Education & Intercultural Communication

so if you've been following along in this little series of ours then on Intercultural communication then you know that culture is the learned and shared set of symbols language values and Norms used to distinguish one group of people from another so learned and shared our key there and where do we do more learning and sharing than in the classroom right well in an educational setting culture is an incredibly important part of our Educational Systems and and uh so want to spend a little bit of time today talking about education and how it intersects with Intercultural communication so first of all let's Identify some of the differences and acknowledge some of the differences in Educational Systems not in great detail but just on a spectrum here as you can tell we're on a Continuum here of of how things may be different from one educational system to another and this is true for Educational Systems from where you're at to the next town but certainly and there are differences there and certainly differences uh in other parts of the world and just you know people approach education differently and so there are differences that we can see for example in the formality the level of formality of the education and the educational system some are very very formal and rigid you know I think traditional English boarding schools and things like that that are super rigid a lot of rules and a lot of very set ways of doing things not only traditionally in the classroom but also outside of the classroom and then there are some that are a little less formal right right some some some schools you may have heard of that maybe don't use grades for example don't use ABC and they use different symbols or whatever so maybe less formal um or maybe even some some know there all kinds of different types of homeschooling but there you know can there some home homeschooling it's very much informal it's very experiential and and not as classroom oriented and it's so that's true of all different Educational Systems so you have different levels of formality in these Educational Systems and and just a reminder that when we talk about culture we talk about differences in these things we're not talking about right or wrong or good or bad necessarily we're talking about different that's it just different different ways of doing things so different levels of formality that we have here uh emphasis on memorization versus emphasis on experiences so here we're talking about how much are we you know I grew up in an educational system you know in my in the 19 I graduated in 1993 from high school so uh at that time and for for years prior to that it was all about you know okay memorize these dates from history and memorize these mathematical formulas and and then show me on a test that you can regurgitate and repeat this information and so forth so there was a real emphasis on memorization now we're starting to in recent um decades starting to recognize the importance of experiences and that's also that's been true over time that's why we've always had apprenticeships for example back in the olden days you might not go to school you might take on and be taken on as an apprentice for some trade U but and now we have kind of a similar thing except it's not a formal apprenticeship program but this this recognition that oh experiences are really good so you have schools that are you know as you get older you may have half a day in the classroom but then another half day working in the field where you maybe intend to or hope to work so you get some experience and some exposure to that um I can tell you from an educational perspective and I don't teach education but I can tell you in my experience a lot of students who want to study education they really are excited about it until they get their first field experience till they go out and do a little student teaching and then they're like oo I don't know if this is right for me you see a lot of students um make the decision not to go into teaching once they've had that you know firsthand experience and that that's okay that's good that that recognition is good but also you know if you're going to work in that field it's good to have some experiences there so trying to find that balance and and and what's that emphasis on memorization versus experiences um and so any so differences in perspectives on that a difference is in the idea of of General OCC general education versus occupational communication again when I was growing up it was more College oriented whether you were going into college or not it was basically College path for the most part um even if you had no intention of going to college so this general education this broad education which I think is important for people to have you know whether you want to major in history it's important for us to understand history whether you want to study these things specifically it's important that we have a good General scope but now there is more emphasis on okay what specifically is going to be important for you in your occupational field let's focus on that and let's let's cut out some of this other stuff um so um and you see this in Educational Systems here in the United States for example Associates degrees for example tend to be more occupationally or uh oriented than higher level degrees for example so if you're getting an associates degree you're going to spend more time focusing specifically on the things that are related to your field you'll have some general education in there as well but if you're getting a bachelor's degree you're going to get even more general education you're going to get plenty of Occupational stuff as well but it's going to be lots of because we're you know is to prepare people for citizenry and for life in general not just for their occupation so but there's you know differences in and and approaches to those things should it be more general education should it be more occupationally uh focused to so there's different perspectives on that is also you know are Educational Systems Open Access or are they closed access so here in the United States for the most part theoretically we have an open access system everybody should get educated and everybody has the opportunity to to get educated that's you know again in principle in theory that's the idea but in other parts of the world for example it may be that that women aren't allowed to go to school past a certain age if at all or that people of a certain uh cultural group ethnic group something like that aren't allowed to access schools here in the United States historically if we look back African-Americans were not allowed to receive an education U and specifically were not allowed to not just that they didn't have schools available but they were not allowed to you know back in the day people thought if they got educated then they might not be as inclined to work in slavery which you know is probably solid that's that's there's lots of evidence to to back that up um so so they refused them access to schools that which is totally inappropriate right but uh um so open access versus closed access differences in in how we view those um as an educational system and then even again here in the United States even still closed access in terms of at the University level we have open access universities but there are lots of universities that are access meaning they only accept certain students maybe only accept a certain number of students or students who have demonstrated demonstrated a particular level of achievement and so forth but so anyway wherever you're you're going to have differences in these Educational Systems and differences in perspectives on education so um but so let's focus then a little bit on here on the impact of education on culture okay so specifically looking at it from how does education impact culture we're going to going to go through some word association here or you know fill in the blank sort of here we're going to insert some words here education blank culture does what to or for culture right we're going to insert some words here so first of all education preserves a culture education preserves a culture it's how we uh think of basically storytelling it's how we it's how we um keep a culture going keep a culture active and keep you know indoctrinating people into that culture so it's through the process of enculturation as we'll we'll call that that's often times a achieved through education that's how we preserve that culture and and keep it going and uh so education preserves a culture education also transmits a culture it's how we it's how we tell others about this culture it's how we inform others about what this culture should be and what this culture is and why they should be a part of it so it transmits that culture and lets people know what is and what is not appropriate for this culture and how they should behave if they intend to be a part of that culture education develops cultur so again we're specifically indoctrinating people we're enculturating people through education we teach them literally what it means to be a part of our society what they need to know how they should behave I mean think about your Elementary School classes for example there was probably a list on the wall of rules right so we're in culting people this is what's appropriate for you to do in this classroom this is what's not appropriate for you to do in this classroom and then as we get beyond that what's appropriate for life outside of the classroom or in your particular profession or whatever so it develops Culture by by enculturating um individuals as well and bringing them into that culture and finally it upholds the continuity of culture education does right so it it it again reinforces itself it reinforces itself it upholds the continuity and helps keep that culture going um by telling us that this is what's right and this is what's correct this is what's appropriate and so it upholds the continuity of that culture continuity of that Culture by telling us this is how we should behave and and what we should should be doing so there are lots of ways that education is very specifically involved in impacting culture and has a tremendous impact on culture what if we flip that around then and we look at the impact of culture on education though so we've looked at how education impacts culture so how does culture impact education well I've already mentioned this term a couple times now of inculturation so let's take a minute to think about what that is and Define what that is so enculturation is the process by which people acquire the values norms and worldviews of the cultural group so in essence it's how they learn about that culture it's so from the time you're born um this is what you've received as inculturation this is what we call first degree or first level uh culture um sharing so um so essentially you can think of it as like people we pour out our culture into particularly young people right we're talking about again this is the first level this would be the first culture you learn think of it and we want to think of it specifically in terms of langu this would be your native language your first language now you may learn another language down the road right but this is going to be your your home language your first language and the one you know better than any other probably right and and all the other things related to that culture as well this is going to be your kind of home culture you may learn about other cultures down the road but this is your the the symbols language values and Norms uh of that culture being poured into people that's inculturation right so the process by which we acquire those values norms and worldview okay um so you know get think of this like passing down culture to to to people like older people passing it down to young people and so this is who we are and this is what we believe and this is why we believe it and so forth this is that's the process of enculturation right so it's anend at the beginning of it enculturation means that first degree first level um sharing of a culture and that happens a lot through education as well so education not only formal setting but education by um the the family and friends around you as you're growing up and things that's all part of inculturation as well but culture impacts education through the process of enculturation uh culture also the impact of culture on education is also seen through what we call acculturation so not inculturation but acculturation is a little different so acculturation is the process where people from One culture adopt the process of another culture which is not their own so again when you learn another language when you go as like an exchange student somewhere and you you learn about that culture I had that opportunity when I was younger was amazing I spent some time in Spain living with a family and and was able to you know learn about that culture and adopt part of it while I was there and really feel at home there and that's a culturation so it was not my first level first degree cultur culture right that would be as uh as an American and and you know other things of midwesterner and so forth and from that was my sort of Home culture but acculturation occurred when I went to Spain as an exchange student to learn the language and to learn about their customs and learn about you know just so just everything there just to be part of it that's a culturation where I was adopting some of the that culture as part of my own now to know this is different from assimilation assimilation is really you are immersing yourself and just becoming part of you're kind of abandoning your first level culture in a sense uh and that doesn't replace it but you're kind of abandoning that to become part of this other culture acculturation is more about adopting part of that and learning about it and and living in it but but you're still holding on to that that first level um culture that you have so again think of it like you know you go to an exchange somewhere you make some friends or you even if you just moved to a different city think of it as you move from one city to another city you may make some friends and some co-workers there who kind of pour into you the culture of that specific City or that that specific area that specific group that spe when you start a new job you go from one organization to another you you receive a culturation there you're receiving tips on what the culture is there so you're you're being you're getting all this as part of that that process there where you adopt that culture as part of your own then you see this a lot as as well unlike the military for example part of the process of boot camp and things like that in the military is a culturation they want you to learn the culture of the military they want you to use their language and and use their systems and things so you have that a culturation in the military to make sure everybody's on the same page and and using the same language and seeing things the same way have people from a lot of different backgrounds and and Geographic areas and things coming together so you want them all to uh receive a culturation so that they're all on the same page then okay so you know we see also the impact of of culture on education um comes from a variety of things though so there the other thing about education is there are a variety of things influencing education even if we just look at our formal education system um and you know think about our public schools for example that uh where where do the public schools come from I mean how do they how are they influenced right our culture is is uh is kind of injected into our educational system at all levels so obviously you have Educators the primary form of of Education comes from our teachers and our administrators people who work professionally in that area and in that field and with those schools so that that's their kind of full-time job right that they they work there so obviously they have a large impact but but we also get input from um from places like parents right parents obviously have input into the school itself and the education um that their children are receiving uh and they work with them at home of course but but they're also influencing in the educational system by working with teachers and administrators and things um so they're they're having an impact there school boards which are not necessarily made up of professional Educators right these are people from the Community who are in many cases elected or appointed or whatever to to kind of oversee that school district in that school and the and so you have school boards though that are made up of kind of lay people right they're not they're not professional Educators necessarily but they are people who have a vested interest in that system they may not even be parents um at that time but they have a vested interest in that educational system and so they they will have some influence there you also have the influence of state agencies as well as Federal agencies so governmental agencies that are kind of determining what the curriculum should be and what what the required standards are for students what they should be learning about um in many ways honestly um maybe too much influen you right I mean they're performing a role and it's an important role of standardization and things like that but again oftentimes these are people who who aren't professional Educators who may not have the fullest understanding and may be influenced by you know we see a lot right now I I don't get political in these videos really but we see a lot of this right now where where politicians are are really inject inserting themselves into the educational system as a as a political issue whether they firmly believe in those things or not I don't know but they are uh making decisions that they think are going to be popular and they they advocating positions they think will be popular whether or not they're in the best educational interests of the students in in my opinion so but so there certainly there's no question that those agencies state agencies and federal agencies are influencing and impacting education from a cultural standpoint I mean they've been very clear about that in recent days about you know they want to just the opposite they're claiming they want to remove the cultural elements of from the educationalist system now Ironically in turn in doing so they're actually inserting their own culture they're not removing culture from from the classroom they're just substituting their own culture for uh for whatever other culture they don't like so um but there's always going to be influence of cultur it's just matter what culture and how strong lean things but so anyway you have the influence of state agencies and federal agencies then you also have just general community members can may not be Educators may not be parents with kids in the school at that time but just people who live in that area and and uh and will influence um in many ways direct and directly and indirectly influence that educational system um and then finally and this not an exclusive list but interest groups you have interest groups you have you know things like teachers unions that are influencing the educational system but you also have not just teachers unions but you have all kinds of interest you have the the parent groups right the um man had it in my head now the one I can't think of now as moms for something it's a very um conservative group that is at the moment involved with a lot of book removals from libraries and things and I can't remember the name of the exact organization now but anyway you have those types of groups any it's just PTO and things these different interest groups that are that are pulling Educators and pulling administrators and you know making their influence in the classroom known they're impact in the classroom known um and as someone who comes from a family of public Educators I can tell you that this I mean all of these things way heavily on on these people my brother is an administrator and a school longtime administrator of a school and spends most of his time dealing with these types of things dealing with all these things school boards and parents and state agencies and federal agencies and community members and interest groups as opposed to dealing with the classroom really so because they are an important aspect of that though so uh so it is an important part of his role but all of these ways are ways that we kind of insert culture into education another thing to consider about how we the the impact of culture in education is what we're teaching you know who decides what we're teaching how do we decide what we're teaching um just as an example uh Winston Churchill once famously said history is written by the victor history is written by The Victors right and what that really means is that the people who are in power the people who have the power are the ones who are who are writing that history are the ones who are determining what stories get told and which ones don't right they're controlling that information so again if I think back into my own history of uh of Education um again I graduated 1993 just to give you some time frame there but um I would I I would have trouble listing one or two specific things that we ever looked at uh in in my school Midwestern School small town school that we ever looked at for African-American impact on history or really other than just broadly slavery was a thing here in the United States and even that we didn't talk about very much because it's kind of uncomfortable right to to hear about how our country our nation um not only allowed it but really promoted this idea of slavery that we would take people and bring them here make them work for for free under under abhorent conditions and just I mean so I mean it's not a good look so we would just kind of gloss over it a little bit of course we mentioned it but not for very long and then you move on so I grew up woefully ignorant of any sense of African-American history it just was not a part of of that because they were not in you know in the dominant power group at the time um and still aren't today but now we' we've tried to to make that more a part of this I think but it's we're making very slow strides at this but so for example just U some um specific context um when we talked about the Civil War we talked about how the Civil War the American Civil War was about states rights right versus Federal rights should the states have rights over the federal rights economic disparities between the North and the South and and just the the um opposition to the election of Abraham Lincoln um not only the the um first but the uh his reelection in particular but but his election in general because of his his views but so we' talk about all these things these are the reasons for the Civil War but truthfully these the I mean these were reasons for the Civil War but the truth is it really was about slavery I mean even all those things were about slavery it wasn't just about State's rights versus Federal rights it was about a state's right to allow slavery and it wasn't just about economic disparities it was about the South's dependence on slavery for their economy for their agricultural economy the north didn't have that they were more industrial right so it's not that the north was just so pure and innocent and and you know it was just that they didn't need slaves okay we didn't discuss it that way but but that's the truth of it right and it wasn't about just the election of Lincoln it was because Lincoln wanted to free the slaves Lincoln was an evolutionist right so um it was about slavery and we never really framed it in that way because again it's uncomfortable and and you know feels like you're putting the country under the spotlight and saying shame on us well certainly shame on us deservedly so as a as a nation for allowing that first at all in the first place and then for so long and then all the after effects as well so but we didn't really talk about any of that I mean these are all things that I'm you know learning about and trying to become educated on now because I've lived a you know kind of an isolated sheltered privileged life as as part of my culture in a sense um and so I really I can tell you until it became a national holiday I had never heard of juneth until a couple years ago right so I mean within the last three or four years whenever it became a national holiday that's when I became aware of juneth as a as an as anything and I was I was you know 45 years old at the time that's incredible to me that I didn't know about this significant part of American history and again it's because again had to do with the Civil War it had to do with slavery you know the the emancipation of the slaves and so we just kind of brush it under try not to talk about it too loudly because it's uncomfortable and so we don't want to do that right um another example you know in African-American history talking about how How Far We've these are major events I had never heard of Black Wall Street until a couple years ago again well into my 40s before I ever heard of of Black Wall Street right in Tulsa and then of course the the ensuing in in 1921 the ensuing um Tulsa Race Massacre that happened Black Wall Street and things you know burned out because people were just concerned that African-Americans were actually starting businesses and and starting to gain some economic um foothold and couldn't allow that to happen and then it erupted these race riots in Tulsa m thing I mean you look at these pictures that that they just destroyed this entire community and certainly murdered people killed people and uh and just destroyed this entire Comm community and uh I'd never heard of it until a couple years ago it's incredible and I'm I'm ashamed to say that ashamed of our educational system in that regard uh so um but just for example you know you're talking about the impact of culture on education well the victors quote unquote Victors the people in the power structure were making decisions about what we learn about and what we don't learn about so there's just a couple of examples of how culture impacts education in a very real way very tangible way think about the people whose history we just brushed aside because it was uncomfortable for the people who were in The do more dominant power structure in our nation at that time um it's just I mean it's shameful things like but anyway so an example of how culture does impact education then uh so I want to look at some of the cultural Dimensions uh of Education so we've talked about in previous videos some of different cultural Dimensions so just real quickly um how do they impact education in a sense so we looked at things like individualism and collectivism and so this approach is how we you know approach education in terms of individual achievement versus group achievement and you know when I was in school it was all about what's your class Rank and what did you get on that test what did you get in that class what what are you going to achieve as opposed to how can we learn together it was all about individual learning individual achievement as oppos oppos to group learning team learning those types of things more collectivistic views and education um you talk about power distance um and that's changing as well there's a sense of this idea of of the sage on the stage versus the guide on the side which we'll talk about in a minute maybe but uh um when I was you were not to stand up to teachers there was a very distinct power distinction between teachers and students and you should absolutely respect your your teachers but we would never I would never be allowed to tell a teacher that they were wrong about something or that I questioned their judgment on something um and now you know other cultures you can you can do that a little more now especially here we have a lower power distance but uh but even then back back then in school it was a very distinct difference in power distance because very high power distance culture there but how do we use time how do we view time you know when I was in school with a very strict schedule I I can tell you to the minute when that Bell was going to ring and how long I had to get to my next class and and by goly if that teacher went over for even a second I was out of there I mean I was not sticking around I'm very monochromatic um so you know time ruled everything um other cultures not so much it's a little more flexible both in how we approach the day-to-day schedule but also just how much times somebody spend in school well you know here we have a very rigid structure on these are the grades you go through this is the process you go through other cultures is more about have you learned what you need to learn in order to do what what we need you to do that that's how they used that time in a sense so uncertainty avoidance again the cultures vary in terms of their views of uncertainty avoidance um so how how okay are we with questioning things and leaving things kind of vague and And discussing abstract Notions and things like that masculine versus feminine perspective um this has more to do with how kind of compassionate and concerned and caring teachers are and you always have some that are more than others but but when I was again growing up back in the day it was more more masculine even for even for female teachers more masculine there was expected to be a separation uh school's not really a place for emotion um but now we've we've allowed those more um feminine perspectives to come in which is a good thing we allow students to to act to talk about their feelings and acknowledge their emotions which there are a lot of emotions when you're you know middle school high school age so that's great and then just different approaches to knowing how do we how do students learn how do we how do we gain knowledge and um we're acknowledging that there are different ways that people do that now uh and certainly in different cultures there are different approaches to how do we how do we learn best how do we teach best all those types of things so finally just some practical applications to think about here as we think about culture in education so there are different teaching styles um that that culturally will be influenced by um by the by the dominant Culture by what's happening there so I mentioned this a minute ago but um I grew up in a very on the stage what we call Sage on the stage um environment which is the teacher teaches and you listen and you're quiet and you just do your your thing and then uh and then they're going to share their expertise with you in the end right and and then you leave you go to your next class where where they're going to teach you something else right um now we have much more of a philosophy or seeing this much more what we call a guide on the side philosophy right we're encouraging much more teamwork and discussion oriented classes and things like that so that's been a really interesting transition that's happened really in my time of of teaching so it's been really fascinating for me to be able to go from this expectation that I be that Sage on the stage to that I be that guide on the side and work with students and help them work together as opposed to just leading and teaching and and sharing my expertise with them so teaching styles are different from culture to culture and they will change over time as the culture changes as well learning styles we know that there are different learning styles and you've probably you know seen some of these types of things before some people are visual Learners or or auditory or you know um kinesthetic Learners something like that you you've seen maybe the What's called the ver the varc um learning styles um system but but also just different um Generations will have different uh learning styles for example so culturally Generations will be very different and so we'll have different needs which is very interesting for me as somebody who teaches in higher education so I see students from lots of different Generations from you know really at this point four different Generations that I'll have potentially in my classroom and they all have different needs they all approach education differently and have different learning needs and learning styles so that that type of cultural impact as well has been really interesting and and something that I think good teachers adapt to and and acknowledge then there's always you know that of grading and power and plagiarism and Ai and let's call all we kind of lumped all that into together but um how do we approach grading is it is it a firm um is it a firm kind of grading scalers is there's some flexibility there is you know how how do you approach that and how do you approach power what are you know is there thinking about power distance is it supposed to be that I'm in charge and that students are really supposed to just do what I say or do students have some ability to contact me and say I have a question about this or I have you know I'm not sure that you're doing this correctly or in the best ways or what's the power structure then in that classroom uh and then thinking about things like plagiarism and AI especially as as technology continues to um evolve and develop I mean when I was younger you had to work hard to plagiarize it was really tough you had to go find that information you know book somewhere and then rewrite it out so I mean if you were plagiarizing it was very uh intentional and there was no no real question about you know did you understand you were plagiarizing you absolutely did because you had to go find that information and literally copy it out my hand and things and put it in there and uh so but now it's you know information is free information is readily available to everybody so is it really plagiarizing if you grab something off Google and put it in there because everybody has access to it so I mean yes it is technically by the way but and is AI appropriate or inappropriate and that's that's really that's an impossible question that's not a yes or no question there are lots of um there's lots of context in there and lots of uh lots of gray area in that so those are things that we're working through still as they continue to evolve uh and and those are going to be different from culture to culture as well I tell you somebody who's engaged with a variety of different institutions both historically and today um they approach AI differently for example even just right now um some schools are are more Progressive and and you know really working hard to teach students how to use Ai and how to use it appropriately and effectively and other schools are just saying no absolutely not do not use AI for anything so there are different there different cultures within institutions about how they're approaching that and other things and and so um they're they're you know culture influencing education in that regard as well whether it's culture around the world or just culture from institution to institution influences education in in many regards then so I mean I just been a lot this is this is a longer video but hopefully you can see that culture influences education which influences culture which influences education and so forth I mean this is just a big loop right but culture and education are so intricately intertwined it's almost impossible to separate the two in a sense um that culture is an incredibly important aspect of education but education also influences impacts culture in such a direct and meaningful way that it's impossible to ignore the connection between these two things I hopefully you have a better understanding now of the but the connection and the influence the impact of these two areas on one another of culture and education um I would be uh happy to answer any questions you have about about education and culture and culture and education and so forth and and hear any discussion if you want to shoot me an email or uh that'd be great I'd love to hear from you there um in the meantime I hope that you do have a new appreciation for you know again how these things influence one another and how education systems are not only evolving within themselves but are influenced by these outside factors and and uh and the importance of that education systems have in defining and developing culture within our society