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.
Introduction
The increase in the number of international students in UK higher education institutions (HEIs) has led over time to a greater acknowledgment of the new and complicated challenges that a diverse student body poses (CitationDeVita and Case, 2003). It has been seen that, despite an increasingly multicultural environment, cross-cultural learning does not automatically occur whenever people meet, even for extended or intense periods of time (CitationOtten, 2000). Instead, the tendency is to remain congregated together within cultural comfort zones. Cultural interactions can consequently become restricted and the “British learning experience” becomes, for example, a Malaysian experience in England or a Venezuelan experience in Scotland, and equally British students may not get or even seek the opportunity to get involved and learn from the “global learning experience”. Otten continues to argue, however, that, through acknowledgement of diversity, people can be encouraged to learn through dialogue about their differences and similarities. Understanding and acknowledging similarities and differences is the first step; taking action to address issues of difference is the next (CitationRamburuth, 2000). Effective intercultural encounters that foster sensitive learning require a personal, intimate and empathic approach (CitationTrahar, 2007). The “real life” experience of cultural diversity, intercultural encounters and exchange of intercultural knowledge nevertheless remains an effective and involving form of learning.
For the past 20 years, UK HEIs have invested in different approaches to develop multicultural attitudes in order to help students and staff understand how they may have been conditioned to perceive multiculturalism and how others may have been conditioned to perceive them within the multicultural environment (CitationKnight, 1994). In such circumstances, socially acceptable and encouraged behaviour from one culture may be perceived as totally unacceptable in another. For example, social interaction involving drinking alcohol that is encouraged in some countries may lead to the exclusion of students from other cultures.
Recent studies carried out in the USA arrived at the unsatisfactory conclusion that an international university in a multicultural society still does not necessarily provide students with a crucial facet of their education: development of cross-cultural skills and understanding and knowledge of different cultures and perceptions (as cited by CitationBruch et al., 2007). Consequently, underlying tensions (which can lead to misinterpretation of many issues during the time spent at university) continue for many students. The authors of the study reflected on previous work which identified ways of positively influencing and embedding multiculturalism in education by introducing new values such as transformations in programming and in learning goals (CitationNelson et al., 2005; Zúñiga et al., 2005). However, it appeared that students’ mixed feelings towards multiculturalism, especially those of resistance towards it, were simply displaced by the emphasis on educational accomplishment.
While analysing the perceptions from their study, Bruch et al. concluded that multiculturalism means different things to different people in different contexts. Their views can be summarised as follows:
for critical pedagogical researchers, multiculturalism focuses on the relationships amongst and between knowledge, power and identity (CitationGiroux, 1994; McLaren and Farahmandpur, 2005; Rhoads and Valadez, 1996)
from laissez-faire perspectives, multiculturalism embodies political power to bring previously excluded individual perspectives into dominant conventions (CitationGuerrero, 1996; Torres, 1998; McCarthy, 1995)
in popular culture, multiculturalism may carry negative associations which indicate corruption of existing values (CitationAuster, 1990; D’Souza, 1997; Kimball, 2003; McWhorter, 2002; Schmidt, 1997).
Although Bruch et al. focused on perceptions of power and privilege in the multicultural HE environment, those findings contain information of great significance to HEIs on a global scale.
Case study: students learning from students
Bringing multicultural awareness into the curricula is a true challenge and, if it is to succeed, the engagement of all students, not just international, is required. The development of intercultural understanding is a complex process involving many layers of awareness. Taking this into account, teaching staff in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield have attempted to utilise students’ cultural capital to develop, enhance and transform their understanding and knowledge of working in and leading international projects whilst simultaneously engaging students in their own learning.
The study of cultural capital has been discussed in many different contexts, including (amongst others) psychology, sociology and pedagogical development (in the context of internationalisation of the curriculum). Cultural capital has been defined as the knowledge that enables an individual to interpret various cultural codes (Soroka, 2006). However, several authors have been critical of the exceedingly narrow interpretation of cultural capital as consisting simply of “beaux arts” participation and have suggested that cultural capital should be seen as the learning and teaching of content and delivery which draws on and rewards the knowledge base, skills and experience of students (CitationCrook, 1997; De Graaf et al., 2000; Farkas, 2003; Ganzeboom, 1982; Lareau and Weininger, 2003; Schoorman, 2000; Sullivan, 2001). Such proposals have led universities to seek new educational approaches and understandings of culture and to adopt ‘teaching processes designed to assist all students to learn about and understand the international contexts of studies’ (CitationLeask, 1999, p3).
The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sheffield, comprised of seven departments, has a significant number of international students, varying from 30% in some departments to more than 50% in others. In their third year, students across the Faculty take a module in Engineering Management, in which one of the topics discussed is the management of international projects.
A key learning outcome of this topic is the understanding that one of the keys to success in working on an international project is the students’ experience and understanding of working with cultures other than their own (CitationGray and Larson, 2007).
In order to meet this learning outcome, the approach taken to the subject has been as follows:
a two hour lecture on the topic of managing international projects which covers the following topics (amongst others): types of projects, pros and cons of international assignments, issues in managing international projects, cross-cultural considerations and working in different cultures
study and use of the Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck Cross-Cultural Framework (KSCCF) (CitationKluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961)
engaging students through the use of personal, culturally-related anecdotes from both the lecturer and the students
acknowledgement of diversity (as shown in ) and multiculturalism; the flags of all countries represented have been displayed every year since 2007 (see ) and students have been thanked for their participation in their own language (see )
an interactive exercise which includes a survey (the basis for this paper).
Methodology
Since 2007, students have been asked the following in a short questionnaire:
define their country of origin (including the language spoken)
plot their perception of their country of origin against the Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck Cross-Cultural Framework (KSCCF) (CitationKluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961). The KSCCF analysis in is used to assess cultural values in terms of relationship to nature, time orientation, activity orientation, nature of people and relationship between people in a specific country
finally, one thing one must do and one thing one must not do in order to be successful in their country of origin. The knowledge gathered is collated into a Peer learning and teaching guide (see ). This is then distributed to Engineering Management students and others and the response has been highly positive, as evidenced by unsolicited feedback over the years.
Figure 1 Flags representing students’ nationalities in 2010
Figure 2 “Thanks”, class 2010
Table 1 Group’s formation 2010
On average, 100 responses have been collected every year, with the exception of 2010 where there were around 190. Between 23 and 31 countries have been identified in the survey, with 29 to 35 languages spoken. The students are encouraged to share their thoughts in class and speak freely about the issues that foreigners need to consider in order to integrate successfully and manage a project in one of these countries.
Discussion
In recent years, the University of Sheffield has begun to take on the challenge of embedding internationalisation in the curriculum and pedagogy rather than through recruitment or infusion. Internationalisation of the curriculum (IoC) is a tool to help students develop global perspectives and cross-cultural capability in order to be able to perform, both professionally and socially, in a multicultural environment (CitationClifford and Joseph, 2005).
The exercise conducted at the University of Sheffield, where more than a hundred engineering students (on average) have been surveyed annually for the past four years on factors for success in their countries of origin (“must do” and “must not do”), has aimed to recreate this personal, intimate and empathic exchange of information. The knowledge gathered from students has then been disseminated to students as a peer learning and teaching guide. Using students’ cultural capital as a learning and teaching technique in order to enhance cross-cultural skills, and as a result improving home student cross-cultural competence, has been explored in the literature (CitationSchoorman, 2000).
Table 2 Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck Cross Cultural Framework analysis
Table 3 Qualitative analysis of students’ origins and perceptions about what “must be done” and “must not be done” in their society. The results are summarised from a larger number of responses from 2007–2010
Several interesting trends have emerged which serve to highlight the diversity of perceptions at both collective and individual levels. There are a number of instances where students’ perceptions of their cultures do not match those that would normally be expected, given the cultural norms in those countries as explored by CitationGray and Larson (2007) in their case studies (underlined in ). For example, a point observed in is the American students’ perception of the nature of people element of the KSCCF. American students have classified themselves as “mixed”, despite the fact that during the lecture an example from the literature is presented to them where the USA is plotted in the “evil” category (CitationKluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961). There are also some elements which appear contradictory, for example advocating the acceptance of bribes but never showing disrespect to religious (i.e. moral) values. Unfortunately there is little opportunity to reflect on these contradictions in class.
These contradictions highlight the challenges of establishing a common ground where all parties’ principles could be equally valued (for example, in the cultural context of an individually oriented, law abiding society). In terms of education, it also stresses the difficulties of developing a multicultural learning environment. As with the findings of Bruch et al., students in this study had mixed feelings towards multiculturalism and cross-cultural interaction.
It is also accepted that the small samples used in the study may have skewed the interpretation of students’ perceptions of their own cultures. However, in order to minimise the effects of this potential problem, students are provided with the guide and given time to reflect on the collective views. Since 2007, there have been one or two instances where students have disagreed with others’ comments (for example, where the culture has more than one religion (such as Malaysia)). However, the lecture and the Peer learning and teaching guide provides the group with a focus on educational and professional accomplishment (see also Bruch et al.). This emphasis appears to resonate with students who have said
I think this lecture was not just about learning material for this module, but had a sense of a life lesson too. It had all these slides about how to deal with situations when being abroad and ways to stay emotionally balanced, which I found very interesting and quite helpful too. I honestly think international students in their first year should be given such a lecture as it helps clarify a lot of things and helps them understand how to fit in better into the English society and ease their shock faster.
In 2010, 29 unsolicited feedback comments were emailed to the authors regarding the lecture. These observations are summarised in .
Table 4 Summary of unsolicited feedback, 2010
The most significant finding from this feedback is that students “enjoyed” and had “fun” in the session. In the early 1980s, Powell and Andersen had already conducted empirical studies of the connection between humour and engagement in learning which indicated that humour can increase student attention and interest (CitationPowell and Andersen, 1985). Others argue that the use of nonbiased language, inclusive examples and appropriate humour can be a powerful form of learning in a multicultural classroom (CitationSchmitz et al, 1992; DeVita, 2000).
Ten more unsolicited emails regarding the peer guide were also received in 2010. provides a summary.
The percentage of students who volunteered feedback on the peer guide is small compared to the number of students present at the session and registered in the class. It is clear, however, that these ten students found the peer guide extremely useful in terms of improving their international skills and potentially also their employability skills. The peer guide (which is nothing more than a crude compilation of “do’s and don’ts”) seems to appeal to students because it gives them the choice of interpreting it, digesting it and coming to their own conclusions.
One of the students said: ‘I think the best thing about such a document as you have produced is that it is unfiltered, raw data from a widely diverse group. I like being able to draw my own conclusions from data which hasn’t already been processed, and this document is a good example of that.’ Another wrote: ‘Obviously the guide can’t cover all the nations in the world, but it gives us a basic guidance which I’m sure it will help a lot.’ Another emailed that: ‘The lecture content and guide is applicable to life, not just engineering, and I believe that it was a useful experience for everyone involved, especially for people intending to travel/work abroad. With the obvious exception of the international students, I have found many of my peers to be irritatingly closed minded on the subject of the-world-outside-England, but feel that it’s helped prepare us for cultural shocks which will be evident in most work places and has taught us understanding.’
The exercise and peer guide appear to have been effective in engaging students in their own learning and in raising awareness about cross-cultural knowledge and skills and the importance thereof to their careers.
The authors believe that preconditioning students to learn in a multicultural environment must be done from an early stage in their HE learning experience, as also mentioned by one of the students earlier. The authors consequently recommended, as the outcome of this study, that an abridged version of the lecture should be re-run during the induction week for first year students. The knowledge gained from the third year students involved in this study has led to the restructuring of the induction week. The multicultural awareness session has been used as a tool and the newly arrived students have been introduced to the concepts of the Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck Cross Cultural Framework. This approach is well known at the University of Sheffield and colleagues across the university have explored the possibilities of using the guide with their own students (including the Students’ Union International Officer who also uses the guide to facilitate their discussions with international as well as home students).
The tool seems to have served the purpose of preventing misunderstandings, opening students’ minds to the character of their differences and enabling them to understand that their differences are the characteristics of their respective cultures and as such may not necessarily be personal attitudes.
Table 5 Unsolicited feedback on the peer guide, 2010
Conclusion
Although the tool used in this study appears to have had a positive impact on enhancing or, at the very least, raising awareness of the benefit of acquiring cross-cultural skills and consequently cross-cultural competence (especially in home students), other issues discussed earlier still remain. Collective cultural perception derives further complexity from students’ different personalities and differences in individual perceptions, which may vary more between students in one culture than between students from different cultures. The experience of the multicultural university will depend on the environment as well as the international politics between students’ countries of origin and the host country. Cultural values, which may stretch from one end of a spectrum to another, and the nature of the subject which is being studied also have a great impact on crosscultural interactions. And last, but not least, the relationship between academic staff members and students requires further work.
Before it is possible to attempt any assessment of the influence that cultural values may have on learning outcomes, we need to understand these multiple lenses: mirrors of self-perception that members of any population use to observe their world, people around them, their expectations and the feedback that they receive from their environment. In a 300-strong class of Engineering Management students a lecturer may be presenting to around 26 nationalities of varying ages and religious beliefs, to name but a few social classifications. This analysis is important in establishing that academics do not involve themselves in a process of teaching a homogeneous body of minds, but rather a highly diverse community of people who perceive each other through very diverse value structures.
References
- AusterL. (1990) The path to national suicide: an essay on immigration and multiculturalism. Monterey, VA.: American Immigration Control Foundation.
- BruchP. L., HigbeeJ. L. and SiakaK. (2007) Multiculturalism incorporated: student perceptions. Innovation Higher Education, 32 (3), 139–152.
- CliffordV. and JosephC. (2005) Report on the internationalisation of the curriculum project. Melbourne: Higher Education Development Unit, Monash University.
- CrookC. J. (1997) Cultural practices and socioeconomic attainment: the Australian experience. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
- De GraafN. D., De GraafP. M. and KraaykampG. (2000) Parental cultural capital and educational attainment in the Netherlands: a refinement of the cultural capital perspective. Sociology of Education, 73 (2), 92–111.
- D’SouzaD. (1997) Foreword. In: SchmidtA. J. The menace of multiculturalism: Trojan horse in America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 9–10.
- DeVitaC. (2000) Inclusive approaches to effective communication and active participation in the multicultural classroom. Active Learning in Higher Education, 1 (2) 168–180.
- De VitaG. and CaseP. (2003) Rethinking the internationalisation agenda in UK higher education. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 27 (4), 383–398.
- FarkasG. (2003) Cognitive skills and noncognitive traits and behaviours in stratification processes. Annual Review of Sociology, 29 (1), 541–62.
- GanzeboomH. (1982) Explaining differential participation in high-cultural activities — a confrontation of information-processing and status-seeking theories. In: RaubW. (ed.) Theoretical models and empirical analyses: contributions to the explanation of individual actions and collective phenomena. Utrecht: E.S. Publications, 186–205.
- GirouxH. A. (1994) Insurgent multiculturalism and the promise of pedagogy. In: GoldbergD.T. (ed.) Multiculturalism: a reader. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 325–343.
- GrayC. F. and LarsonE. W. (2007) Project management: the managerial process. 4th edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
- GuerreroM. A. J. (1996) Academic apartheid: American Indian studies and “multiculturalism”. In: GordonA. and NewfieldC. (eds.) Mapping multiculturalism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 49–63.
- KimballR. (2003) Academia vs. America. American Legion, 154, 33–58.
- KluckhohnF. R. and StrodtbeckF. L. (1961) Variations in value orientations. New York, NY: Row, Peterson and Company.
- KnightJ. (1994) Internationalisation: elements and checkpoints. Ottawa: Canadian Bureau for International Education.
- LareauA. and WeiningerE. B. (2003) Cultural capital in education research: a critical assessment. Theory and Society, 5 (32), 567–606.
- LeaskB. (1999) Internationalisation of the curriculum: key challenges and strategies. Australian International Education Conference, 5-8 October 1999, Fremantle, Australia.
- McCarthyC. (1995) Multicultural policy discourses on racial inequality in American education. In: NgR., StatonP. and ScaneJ. (eds.) Anti-racism, feminism, and critical approaches to education. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 21–44.
- McLarenP. and FarahmandpurR. (2005) Teaching against global capitalism and the new imperialism: a critical pedagogy. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
- McWhorterJ. H. (2002) The campus diversity fraud. City Journal, 12 (1), 74–81.
- Nelson LairdT. F., EngbergM.E. and HurtadoS. (2005) Modeling accentuation: enrolling in a diversity course and the importance of social action engagement. Journal of Higher Education, 76 (4), 448–476.
- OttenM. (2000) Impacts of cultural diversity at home. In: CrowtherP., JorisM., OttenM., NilssonB., TeekensH., and WächterB. (eds.) Internationalisation at home: a position paper. Amsterdam: European Association for International Education, 15–20.
- PowellJ.P. and AndresenL.W. (1985) Humor and teaching in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 10 (1), 79–90.
- RamburuthP. (2000) Cross cultural learning behaviour in higher education: perceptions versus practice. Seventh International Literacy and Education Research Network (LERN) Conference on Learning, 5-9 July 2000, Melbourne, Australia.
- RhoadsR. A. and ValadezJ. R. (1996) Democracy, multiculturalism and the community college: a critical perspective. New York, NY: Garland.
- SchmidtA. J. (1997) The menace of multiculturalism: Trojan horse in America. Westport, CT: Praeger.
- SchmitzB., PaulS. P. and GreenbergJ. D. (1992) Creating multicultural classrooms: an experience-derived faculty development program. In: BorderL. L. B. and Van Note ChismN. (eds.) Teaching diversity. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 49, 75–88.
- SchoormanD. (2000) What really do we mean by ‘internationalization’? Contemporary Education, 71 (4), 5–11.
- SorokaV. and RafaeliS. (2006) Invisible participants: how cultural capital relates to lurking behaviour. 15th International World Wide Web Conference, 23-26 May 2006, Edinburgh, Scotland.
- SullivanA. (2001) Cultural capital and educational attainment. Sociology, 35 (4), 893–912.
- TorresC. A. (1998) Democracy, education and multiculturalism: dilemmas of citizenship in a global world. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
- TraharS. (2007) Teaching and learning: the international higher education landscape. Bristol: Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Education (ESCalate).
- ZúñigaX., WilliamsE. A. and BergerJ. B. (2005) Action-oriented democratic outcomes: the impact of student involvement with campus diversity. Journal of College Student Development, 46 (6), 660–678.