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Chapter 12: Intercultural Communication and Education
Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
Chapter 12
Intercultural Communication and Education
Study Objectives
After studying the material in this chapter, students should be able to accomplish the following
objectives.
1. Understand the role of culture in setting educational goals. Note how colonization
influences educational goals and curricula. Explain how colonization might influence
study-abroad programs.
2. Understand the ways that different cultural groups were educated and the purposes of those
different experiences. Be able to identify the educational goals of different types of
minority-serving institutions and women’s institutions.
3. Explain how different cultural role expectations can influence classroom communication.
Note that different cultures may use different grading systems.
4. Explain how power differences can influence communication in educational contexts.
5. Describe the complexities of affirmative action and reverse discrimination.
6. Understand how cultural identities are formed in the educational process.
7. Be able to describe some social issues that arise in education.
Key Terms
• Afrocentric
• Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institution
• Asian American Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution
• Bullying
• Colonial educational system
• Eurocentric
• HBCUs
• Hispanic-Serving Institutions
• International students
• Learning styles
• Minority-Serving Institution
• Native American-Serving Nontribal Institution
• Reverse discrimination
• Study-abroad programs
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Chapter 12: Intercultural Communication and Education
Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
• Teaching styles
• Tribal Colleges or Universities
Detailed Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
One common approach to studying other cultures has been to focus on studying the language and
literature of another culture. But the intercultural competence to learn how to communicate
effectively with others who have very different experiences—in the society and around the
globe—is not easily taught.
• Education is an important context for intercultural communication, since students and
teachers come from a variety of cultural backgrounds and bring a variety of expectations to
the classroom.
• Educational institutions may be structured differently within different cultures, but they
remain one of the most important social institutions for advancement in any society.
• If educators and students communicate in ways that are not sensitive to cultural differences
in the educational institution, these same institutions may end up reproducing the social
inequality of U.S. society.
• Despite the reduction in barriers to college admissions based upon race, minority
enrollments are decreasing. Improved intercultural communication practices can only help
alleviate this problem.
• Further, many students are international students, meaning that they come to the United
States or go abroad to study.
II. Educational Goals
• Education is widely perceived to be an important avenue for advancement in society. Yet,
beyond the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic, people need to think about the
educational goals that various cultures establish.
• There is no universal curriculum that all students follow.
o Not surprisingly, educational goals for different cultural groups are largely driven by
members’ need to know about themselves and their society.
o One’s education necessarily frames one’s worldviews and the particular ways of
knowing.
• Education, however, is not driven simply by the desire to teach and learn about ourselves.
In colonial contexts, for example, the colonial power often imposed its own educational
goals and system upon the colonized.
o In so doing, this colonial educational system served educational goals that differed
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Chapter 12: Intercultural Communication and Education
Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
from what the colonized might have valued.
▪ This displacement of educational goals had a tremendous impact upon the ways
that these former colonial societies were formed.
III. Studying Abroad
• One might have encountered international students in one’s classes, and one might know
American students who have gone abroad to study and to experience another culture.
• In fact, many universities offer study-abroad programs to give their students
international experiences. However, study-abroad opportunities are not equally available or
taken advantage of by all students.
• Because the cultural norms in different educational settings vary widely, international
students engage directly in issues relevant to intercultural communication.
• Many students from former European colonies study at institutions in the former
colonizing nation.
o For example, Indonesian students may study in the Netherlands, Indian students may
study in Britain, and Lebanese students may study in France.
IV. Culturally Specific Education
• The development of Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) is also relevant to intercultural
communication, as their history and mission can be quite different from other institutions.
o For example, the Morrill Act of 1890 established what are today known as HBCUs,
or historically Black colleges and universities. Alabama State, Delaware State, South
Carolina State, Tennessee State, Grambling State, and Howard are all examples of
HBCUs.
• The following are the other types of MSIs:
o Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), which must have at least 25 percent Hispanic
students and include institutions such as California State University, Bakersfield, and
Texas State University.
o Tribal Colleges or Universities, which are typically controlled by a federally
recognized tribe or otherwise categorized as such under federal law, such as Diné
College, which is run by the Navajo Nation.
o Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions, which are higher education
institutions not run by a tribe but with at least 10 percent Native American
enrollment, such as Montana State University-Northern and Northeastern Oklahoma
A & M College.
o Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions (ANSIs and NHSIs),
which are institutions with at least 20 percent Alaska Native students or at least 10
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Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
percent Native Hawaiian students, such as the University of Alaska Southeast at
Sitka and Chaminade University of Honolulu.
o Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions
(AANAPISIs), which must have at least 10 percent Asian American or Native
American Pacific Islander student enrollment and at least 50 percent of students are
economically disadvantaged, such as the University of Guam and the University of
Hawai’i at Hilo.
• In addition to the many cultural communities that already exist in the United States,
immigrants bring new challenges to the education system.
o In 2001, the DREAM Act was first introduced into the U.S. Senate.
▪ Also known as the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors, this
act would allow immigrants who were brought to the United States as children
a pathway to permanent residency by either attending a higher education
institution or serving in the U.S. military for at least two years and receiving an
honorable discharge without any criminal activities.
• Another issue that stems from immigration is the issue of bilingual education. Again,
different states have taken different paths to working with students who do not speak
English.
• Religious educational institutions are another site where cultural values can influence the
educational experience.
• Some religious groups have established educational institutions to further their values in
the educational context. Like gender and race, religion can also shape the educational
experiences of students.
V. Intercultural Communication in Educational Settings
• Much of the communication behavior in the classroom is not interpreted in the way it’s
intended to be by people from different cultural backgrounds. Education is deeply
embedded in culture, and people’s expectations for the educational process are a part of
their culture.
A. Roles for Teachers and Students
• The culture clash over learning styles (the different ways that students learn in different
cultures) and teaching styles (the styles that instructors use to teach) is common as
students increasingly travel to study in other cultures.
• In many universities, for example, students are assigned books to read before the end of
the term and take one exam at the end of the term, rather than getting a structured
reading list and assignments along the way.
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Chapter 12: Intercultural Communication and Education
Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
B. Grading and Power
• In the United States, posting grades in this manner would be a violation of the Family
Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, also known as the Buckley Amendment.
Students’ grades are considered private information.
• As in any other social setting, the classroom is embedded with cultural expectations
about power relations. While there may always be a power difference in the
communication between instructors and students, this difference can be greater or lesser
in various cultures.
• In the United States, for example, the relationships between instructor and students tend
to be less formal than in other cultures.
• Notions of “fair” and “unfair” are culturally embedded as well. The grading system in
the U.S. is far from universal. Different cultures use different ways of evaluating student
work.
C. Admissions, Affirmative Action, and Standardized Tests
• Debates over university admissions are not new. Because university resources are
expensive and limited, admissions to universities are competitive.
• Because of the economic importance of university degrees, admissions are important in
empowering and disempowering cultural groups. Thus, many people struggled to break
down barriers to university admissions that were based on nonacademic factors such as
race.
• Today, universities do not deny admission based on race.
o Today, most universities do not discriminate based upon race, and many other
characteristics.
• In order to overcome some of the historical as well as contemporary reasons that have
led to student bodies that do not reflect the demographic profiles of society at large, the
civil rights movement led to the establishment of affirmative action policies.
o These policies encouraged institutions to act affirmatively to ensure a more
representative student body.
• The emergence of the notion of reverse discrimination, or policies that disadvantage
Whites and/or males, has become a rhetorical strategy to argue for more spaces for
those dominant groups.
• In contrast to the current downplaying of the importance of standardized tests in the
U.S. college admissions, China places even greater emphasis on tests. This emphasis on
these exams has tended to tilt college admissions in favor of those students from more
elite backgrounds.
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Chapter 12: Intercultural Communication and Education
Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
• More recently, changes in the student body profile have led some admissions officers to
give preference to men over women. Preferential admissions are not only about racial
differences.
• The reality is that because young men are rarer, they’re more valued applicants. Today,
two-thirds of colleges and universities report that they get more female than male
applicants, and more than 56 percent of undergraduates nationwide are women.”
VI. Communication, Education, and Cultural Identity
• Even teachers who are not overtly racist may not have received the kind of education
necessary to incorporate materials into the curriculum that reflect the diversity of their
students. Nor have they been able to develop this curriculum.
• The issue about the key role of education in creating one’s identities was highlighted by
James Loewen’s best-selling book Lies My Teacher Told Me.
o Japan has come under critique for the content of its history textbooks as well,
particularly by South Korea and China. Both of these nations experienced Japan’s
militarism prior to Japan’s pacificism after World War II.
VII. Social Issues and Education
• Many social issues are played out in the educational context and can influence the
educational experiences of students. Schools and colleges are never outside of the societies
and social attitudes in which they exist.
• Although bullying is not necessarily an intercultural interaction, it can be exacerbated by
cultural differences.
o Many other students have experienced bullying and some have gone on to commit
suicide. Because school attendance is compulsory, the bullied students are required
to see their bullies day after day.
• Racial intolerance is another important area where social issues arise can affect the
educational experiences of international students.
• While much of the scholarly literature on international students has focused on adaptation
issues, some of the encounters can be difficult because of the intolerance of the host
culture.
• In the United States, the challenges of tolerance and intolerance can be an issue as well.
• As the world grows smaller, it is important to strive to become a global citizen by profiting
from one’s interactions with others who are different. Education is one crucial site where
this can happen.
• As noted earlier, the development of educational institutions, as well as the educational
process itself, is deeply embedded in any culture. As students and instructors meet in the
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Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
classroom, cultural differences can lead to misunderstandings in communication.
• It is important to recognize that the educational process reflects cultural power.
• It is important to recognize that the structure of educational institutions, as opposed to the
people in them, often plays a significant role in the way that power functions.
• Some colleges require history or literature courses, but the history and literature that they
teach might be Eurocentric, focusing on European or Western views of history and
literature.
• However, a Eurocentric approach to education can create barriers to intercultural
communication.
o One response to this problem is to teach Afrocentric history, which centers on the
African rather than the European experience and exposes African American students
to an entirely different view of the world and their place in it.
Discussion Questions
1. If only 25 percent of Americans have a four-year college degree, why is there so much
controversy over admissions and curricula?
2. What views of history did you study in high school? Latino, African-American, or
European-American?
3. What are the pros and cons of studying in another country?
4. Why did you choose the current school you are studying in and not any other? On what
criteria did you base your choice?
5. What might be some of the advantages and disadvantages of attending a college or
university geared toward a particular cultural group?
6. How does education affect nondominant cultural communities?
7. What are the expected roles for teachers and students in your school?
8. How can cultural differences and expectations based on students’ and teachers’ roles create
confusion?
9. Based on your culture, what are the views regarding speaking up in class, questioning a
grade you have received in a test, or receiving a high grade?
10. Does education provide an equal opportunity for all students? Why, or why not?
11. What are some of the intercultural communication issues that should be considered in
education? Why?
12. What cultural differences might create problems at your school? What has been or could be
done about them?
13. How might being educated within the framework of the colonizer’s educational system
affect one’s cultural identity?
14. Should the student body at a university or college closely reflect the demographics of the
local or the national population? Why?
Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
15. What languages may become important to learn, in order to improve communications?
16. Should you study Arabic? Will the Middle East become even more important in the future
as oil becomes scarce? Or will alternative fuels decrease our relationships there?
17. How might you best position yourself to work in a rapidly changing global communication
environment?
18. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education approved new guidelines that highlight Republican
historical contributions, as well as conservative philosophies. Since history and other social
studies are never “neutral,” how should decisions be made about what to include and what
to exclude?
19. Given the increasing use and importance of the Internet, will students seek out other
histories and other views? Or will they stick with the information in their school
textbooks?
Classroom Exercises and Chapter Activities
1. International Student Exploration Exercise: The purpose of this small-group exercise is for
students to consider the challenges and benefits of studying in another country. Assign
students to small groups and ask them to decide on a place where they would like to study.
Then, have them create a list of challenges and benefits of studying in that country and to
explain why they chose that particular country. After about 20 minutes, bring the class
together and have each group share one item on its list. Depending on the duration of the
class, continue to have students share their items. The items will be surprisingly similar
regardless of where the students chose to study, and you may want to point this out to the
students.
2. International Student Exploration Assignment: After students have completed the previous
exercise, have them, individually or in small groups, pick a country where they would like
to study. Students should research their chosen location and write a three-page paper
focusing on the challenges and benefits raised in the previous exercise and any others they
deem important. They can gather useful information about their destination from tourist
bureaus, travel books, books that focus on specific cultures, and international student
exchange programs. They can even interview someone who is an international exchange
student and, if possible, someone from the country they have chosen for this assignment.
Depending on the duration and size of the class, have students present what they learned.
3. College Catalogue Comparison Assignment: Ask students to go to their college or
university library or website and take a look at a recent catalog of course offerings,
particularly those in the history and literature departments. Have students read the course
descriptions for one of these disciplines. Next, have them look at one of the college
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Chapter 12: Intercultural Communication and Education
Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
catalogs for a historically Black, women’s, or Native-American college or university on the
Internet and read course descriptions for classes offered in the same department (history or
literature). Ask students to compare the courses offered by the two schools. Then, have
them write a two- to three-page paper answering the following questions:
• Are the course offerings the same, or are they different? How do they differ?
• Do the offered courses specifically focus on African American or women’s issues?
(This will depend on which type of institution they choose.)
• Which curriculum or set of classes would best reflect your cultural identity and
experiences? Why?
• What do the course offerings from each college/university say about the educational
goals of each institution?
4. College Catalogue Comparison Exercise Variation I: Instead of having students research
college catalogs, break the class into small groups and give each group two lists of course
offerings from two different colleges or universities. One list could be from their own
institution and the other from a historically Black colleges and university (HBCU),
women’s, or Native-American institution (many college/university course offerings can be
found on the Internet). Instead of having students write a paper, provide them with the
suggested list of questions and have them answer these questions in small groups. Be sure
that one group member from each group records their answers. After 20 minutes or so,
bring the class together and have groups share their findings. This could lead to a
discussion focusing on culturally specific education and its relevance to intercultural
communication.
5. Hidden Histories: Acquire different textbooks (high school texts are desirable because they
reflect the exposure of a broader segment of our society). In groups, have students skim
through and discuss the histories both privileged and hidden by the text. Of course, if they
are unaware of certain histories, you may need to guide them. Look for experiences and
contributions of various ethnicities such as Asian-American, Muslim-American, African-
American, etc. Students should share their findings with the class.
6. The Educational History of Native Americans and White Americans: A particularly
powerful example of how education affects a culture can be found in the histories of many
Native-American groups. Have your students discover this history and its effects. They
may find topics like boarding schools, the “lost” generation, lack of parenting skills, or
accounts of being beaten for speaking their own language. Instructors should have some
background information in this area.
Suggested Videos
Martin, Experiencing Intercultural Communication, 6e
1. Unequal Education: Failing Our Children (Distributed by Educational Video Center, New
York, 1992, 21 minutes)
This student-produced documentary reveals the unequal educational opportunities in the
New York City public schools. Focusing on a school in a middle-class neighborhood and a
school in a working-class neighborhood, it contrasts the quality of the staff and the
resources available to students. The video includes interviews with teachers, principals,
and the parents of students.
2. The Intercultural Classroom and Creating Community: A Different Place (Produced by
Jaime Wurzel; distributed by Intercultural Press, Yarmouth, ME, 1993)
This two-part video depicts a classroom of international and U.S. students interacting with
each other and their professor. In this dramatization, each of the participants enacts his or
her cultural assumptions of appropriate classroom behavior. In the film, as in reality, these
seldom-expressed conceptions of communication and learning lead to unresolved conflicts,
mutual reinforcement of negative stereotypes, and negative educational experiences.
3. A Video Companion to Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China and the United States
(by Joseph J. Tobin, David Y. Wu, Dana H. Davidson, David Y. Wu, 1991)
The authors videotaped typical events in Chinese, U.S., and Japanese preschools and were
able to obtain the reactions of educators and parents to what they saw in the videos. Their
reactions reveal cultural values and how they are reflected in teaching styles, pedagogy,
and class sizes. This makes a convincing case for the argument that schools reflect the
ideology and beliefs of the society in which they are located.
4. Stand and Deliver, 1987
This is the story of famed East L.A. math teacher Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos),
who finds himself in a classroom of rebellious remedial-math students. He stuns fellow
faculty members with his plans to teach Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus, even more
when the mostly Hispanic teens overcome all odds and eventually go the distance.
5. Rabbit-Proof Fence, 2002
Australia’s aboriginal integration program of the 1930s broke countless hearts—among
them those of young Molly (Evelyn Sampi), Gracie (Laura Monaghan), and Daisy (Tiana
Sansbury), who were torn from their families and placed in an abusive orphanage. Without
food or water, the girls resolve to make the 1,500-mile trek home. Meanwhile, a well-
intentioned tracker is trying to return the girls to the authorities.
