear, blame, and shame seem to pervade the collective consciousness. Currently, in the U.S. 62% of college students report self-censoring their ideas because they perceive an intolerant college climate (Ferguson, 2021). The percentage of students who self-censor is increasing yearly (Ferguson, 2021). Campus controversies concerning free speech suppression have surfaced in Australia as well (Australian Government, 2021). As a former college dean, having had conversations with other administrators, I can’t shake the feeling that universities are in trouble, and will face dwindling contributions and enrollments should the current trends continue. As educators, we must find ways to enhance mutual understanding employing respect rather than fear, education rather than cancellation, and inviting classroom ambiences rather than threatening ones. This should actually apply to all grades, elementary through university.

As a founding sponsor of the Martin Luther King National Monument, I received tickets to the dedication ceremony that was to be held in August of 2011. It was postponed due to Hurricane Irene, however, my wife and I attended the rescheduled ceremony in October of that year. We were among thousands of spectators and, as two Caucasians, we stood out in a crowd that was probably over 90% African American. However, we both felt welcomed with open arms. A warm, inviting atmosphere of love and acceptance prevailed. I have often wondered if we could replicate such a climate in our increasingly diverse schools.

In a previous article in Education Today, I attempted to articulate the value of basic cross-cultural instruction for teachers and the necessity of teachers implementing their new knowledge within the fabric of their classroom interactions (Ivers, 2021). It seems to me that the considerable diversity extant in both Australia and the United States might call for some attention to it (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021; Ivers 2021). Expounding the importance of positive teacher-student relationships, Sparks (2019) quotes James Ford, the 2015 North Carolina (U.S.) Teacher of the Year as saying, “Our first job as teachers is to make sure that we learn our students, that we connect with them on a real level, showing respect for their culture and affirming their worthiness to receive the best education possible.” Young (2021) lists ensuring positive teacher-student relationships as one of four essential focus areas of schools. Greig and Brunzell (2021) mention the need to understand both our students’ individual identities combined with their cultures as a way to maximise compassionate schools and educational efficacy.

In my aforementioned Education Today article, I explored three powerful paradigms that could inadvertently bring to pass significant classroom misunderstanding and its concomitant damage to the vital teacher-student relationship, which relationship is one of the most critical yet underrated factors in student learning (Sparks, 2019; Young, 2021). In the spirit of us “learning our students” I discussed some classroom implications of cultural differences which included Emotional Expressivity Tolerance, Monochronic vs. Polychronic Time, and Individualism vs. Collectivism. In this article, I would like to explore some other problematic paradigms:

Power Distance
Differing views of “respect”
Attributional Tendencies.

Power Distance
Power distance is one of the six impactful paradigms singled out by the great Geert Hofstede in his famous Cultural Dimensions (The Hofstede Center, n.d.). Some cultures possess a high power distance orientation and some cultures are low. Many are somewhere in between and, of course, people may vary on the individual level. For example, Australia and the United States, which, by the way, are close to being equal in all six Hofstede dimensions, are rated as low power distance, whereas African, Latin American, Middle Eastern and Asian countries tend to be high (The Hofstede Centre, n.d.). In a high power distance culture, people kind of “know their place” and, if you happen to be “below” someone, you will be required to exercise a culturally determined degree of deference (The Hofstede Centre, n.d.). Such shows of deference may include not looking “superiors” in the eye, not engaging in “small talk,” high self-regulation of speech, and not showing what Australians and North Americans would interpret as “friendliness.” Informality and friendliness, which Australians and North Americans tend to extend to people despite their “place” in society, could, inversely, be a sign impoliteness and undignified behavior in a high power distance culture (Agar, 1994). Most people in every culture are friendly, however what is interpreted as appropriate “friendliness” can be rather different as we cross the globe.

While spending some time in the great country of India, I often found the “seriousness” of the Indian officials to be rather disconcerting. I wondered if they were trying to bully or intimidate me (which, if that were the case, they were quite successful!). I finally realised that rather than demonstrating intentional intimidation, they were actually affording me courtesy and respect! They were simply acting according to their particular cultural prescriptions as to how professional people should comport themselves.

The classroom implications of power distance variations can be significant and potential for misinterpretation legion. For example, a teacher with a higher power distance orientation may misinterpret lower power distance students as socially inept, dumb, disrespectful, and possibly even militant whereas the students themselves might self-interpret as exhibiting perfectly appropriate behavior (Ivers, 2016).

When a low power distance teacher encounters higher power distance students, some of the students, by simply following their culture’s paradigms of politeness and deference, may be misinterpreted as shy, uninterested, possessed of a dull personality, and worst of all, unfriendly.

It behooves all of us, as educators, to examine and question our culturally based interpretations. Our students might just be the exact opposite of the way we perceive them. Equitable treatment in the classroom would prescribe an understanding of a student's intentions before inaccurate interpretations result in harmful consequences. One of the essential components of equity is that we be on the same page as much as possible.

Additional Differing Views of “Respect”
In an instructive study, Kenneth Liberman (1994) interviewed 680 Asian college students studying in the United States and queried them concerning their impressions on the North American university experience. He found that Asian students were overall quite pleased with the low power distance cultural ambience they encountered. Professors and instructional procedures were rated highly. However, the academic acclamations disappeared when it came to their interpretations of U.S. college students. Asian students interpreted the typical North American college student as “crude and inconsiderate” (Liberman, 1994, p. 183). Examples of classroom crudeness exhibited by North Americans were (1) talking while class is in session, (2) placing their feet on the desk in front of them (I assume on the bookrack), (3) eating during class, (4) reading outside materials as the lecture progresses, (5) getting up and leaving the classroom for no apparent reason, and (6) packing up their things before the teacher has finished speaking (Liberman, 1994). Although I must admit, the last-mentioned item does irritate me a tad, all of the others would barely enter my consciousness. Culture has a way of metaphorically opening one’s eyes to certain things and veiling one’s eyes from others. My cultural paradigms have failed to inform me that I should be offended by such actions. However, I infer that a university professor in Asia, witnessing the above behavior, would likely be informed somewhat differently.

All of the above doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t instruct students concerning appropriate behavior in the particular cultural context in which they find themselves. The point of my inclusion of the Liberman (1994) study is that it might behoove us to avoid knee-jerk assumptions when it comes to our cross-cultural students’ classroom comportment. Of course, there are intentionally rude people in all cultures and sometimes our students, cross-cultural or otherwise, will get out of line. However, when a misunderstanding could place the teacher-student relationship at risk, a little bit of forbearance may be called for. A teacher getting enraged from perceived disrespect, when none is intended, can damage a child significantly. School climate experts Purkey, Novak, and Fretz (2020, p. 15) claim that “everything that happens to a child happens forever.”

Attributional Tendencies
Patterns of attribution constitute a mostly overlooked aspect of the cross-cultural world. How are we culturally conditioned to attribute the good things that happen to us, the bad things that happen to us, and things, both good and bad, that happen to others? What are the assumed forces at play behind why people do what they do and get what they get? We all utilise both internal (dispositional) attributions and external (situational) attributions to make sense of this mysterious world we inhabit. Internal attributions involve extending credit or blame to ourselves or assuming credit or blame in others to whom the event occurs. Examples of internal attributions might be (1) I failed the test because I am dumb or (2) Mary excelled on the test because she is smart.

External attributions involve assigning credit or blame to outside factors when things happen to us and/or to other people. Examples of external attributions might be (1) I failed the test because my teacher is horrible or (2) Mary excelled on the test because her teacher is better than mine.

Although we all utilise attributions daily, each culture kindly provides us with automatic defaults manipulating us into viewing others and ourselves according to culture’s pre-programmed volition. For example, with significant differences in some ethnic and religious subcultures, North Americans tend to use internal attributions to explain personal successes and external attributions to explain personal failures (Matsumoto 1996). This rather self-serving orientation may have contributed to the U.S. being ranked 6th in the world in self-esteem out of 53 countries in a 2005 survey (by the way Australia was ranked 22nd out of 53) (Hitti, 2005). In Hong Kong and India, the attributional scheme is somewhat different. People in those places tend to use internal attributions to explain both personal successes and personal failures (Matsumoto, 1996). To punctuate the level of difference in the world, Japan’s attributional scheme is the exact opposite of the U.S.! In Japan they tend to use external attributions to explain personal successes and internal attributions to explain personal failures (Matsumoto, 1996). The Japanese attributional scheme could be a contributing factor as to why, in the 2005 self-esteem survey, Japan came in ranked 53 out of 53 (Hitti, 2005). This is not to say our Japanese brothers and sisters are possessed of a deleterious paradigm. In the U.S. one’s self-esteem may not be deserved and, in Japan, one’s lack of self-esteem may not be deserved either. The overall positives and negatives of such attributional orientations are hard, if not impossible, to measure.

Concerning attributional patterns involving the potential extension of blame to other people, for issues in their lives, the U.S., as a whole, will default to internal attributions to explain others’ personal failures (Matsumoto, 1996). Attributing the failures of others internally is a common attribute among individualistic countries of which Australia and the U.S. are a part (Morris & Peng, 1994). The opposite would be true for collectivistic countries (most of Africa, Asia, and Latin America) where one would be culturally inclined toward attributing the failures of others to external reasons (Morris & Peng, 1994).

Equity in the classroom would suggest that we teachers suspend our culturally inculcated attributional schemes and critically examine each situation one at a time. It might behoove us to teach our students the same. The complexity of the human condition, unlike Newtonian physics, does not lend itself to simple cause and effect patterns. However, rather simplistic attributional patterns can potentially wield considerable influence in a culture’s public policies, suicide rates, and how people generally perceive themselves and others (Ivers, 2005). Our students’ self-perceptions which, in turn, are partially formed through our perceptions of them, can guide their futures in either positive or pernicious directions (Purkey, Novak, & Fretz, 2020).

Culturally Created Shame
According to some experts, the preservation and development of our perceived selves may be the basic motivation behind human behavior (Purkey, Novak, & Fretz, 2020). Concern about what others think is a human universal, extant in all cultures (Brown, 1991; Pinker, 2002). Shortly after our birth, each one of us is gifted, by our culture, a sort of guidebook. This both consciously and subconsciously acquired brochure has been described by experts in the field as the ought self (Wang & Ollendick, 2001). The guide walks us through how a valued member of our particular culture ought to be. It lists the “necessary” things in life to which one must pay attention (e.g. standards of physical appearance, expectations of personal comportment, expectations of achievement, etc.). I think we would all consider this guidebook a good and necessary thing, and it is. However, it is also not wanting in irrationalities, impossibilities, and sometimes toxic expectations.

Further complicating things, experts would add the actual self into the equation (Wang & Ollendick, 2001). We are all individuals with our own minds, unique experiences, diversity of abilities, diversity of acquired skills, physical appearances, abled and disabled, and unique genetic make-ups. We don’t, or can’t, always conform to cultural decrees. However, the further apart one’s actual self is to the culturally created ought self (by not fulfilling cultural expectations of physical appearance, comportment, achievement, etc.), the lower one’s self-esteem will tend to be (Wang & Ollendick, 2001). Each culture will afford its members differing ought selves, therefore, one could infer that people theoretically possessed of identical characteristics would possess differing levels of self-esteem in separate cultures. Also, what might produce shame in one culture, might not in another.

Shame, although often culturally produced, is another human universal (Brown, 1991; Pinker 2002). Basically, everyone on the planet tries to avoid it. To escape that dreadful feeling, one must often navigate specific culturally created obstacles which can be unique in time and space. The world is replete with shame-inducing circumstances in one culture that would cause no shame at all in another. Some shame-inducing examples from different cultures and time periods might be (1) a married woman having to talk to a man she does not know (parts of Middle East and South Asia), (2) a student receiving high public praise when the rest of his or her peer group does not (many collectivistic cultures), (3) a professor admitting to students not knowing the answer to a question related to his or her field (parts of Asia), (4) a woman whose weight is perfectly consistent the current Australian and North American “ideal” (parts of Africa) (5) a man participating in the cultivation of crops (Cherokee culture pre-1830), (6) eating in view of the opposite sex (Hawaii, pre-1819), (Dudzinska, 2007; Ivers, 2017; Perdue, 1998; Roberts, 2008). This shame-inducing list could go on and on for probably hundreds of pages.

What might curse us with shame in one culture or time period, could canonise us with semi-sainthood in others. When a college freshman, in the mid 1970s, I briefly enrolled in an ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) program. Although I never served in the real military, the semester-long experience was highly instructive. Vietnam had just ended, and a soldier was not the cool thing to be. Even though I studied on a rather conservative campus, walking around in my Army uniform seemed to magically bring on whisperings accompanied by giggles, outright sneers, and other demeaning incidents. On one occasion, I was all dressed up to go on maneuvers, and I was covered with camouflage. My roommate was quite amused and wanted a picture. We both left our seven-story dorm complex so one could be taken outside. As I was waiting for the picture to be snapped, a bucket of water was dropped on my head from a dorm room far above. It was accompanied by unpleasant remarks. If such an incident is shocking to you (the reader) today, it is because your reality is informed by completely different paradigms (and much better ones too!). However, I can’t help but worry that maybe 50% of the folks who are saying, “Thank you for your service” to military people today, would be dropping water on their heads in 1976. Questioning our paradigms should be an essential part of the human experience.

Undoubtedly, all of our students will not measure up to some of the irrational particulars of the culturally created ought self. Equity would include doing our best to recognise and potentially ameliorate the effects of culturally created shame and irrational cultural expectations whether our students be native born, immigrants, or guests.

The Student as Guest
Having, many years ago, been a Spanish teacher in grades 6–8 in the United States, I became painfully aware of the difficulties of classroom management and the challenges individual students so often provide. Those who have never taught children or adolescents probably have no idea how tough it can be. However, despite the huge obstacles teachers face, the bottom line is that our students, both cross-cultural and otherwise, are our guests. They are the guests of whatever institution they attend and the myriads of complexities that constitute “schooling” should at least attempt to reflect that. This doesn’t mean that some of our “guests” should never be disciplined, suspended, or even expelled. Since we deal with human beings, such things may be required. However, the idea of “guests” should never be far from our thinking. Hinduism, one of the oldest continuously extant religions in the world, teaches that all human beings must pay certain debts throughout their lives (Religion Facts, 2015). One of those debts is a debt to guests. One is supposed to treat a guest as if he or she is one of the gods visiting (Religion Facts, 2015). I understand completely that looking at our students as gods is somewhat problematic. As teachers, we have all had two or three in our careers who reminded us more of God’s supposed competitor. However, each one of our students has a genetic code unique in the entire universe, which, by that fact alone, they constitute something special.

Conclusion
In the unsettling and mysterious world of quantum physics, as exemplified in the Copenhagen Interpretation of the Double Slit Experiment, we are told that a subatomic particle in motion, such as a photon or electron, will avail itself of all possible routes and destinations simultaneously. In other words, every potential scenario will play out, meaning that an individual particle can be, inexplicably, in many places at the exact same moment! Only when the path of the particle is observed by a conscious human being does the particle default down to only one option, kindly (and shockingly) adjusting itself into a pattern we can comprehend. Observation is key. Maybe the path of a photon is not the only thing that mysteriously defaults to only one option when observed by a human. When observing the comportment of our cross-cultural students, an entire multitude of interpretations may be available, yet, all too often, our paradigms automatically and instantaneously default us down to just one. Turning off our automatic defaults and turning on our critical consciousness can help open the door to a more inviting classroom and world.

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Enhancing Equity Through Cross-Cultural Instruction and Consciousness Raising II