Cultural diversity and learning technology

Dividing up the world into neat regions and labelling them in relation to some spurious form of economic development leaves a lot to be desired. Generalising about individuals in relation to their broad ethnic groups or the economic infrastructure or wealth of their home countries is clearly going to lead us into educational bias and inappropriate thinking about learning. This is not to deny that some of the thinking related to new cultural geography is alert to popular media definitions of places and people which stereotype. As Dodds suggests (2003, p. 148) in relation to European mobility and identity: “One of the challenges for a popular geopolitics must be to interrogate and contest [these] routine representations of place … ”.

How then do we engage in discourse about learning in different parts of the world? Cultural geography discusses place in relation to power, identity, race, beliefs, language etc, yet we still view learning as a ubiquitous constant, albeit understanding cultural distinctions in the notion of experts and authority, and whether it is or is not appropriate to critique and question them. We also understand that interactive behaviour may be culturally influenced, with some groups happier to engage than others, both in class and online, due to cultural and sociological norms rather than psychological imperatives. It is teaching, rather than learning, which seems most subject to cultural definition, for example Zhang (2007) suggests that Eastern education is “ a group-based, teacher-dominated, centrally organised pedagogical culture” (p. 301).

What kind of role does learning technology play in this debate? A study in 2010 by Liu, Liu, Lee and Magjuka points out that the influence of national culture on online learning is not widely researched (p. 177). The fundamental core of learning in this journal’s perspective is interaction, and this is bound to be affected by cultural diversity and of course language. Web tools can support language difference, but pedagogy is still likely to diverge, for example between US centric education where individual achievement, interaction and challenge may be prized above collaborative team behaviours and acceptance of textbook authority from some other cultures. Here again, it is too easy to fall into generalisation, however. The use of asynchronous interaction can be a particular support for those facing language barriers and taking longer to read and respond to tasks. Learning technologies can equally well support enquiry-based and case-based learning or structured didactic teaching. So does cultural difference matter when it comes to learning online?

Perhaps the main question is the cultural competency of teachers or instructors. Reaching a global audience is simple online, but this can highlight a lack of cultural sensitivity or understanding on the part of course designers and moderators. This is a big issue for higher education as global MBA and undergraduate courses, for example, are widely marketed and must deal with cultural diversity as a high priority. Otherwise, they may become as ethnocentric as some of our global corporates have been in the past, leaving international online learners marginalised and alienated.

A further issue for this journal is to support scholar-practitioners from parts of the world which are still experiencing the early stages of technology development for education. While many readers in countries used to advanced learning technologies will find reports of the adoption of smartboards in the classroom and basic virtual learning environments outdated, in some regions these developments are still only just becoming the norm. There is a place for contextually located reports of research in this area, as we widen the experience of readers to encompass a global understanding of learning technology and online interaction.

In this issue, we find research from Turkey, the US, Taiwan, Malaysia, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Singapore. As we learn about the impact on interactive learning world-wide, we need to develop our teachers and researchers, but focus primarily on the learner, from whatever cultural background, to ensure that whatever their special needs or level of knowledge, learning technologies can be flexible enough to accommodate their diversity.