Classroom Norms

W07: Cross-Cultural Students in the Classroom

Cultures have many differences. Languages, foods, and traditional clothes are some of the obvious ones. Classroom behavior, however, is one that can fly under the radar.

Expectations for students and teachers can vary between cultures. American students are expected to do problem solving and group work. Other cultures focus more on individual abilities and achievements. Some cultures find it fine to let teachers wander off where the students want to learn. Others find it rude for students to distract with other topics. Asian schooling can be very authoritarian while American schooling is looser. Corporal punishment at school is a given in some cultures, but teachers in the American school systems would face legal trouble for that.

Students who are brand new to a culture are likely to flounder a bit as they find that their behaviors and expectations don’t quite match up with their new environment. As instructors, we need to be very aware of those students and see how we can help them adapt. We also need to be patient with them if they’re slow to open up or have conditioned behaviors quite different to what we’re used to. A friend’s adopted children from Africa felt like school was torture because they were used to being outdoors and very active in their day. An American school environment was very different for them.

Cultural differences in school norms shouldn’t be too foreign a concept, though. If we think back on our own schooling, we can probably think of classrooms that felt different. I had some instructors who ran a strict classroom and one who was completely opposite. He had us call him by his first name and joked around with us all the time. He even made us play dice with him to go to the bathroom.

We can likely think of students who behaved differently, too. I see that even in my own children. My oldest likes structured, quiet, individualized schooling. My middle child would be elbows deep in six different experiments while holding twelve conversations if he could. Family cultures can also affect students’ attitudes and classroom behaviors.

If we keep our eyes open, we’ll find cultural differences everywhere, not just with our foreign students. As we find those differences, we can take them into consideration and help our students adapt and find more success in our classroom environments.