Learning from each other: engaging engineering students through their cultural capital

Abstract

This paper presents work carried out during the past four years by teaching staff at the University of Sheffield with classes of over 250 Engineering Management students. The cohort is varied, with students from different disciplines of engineering, countries of origin, previous educational backgrounds and levels of work experience. For the past four years, students have been asked to fill in a two-part survey investigating their perceptions of their native culture, based upon the factors that would be required to run a successful engineering project in their country of origin and the Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck Cross Cultural Analysis Framework. This paper builds on previous work and suggests that students’ cultural perceptions are highly complex and that using an interactive and student-centred pedagogical method in order to recognise and value their cultural capital not only enhances their cross-cultural knowledge and skills but also potentially leads to enhanced student engagement.