Culture(s) and LearningIssues of power, cultural identity, and educational culture(s), and the impacts of these on learners and their learning; cross-cultural capability – developing the learning environment.

Relates most specifically to learning outcome associated with: ..the context in which professional practice takes place in relation to learners, learning environments, and support

Who External “stakeholders” Government Government agencies (QAA, TTA, etc) Parents/ sponsors Employers Prospective students (markets) Professional bodies Academic leaders – discipline gurus Publishers

Who Internal “stakeholders” VC, Deans, HOS, Committees/ Regulators (Registry, Secretary’s

Office) Academic staff Administrative staff Learning Support staff Financial controllers Students “Technologists” External Examiners

Cultural Symbols – and Power

The Importance of Symbols

The study of organisational cultures suggests these symbolic representations and symbolic actions – some deliberate, some accrued – not only represent an organisational culture, but in doing so, also verify or create with us expectations with regard to their values, to how we should act in response (if we wish to successfully engage), and to how we will be judged by those within the organisation.

Cultural Symbols – and Power

Power

A faculty member will play many roles in the classroom; teacher, facilitator, learner, mentor, evaluator, to name a few. But there is one thing that is common to all these roles – power.

Introduction to a staff development workshop, Centre for Teaching Excellence (http://www.cte.tcu.edu/ )

Power

A faculty member has power in the classroom. How can this power be used to encourage student learning? How does it impact students from different ethnic or cultural backgrounds? How does this power influence male students differently from female students?

Introduction to a staff development workshop, Centre for Teaching Excellence (http://www.cte.tcu.edu/ )

Styles/ModesIn hierarchical mode, the teacher takes full

responsibility for all aspects of the learning process, such as setting learning objectives…In co-operative mode, power over the learning process is shared by the teacher and the learners…In autonomous mode, the teacher provides an environment conducive to learning, but students take responsibility for self-directed learning…

Summary of J.Heron on the wed site of Centre for the Advancement of Teaching & Learning at the University of Western Australia (http://www.catl.uwa.edu/au/NEWSLETTER/issue0600/responsibility.htm)

Where do you sit (mostly)

In hierarchical modeIn co-operative In autonomous mode

And where do your learners want you or need you?

?

Culture & Identity

Cultures – Subcultures – “Idiocultures”

Products & producers of our culture(s)

Culture & Identity

Diversity brings variety in identities– Tutor: student roles– Peer relationships– Attitudes to personal and institutional

authority – veneration or challenge– Hierarchies – family/ state/ religion/ self

Values & Diversity

Value systems are an integral part of any cultural context and where several cultural contexts meet, as they do in pluralistic and multi-ethnic societies, questions inevitably arise relating to the existence of universal values and culture-specific (relativistic) values…

Thomas E Researching Values in Cross-cultural Contexts in - Gardener R, Cairns J, Lawton D, (Eds) Education for Values 2000, London: Kogan Page (BP LC: 370.114 EDU) p260

Values & Diversity

… and how a balance can be achieved between both when it comes to developing a values curriculum that must have a common appeal.

Thomas E Researching Values in Cross-cultural Contexts in - Gardener R, Cairns J, Lawton D, (Eds) Education for Values 2000, London: Kogan Page (BP LC: 370.114 EDU) p260

Learning & Cultural ContextA social epistemology enables us to

consider the word learning not as standing alone, but as embodying a range of historically constructed values, priorities, and dispositions towards how one should see and act towards the world.

Popkewitz T.S. & Brennan M. Restructuring of Social & Political Theory in Education: Foucault and a Social Epistemology of School Practices P9 – in: Popkewitz T.S. & Brennan M. (eds) 1998 Foucault’s Challenge: Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Education Teacher’s College Press, Colombia University

Educational culture

Outcome drivenCritical/ Reflexive thinkingAutonomous learning

Educational Values

DemocraticEgalitarianSecular

Curriculum as Cultural Practice

Curriculum always entails a selection from culture, a privileging of certain values over others…

Schaafsma D. Performing the Self: Constructing Written and Curricular Fictions p261 in Popkewitz T.S. & Brennan M. (eds) 1998 Foucault’s Challenge: Discourse, Knowledge, and Power in Education Teacher’s

College Press, Colombia University (pp 55-277)

Truth (and power and culture)

Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue a multiple form of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth:…

Foucault M. 1980 Power?Knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings by Michael Foucault, 1972-1977 (C.Gordon, Ed. And Translator) New York: Pantheon p131

Truth (and power and culture)

… that is, the type of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.

Impacts of Cultures on Learning

Learning stylesSchemaStereotype ThreatCulture Shock

Activist

Theorist

Pragmatist Reflector

Learning Styles & Culture 1

….As learning style preferences are recognised by many to exist within a group, differences are also found across cultures…..In general… thinking about differences in learning style suggests that culture significantly influences the manner in which one learns how to learn.Cushner K. 1994 (p121)

Activist

Theorist

Pragmatist Reflector

Scand

UK/Ire

Switz

USA

Ger/Aus

France

Italy

Who’s Learning Style is Preferred?

…some learning activities are dominated by explicit or implicit assumptions about learning styles. The activity may be so geared to a particular style of learning as to cause a mismatch with any participant whose own major preferences are different……..Generally courses are based on the learning styles of course runners not learners.Honey P. & Mumford A. 1992 (P21)

Learning Styles & Culture 1

….As learning style preferences are recognised by many to exist within a group, differences are also found across cultures…..In general… thinking about differences in learning style suggests that culture significantly influences the manner in which one learns how to learn.Cushner K. 1994 (p121)

Culture & Learning Styles 2For many students, especially those from

non-European 'convergent' cultures, the teaching and learning traditions in regard to academic writing, research and assessment are very different from those of the 'divergent' western model. Their past training and experience will have given them a very different idea of what it takes to be a 'good' student; for instance they may be accustomed to being rewarded for 'following the master' rather than 'questioning the question'. Ryan J. 2000

Readings

Book of RitesRig Veda MantraCurriculum in Islamic Centres of

Learning

Prototype Theory

Prototype Theory

Schema

Schema

…Learning theories commonly state that students construct meaning by relating new information to previous knowledge and personal experience, by 'hooking' into the student's existing schemata. Unless international students are able to use their background knowledge and learn how to apply it to new situations, they will have difficulty building new knowledge.Ryan J. 2000 (p56)

Types of Schema

Content-based schemata derive from prior experience of the content knowledge that is relevant to the original text, whereas text-based schemata result from previous experience of similar text types or genres. Both these types of schemata or background knowledge affect the reader's comprehension of a text.

Winskel H.

..I have not yet learned to see an Indian village or a bazaar; my eyes aren’t trained, and I couldn’t describe one to save my life. I love them and am endlessly fascinated; but all I can make out is a wild surrealist confusion of men and animals and many kinds of inanimate objects, arranged in completely implausible patterns.

Edmund Taylor, Richer by Asia

Cultural Differences

A HEFCE View

What emerges clearly from the case studies is how adjusting methods of learning, teaching and assessment to meet the needs of a very wide range of students – including mature students and disabled students – in practice benefits all students.

HEFCE 2002 Successful student diversity: Case studies of practice in learning and teaching and widening participation (Nov 2002/48)

http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2002/02_48.htm

Power < > Education < > CulturesCultures embody values

Values drive educational cultures/ practices

Cultures create Identities

Identities populate universities

Power relations in educational cultures drive the learning environment/ contexts

How do we ethically respond to/ support culturally diverse learners?