Learning across cultures:
Opening our minds as well as our
doors
Dr. Janette Ryan, Monash University, Australia
Jude Carroll, Oxford Brookes University, UK
Both: Teaching International Students project (2009-2011)
Ideas
there are differences in academic cultures
and in learning approaches
 identified by comparison and contrast. One
example: Confucian and Western education
 learning from flows of people and ideas
across cultural academic traditions?
 ….. a new approach, ‘transcultural’
Use examples from critical thinking and
academic writing / plagiarism to illustrate
transcultural teaching and learning

An aside:
The temptation to reflect upon this
presentation as a clear example of one
way in which information can be analysed,
critiqued and conveyed …..
Did you noticed the structure and tone
already? … or was it so common as to
be invisible?
Choosing the ‘lens’
Difference, contrast, surprise
 Language and culture? Language or
culture?
 Dangers of complexity

‘What assumptions am I making that are
wrong?’
Academic cultures vary
“ Culture” …. systems of human practice
Ways of knowing and being,
ontology, epistemology,
 methodologies and intellectual practices
 ideas about writing, analysis, evaluation
‘Performativity’ [how you act out these ideas]

We all have one …. or several
Reversing the lens….
…. the same critical eye on our own
assumptions and beliefs? Become self-aware?
One prompt is experiencing differences ….
Academic cultures: Same words ….. different
meanings, different practices
Not simply differences
Imbued with judgments on quality
 Usually seen as binary …. quickly leads to
opposition

‘Western’
‘Confucian’
Critical thinking
 Follow the Master
 Independent learning
 Dependence on the teacher
 Student-centred learning
 Respect for the teacher
 Adversarial stance
 Harmony
 Argumentative learners
 Passive learners
 Achievement of the individual
 Achievement of the group
 Constructing new knowledge
 Respect for historical texts
 ‘Deep’ learners seeking meaning  ‘Surface’ or rote learners

Partial and biased
Much of the evidence produced for the way
Chinese students behave in classroom
settings has been drawn from reports and
perceptions by Western instructors, thus
filtered through their own values, expectations
and standards’ Clark and Grieves, 2006 p. 60
As much variation within as between
Binary and hierarchical
‘West is Best’
‘Western European’ [wide actual geography
… US, NZ, etc ]
Anglophone [or at least in the sources I
read]
‘Winners’ described through idealised
characteristics. The ideal treated as real.
Flow between academic culture /
contexts … what happens on
arrival?
….. ‘an international student’ [‘international
staff’?]
Attract a large literature
Trigger much discussion
Learning and teaching responses
Phase One ( 1990 …. ) ‘fix the student’
Phase Two: (2001 ...) ‘fix the teacher’
Phase Three: ( ? now ) ‘fix the institution’
1. Students’ must change (1990 +)
remediation, ‘gaps’
 students as deficits. Students as
expressions of deficit systems.

….common discourse for all students.
But for international students, the
assumption seems to be that they come
with nothing of worth. They can finally
start learning….. once they have their
gaps filled.
2. Teachers ‘accommodate’ and
‘adapt’ (c. 2001 +)
‘Making allowances’
Making learning practices more explicit
‘Rules of the game’ . Assisting international
students to become skilful ‘players’
Reviewing classroom practices for inclusion,
trying to remove exclusion
(2009-11) ‘Teaching International Students’
project
TIS activities

Website with teaching Resources Bank
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/internationalisation



Research database
Outreach activities and partnerships
Series of events (27 this year)
3. ‘Internationalise’ the institution
Beyond assertion?
‘largely located in the policy domain and
generally ignoring the cultural dynamics of
teaching and learning’ (Huisman, 2010)
Studies of the impact are ‘small scale,
scattered and a-theoretical’
An undertaking of prodigious intellectual
and practical endeavour.
McTaggart, 2003
….a transformation of prodigious
intellectual, practical and emotional
endeavour
Carroll, 2010
A new way?
‘third space’ or ‘bridge’ metaphors
traffic is not all one way ….. not all towards
‘the winners’. Not all from teacher to
student.
Working with students as a source of mutual
adaptation
‘Not just legitimisation of Western knowledge’
Requirements for ‘third space’?
Genuine dialogue. Recognising and valuing
others academic and cultural practices.
‘Bearers of culture, not bearers of problems’
Generalise with care……
Self-awareness. Moving from invisible to
conscious. Based in reality, not the ideal.
“Rules of the game”.
Making the context explicit
‘Owning’ your own point of view
Challenging assumptions and
stereotypes ‘Chinese Learner’
Largest group
 Stereotypes
inaccurate, out
of date,
unhelpful
 ‘Gap’ is
narrowing
 Rapid changes
in China

Stereotypes of Chinese/‘CHC’ students

Western views of CHC students filtered through eyes of
teachers observing international students, struggling in
culturally and linguistically different learning environments

‘Western’ and ‘Asian’ or CHC scholarship and learning
described in binary terms: ‘deep/surface’,
‘adversarial/harmonious’, ‘independent/dependent’

Construct Asian or CHC students in ‘deficit’ terms
[ the antithesis of Western academic virtues ]
‘Chinese-ness’
‘…in effect, deviance within Western norms,
and generally being interestingly different
within mainstream, that is Western,
psychology’
(Watkins and Biggs, 2001)
Summing up most commentators on the
differences
[note: I am not linking the view to W and B]
Essentialising goes both ways
Here is Gu, a very influential Chinese
educator, looking across academic
cultures:
American teachers seldom place very high
demands on students ….. American students
do not have a sound foundation in reading,
writing and arithmetic’ (Gu, 2001)
the ‘paradox’ of the Chinese
Learner
Watkins and Biggs, 2001.
‘surface approach’ but ‘deep learning’
“surplus” theory.
cooperative, diligent, hard working,
‘invariably have a high regard for
education’ (Lee, 1996)
Murphy (2005) ‘the model minority’
Primary importance of social
context
It is aspects of the social context, rather than
cultural heritage per se that affects student
learning ….. we need to consider teaching
and learning, not just Chineseness of students
or teachers’
Rao and Chan, 2009 in a huge review of
CHC learning cultures
Changing contexts

Rapid and profound physical, social and cultural
transformations in China

Much diversity within China eg. developed
coastal vs less-developed inland regions (Hu,
2003), Chinese learners little different from
Western counterparts (Shi, 2006)

Education reform in China over past 5-10 years
– move to student-centred learning and
autonomous learners
Beijing No. 4 Primary School
Life science curriculum in Shanghai middle schools
DNA extraction & observation
The ‘Chinese learner’
Will be very diverse, BUT…
 Will be an only child (3 ‘onlys’; 6 adults per
child)
 High parental expectations and extrinsic
control
 Competitive nature of Chinese education.
Largely exam based (changing up to High
School)
 Hard working (ability vs effort)
 A lot at stake (consequences of failure)
Chinese students’ expectations
More pastoral care from teachers –
relationship with teachers is paramount
 Home students should initiate contact
 More structure, less prepared for more
independent study (but can think ‘critically’)
 Silent in class but want to ask questions after
class
 Talking inhibits understanding
→ Will need to clearly establish and model
your expectations (eg you are open to
criticism)

Clear differences in prior
experiences [from UK students]
Example: writing
amount of writing
ways in which text is constructed
ways in which text is organised
ways of catering to readers’ needs
perceptions of readers’ needs
ways of incorporating knowledge of others
Difference is not deficit
It is particularly infuriating to hear problems with rhetorical styles
attributed to imagined inadequacies in the student’s education in
their
home country.
I have often had conversations in which it has been
suggested that Oriental students come from backgrounds in which
originality and critical thinking are valued less than acceptance of
orthodoxy. Apart from the lack of critical thinking apparent in the use
of the category Oriental, such analysis is misleading because it
confuses differences in style of expression with a lack of academic
rigour.
What it fails to understand is that a prizewinning English academic
essay translated word for word into Japanese is likely to be received
as clumsy and ill thought out.
(Yoshino, 2004, p. 10)
Keep looking ….. Turn the lens
“Chinese students can’t criticise”
or
Am I clear about what I mean?
How else might it show?
Am I expecting it too soon? [‘A half empty
bottle makes the most noise’]
Am I expecting it in a certain format?
Is the copying and restating a personal
expression of the student’s thought?
Operationalising transcultural
teaching
1.
Local teachers are self-aware. They avoid
essentialising and check their own assumptions.
They make the context clear. They make the
boundaries explicit….
[Move from ‘be critical’ to ‘this is how we recognise
and define criticality here…. not because it IS
criticality but because it is how we do it……]
Transcultural teaching
1.
2.
Self-aware and meta-aware
Negotiate and communicate what is
negotiable.
Teach the ‘rules of the game’. Try and
understand different ways.
Look for possibilities of new
understandings, new knowledge.
Transcultural teaching
1.
2.
3.
Self-aware
Negotiate the negotiable.
Flexible and variable demonstrations of
learning.
1 in 5 [1 in 4] will return to very different
contexts. All will apply learning in a
diverse global world.
How I have been trying to do this
with plagiarism
1.
Self-awareness
Moving beyond the fetishising of citation.
Many meanings of a copied text – not just
the marker of cheating or the sign of
substandard learning. Not acceptable,
but not a moral issue…….
Not equating a particular way of ‘showing
your own work’ with learning
2. Negotiating and sticking
Teach what is non-negotiable
Uphold values and insist on improvement
use other people’s ideas
use other people’s work
give credit when your work draws
upon others’ work
authority
credibility
3. Be open to ways of
demonstrating non-negotiable
skills and knowledge
Authentic, transferable, useful
If simulating peer-reviewed journal articles
is needed, then teach it.
Don’t confuse a single discourse style with
‘academic writing’
Why might this be worth doing?
Definitely tough to operate this way.
Definitely triggers very strong responses
The burden of not knowing
My culture, my background, everything is different
from them, so I have, not risk, but I have too
many things, too many MORE things, that I have
to think about than other students. I think I lost
so much confidence of mine. I’m thinking I have
so many. I’m talented, I want to think like that,
but whenever I go to tutorials, I feel like I can’t
do anything, so I’m not respected. (Viete and
Peeler 2007, 181
‘Good teaching and learning are the common
treasures of humanity’
Dr Kang Changyun,
Beijing Normal University