A RT I C L E

Culture as a conguration of learning

L O D E W I J K VA N O O R D United World College of the Atlantic, Wales

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN I N T E R N AT I O N A L E D U C AT I O N & 2 0 0 5 I N T E R N AT I O N A L B A C C A L A U R E AT E O R G A N I Z A T I O N (www.ibo.org)

JRIE

and S A G E

P U B L I C AT I O N S

( w w w.s ag ep u bl ic a ti o n s. co m )

VOL 4(2) 173191 ISSN 1475-2409 DOI: 10.1177/1475240905054389

This article approaches the concept of culture from an anthropological perspective. It places various culture concepts in their historical contexts and discusses several models that are utilized in research in international education. It is argued that the lack of a theory is a major reason for the culture concept's proliferation. A theory is presented that identies a culture as a particular conguration of learning and metalearning. In line with this theory, it is argued that most `cultural' differences in teaching and learning are not cultural and that real cultural differences will emerge in the context of international academic curricula.
K E Y WO R D S

Cet article s'inte resse au concept de la culture d'un point de vue anthropologique. Il place divers concepts culturels dans leurs contextes historiques et traite de plusieurs mode les utilise s dans la recherche en education internationale. Il est avance que le manque de the orie est la principale explication de la prolife ration du concept de la culture. Une the orie est propose e, selon laquelle une culture est identie e comme etant une conguration particulie re de l'apprentissage et du me ta-apprentissage. Il est aussi avance que la plupart des diffe rences culturelles dans l'enseignement et l'apprentissage ne sont pas re ellement culturelles et que les ve ritables diffe rences culturelles vont appara tre dans le contexte des programmes scolaires internationaux. Este art culo se acerca al concepto de cultura desde una perspectiva antropolo gica. Ubica varios conceptos de cultura en sus contextos histo ricos y analiza distintos modelos que se utilizan en la investigacio n en el campo de la educacio n internacional. El autor sostiene que la falta de una teor a es una de las razones primordiales que contribuyen a la proliferacio n de los conceptos de cultura. Se presenta una teor n a que dene una cultura como una conguracio especial de aprendizajes y meta-aprendizajes. Siguiendo esta teor a se sostiene que muchas de las diferenciasculturales en el a mbito de la ensen anza y el aprendizaje no son culturales y que las diferencias culturales reales surgen en el contexto de los curr micos culos acade internacionales.

academic curriculum, anthropology, culture, international schools, learning

Introduction
The scholarly debate on the inuence of culture on teaching and learning in the arena of international education is one of wide interest. Although many different denitions and conceptions of culture are used, there seems to be a level of consensus among researchers and educators that the role of culture in schools with an international staff and student body should not be underestimated and that its inuence needs to be 173

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taken seriously at various levels, from the kindergarten playground to the senior management meeting. And yet, a full understanding of what culture is and how exactly it inuences those involved in these schools remains difcult to grasp. This article analyses the social scientic development of the culture concept, by placing various notions of culture in their historical contexts. It also discusses a theory of culture that tries to approximate what makes human differences into cultural differences. In the nal section the value of this theory will be analysed in the context of the international school and its academic curriculum. I will present four hypotheses that will hopefully contribute to a new perception of culture in the eld of research in international education. The argument in this article will be made from an action research stance. Action research in the context of international education has been dened as `a way of approaching everyday experience and systematically assessing what is happening in the classroom or school' (Holderness, 2002: 91). Those who work in schools with an international staff and student body might, every now and then, feel that there is a gap between their school experiences and what researchers of culture claim. This article tries to link everyday experience and practice to a theoretical perception of culture that has yet remained untouched in research in international education. Much has been written about the difculty of dening concepts such as `international education,' and there is no need to repeat this debate here. For the purpose of this article, I will adopt the denition of international education as an education that sets out to foster, amongst other things, international mindedness among the students it serves (Thompson, 1998).

culture, Culture, cultures

Considering culture, one is inclined to turn to anthropology, since the notion of culture was brought to the attention of the social sciences by a virespectable league of anthropologists such as Edward Tylor, Claude Le Strauss and Clifford Geertz. Owing to their work and that of others, culture has emerged as one of the most prominent concepts in the humanities. One player in the eld even argued that `the concept of culture has come to be so completely associated with anthropological thinking that . . . we could dene an anthropologist as someone who uses the word `culture' habitually' (Wagner, 1975: 1). The usage of the culture concept is obviously not limited to the anthropological domain. It is probably no exaggeration to state that the concept has been among the most inuential ideas in 20th century thought (Keesing and Strathern, 1998). Inuential ideas, however, 174

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often take on their own lives. Especially in the period 19201950, the notion of culture evolved in many different conceptual directions. An inquiry into the academic literature shows that the culture concept is approached in many different ways. Cultural historian Raymond Williams characterizes culture as `one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language' (1983: 87). He also explains why it is such a complicated word: `it has now come to be used for important concepts in several distinct and incompatible systems of thought' (idem.). These different mutually exclusive systems of thought can be categorized under three headings: a classical-humanistic approach and two different approaches in the anthropological discipline. I will discuss these three approaches in their historical order of appearance. We speak of high culture, low culture and popular culture in order to express a hierarchy of values, depicting the difference between classical music and hiphop, between poetry and rap, between visual arts and mediocre amateur painting. Our newspapers have cultural supplements, we organize cultural evenings full of dancing, dressing up and exotic cuisine. These examples refer to the classical-humanistic approach to culture. This usage of the culture concept has come a long way, with roots in the Greco-Roman world (Lemaire, 1976). Plato used the word paideia, a word associated with general knowledge in the context of educating the youth. Although the concept of paideia lost its signicance in later periods, the Roman writer Cicero gave it new importance under the Latin equivalent cultura animi. Cicero used it in the context of the education of the human mind. Similar to the cultivation of the soil for agricultural purposes, one could also tend the mind of a young person. The rst anthropological approach to culture emerged in the mid-19th century, where culture came to be seen as the opposite of nature. This concept of culture is inextricably bound up with Edward Tylor and his 1871 magnum opus Primitive Culture. This work can be understood as a prolegomena to the science of culture, trying to study the `condition of culture among the various societies of mankind' (1871: I, 1). This programme illustrates that Tylor perceived culture as a whole. His interest did not go out to independent human societies but to the `connection between modern culture and the condition of the rudest savage' (I, 159). This approach is clearly evolutionary: it focuses on development and reform and seeks the `relation of primitive to modern civilization' (I, 529). Tylor's concept of culture as opposed to nature is currently being utilized in the life sciences, where scientists are successfully trying to nd and describe traces of culture in chimpanzees, whales, dolphins and other intelligent mammals (de Waal and Tyack, 2003; Whiten et al., 1999). 175

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The third notion of culture (or second anthropological approach to culture) emerged in the early 20th century, mostly as a criticism of Tylor's evolutionary approach. This third notion is connected with names of pioneering American anthropologists such as Boas, Benedict and Herskovits. They unravelled Tylor's anthropology as eurocentric: the modern, European civilization was taken as the solemn criterion for the recovery of cultural development in all human societies (Lemaire, 1976). Boas realized that culture is not a universal system, `Absolute systems of phenomena as complex as those of culture are impossible' he said, `they will always be reections of our own culture' (1940: 311). Boas' shift in orientation was fundamental. He changed Tylor's singular culture into the plural cultures. From this perspective, `a' culture becomes the object that unites a group of people within a particular society. While Tylor understood culture as a process of progress (rst and foremost as a creation of mankind) American anthropologists now began to see culture as the object that connects or even binds people to their tradition. What inspired Boas to this radical idea? Answering this question brings us back to the Romantic movement in 19th century Europe. In response to the universal ideas of human values and progress of the Enlightenment, which can be roughly seen as a French movement, German intellectuals (e.g. Wilhelm von Humboldt, Johann Gottfried Herder) started to investigate in which ways people were different. They developed the idea of a socalled volksgeist or national character to describe what connected the people of a nation. Although they were not very sure what constituted a volksgeist, they put the emphasis on shared history, language and literature. Boas translated and reshaped the notion of volksgeist and utilized it in American anthropological scholarship (Bunzl, 1996). Although the relativity of culture can already be seen in Boas's work, the case for cultural relativism has mostly been made by his students Benedict and Herskovits. Benedict argued that `Our only scientic course is to consider our own culture, so far as we are able, as one example of innumerable others of the variant of congurations of human culture' (1960: 207). Herskovits formulated the principle of cultural relativism as follows: `Judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation' (1967: 63). Table 1 shows the three different approaches to culture in a scheme. The third notion of culture dominates the present day social sciences. Speaking of cultural differences, multiculturalism, cross-cultural communication or intercultural education, we are utilizing the anthropological approach to culture as constituted by Boas and his students. 176

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Table 1 Three different approaches to culture Approach 1 Classical-humanism 2 Anthropology 3 Anthropology Focal area Focus on the arts and the tending of the mind. Focus on culture as evolution (culture versus nature). Focus on comparison of cultures (cultural relativism). Advocates Plato; Cicero; Williams (1983) Tylor (1871) Boas (1940); Benedict (1960); Herskovits (1967)

Sources: Lemaire (1976) and Bunzl (1996).

There is however a huge difference between, on the one side, the rst two approaches and, on the other side, the third approach. When utilizing the notion of culture in the classical-humanistic way we clearly know what the concept refers to. We know what to expect when we, for instance, attend a cultural evening or when we read our newspaper's cultural supplement. The same counts for the notion of culture as opposed to nature. Both concepts refer to a solid object. Although debate on the precise denition of the referent is always possible, the objects are denite enough to work with. In the next section I will demonstrate that the third notion of culture is more problematic since this concept lacks a demonstrable object. Culture as an elusive object In everyday language, the word culture does not have a clear and consistent meaning. Political commentators discuss the clash between western and Islamic culture, teachers discuss youth culture, business executives ponder over their companies' corporate culture, local politicians worry about regionalism and the cultures of, say, Basque Country, Flanders and Walonia. Culture shock! books are available for every possible country. The concept of culture seems to make its appearance in an ever-changing schizophrenic guise, its meaning changing according to the contextual preference and avour. This leads to the undesirable consequence that cultural differences between, for instance, Asia and the West are implicitly taken to be of the same category as differences between the corporate cultures of, say, Shell and Burger King (Van den Bouwhuijsen et al., 1995). A survey through the recent literature in the eld of research in international education shows that different conceptions of culture are being embraced as well. Some frequently used visualisations are Hofstede's 177

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`onion' (Hofstede, 1991) and the `iceberg' (Fennes and Hapgood, 1997; Kohls, 1996). These models share the idea that cultural traits in societies can be classied between implicit and explicit ones (Allan, 2003). Researchers in this eld deploy terms such as cultural identity, cultural heritage, native culture, school culture, organization and mission cultures, local community culture, host country culture, regional or continental culture, majority student population culture, cultural values, cultural reasons, cultural uidity, cultural dissonance, biculturalism, (adult) third culture kids, intercultural literacy and so on and so forth (e.g. Allan, 2002, 2003; Cambridge, 2003; Drake, 2004; Heyward, 2002; Joslin, 2002; Pearce, 1998, 2003; Pollock and van Reken, 1999; Tsolidis, 2002). The concept is used to describe a growing number of different objects. Yet, we still believe the term signies something solid. It has been a while since Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1963) collected and commented on no less than 169 different denitions of culture. This collection is rewarding for anyone who seeks to understand the diversity in denitions that scholars have composed since the emergence of anthropology as an independent social science. Some denitions were presented with minimalist clarity (e.g. `the commonly recognized mores' 1963: 96) while others came in extravagant complexity (1963: 106) e.g:
Through this process of inventing and transmitting symbols and symbolic systems and technologies as well as their non-symbolic counterparts in concrete tools and instruments, man's experience and his adjustment technique become cumulative. . . . The concrete manifestations of these processes are usually described by the vague word culture.

Reading such an extensive collection might leave the reader in a state of ironic despondency, sighing that the culture concept is applied in almost as many ways as there are scholars studying it and that it `means whatever we use it to mean' (Keesing, 1974: 73). There is good reason to assume that in the last few decades, the number of denitions of culture has at least doubled (Vermeersch, 1977; Wolf, 2001). Since the 1970s, cultural anthropologists have taken on the challenge to narrow the concept of culture into a more specialized and powerful concept that includes less and reveals more. Although there has been no general agreement on the best way to do this, it appears that one focal area receives most attention and support: the concept of culture as an ideational system. Culture is, according to this approach, conceptual knowledge: it refers to what humans learn, not what they do and make (Keesing and Strathern, 1998). 178

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Restricting the term culture to an ideational system makes culture into a pattern for behavior, not a pattern of behavior. The observable events in a society, the things and phenomena we can count, measure and repeat are being ruled out. Patterns for behavior become patterns of behavior as soon as they are realized. Such systems of ideas (`cultures') can be described as a conceptual screenplay. As soon as parts of the screenplay are performed, they become patterns of behavior. The designs for living become social realizations in a social environment. These patterns-of-life-of-communities are referred to as sociocultural systems (Keesing, 1974; Keesing and Strathern, 1998). The idea of cultures as patterns for behavior is not far from Hofstede's understanding of culture as `the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another' (Hofstede, 1980: 25). However, his four dimensional model, based on an impressive collection of data, focuses on the social realizations or sociocultural systems. Likewise, Trompenaars (1993) maps cultural differences according to seven `fundamental' dimensions. In their concluding analysis, Kroeber and Kluchhohn realize that the incredible number of denitions brings a crucial problem to the surface. One of the main reasons for the meagre theoretical advancing of the study of culture is the lack of a scientic theory. In their words:
And yet we have no full theory of culture. We have a fairly well delineated concept, and it is possible to enumerate conceptual elements embraced within the master concept. But a concept, even an important one, does not constitute a theory. . . . Concepts have a way of becoming to a dead end unless they are bound together in a testable theory. . . . At present, we have plenty of denitions, but too little theory. (1963: 357)

With similar tone, Herbert argued that `no amount of individual particles of observed data will sufce to represent a ``culture'' until one has a theory of their systematic interrelations' (Herbert, 1991:10). The lack of such a theory is a primary factor why some scholars have even decided to send the concept into exile, removing it from their conceptual toolkit. The blame for this problem has often been put on the concept: scholars speak of the fuzzy concept of culture, even considering it a `splendid cover for a conceptual mess' (Wolf, 2001: 76). However, a concept can never be the key problem, since it can always be replaced by a better one. Concepts are intellectual creations existing only in our minds. They are, however, supposed to refer to actual objects. Here lies the fundamental problem of culture: it is too elusive as an object to be tackled by a single concept or 179

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denition. Only a theory of culture can clarify what constitutes `a culture' and can explain what makes differences into cultural differences. Only a theory can explain the nature of the object we are studying. I will try to illustrate this with two examples from the eld of research in international education. Although no one will disagree with the statement that human beings differ, the question what makes differences into cultural differences is not easy to tackle. If two students, one from Latin America and one from North America, perceive the interpersonal behavior of their teacher differently we are inclined to label these differences as cultural (den Brok et al., 2003; van Oord and den Brok, 2004). However, if two students from the same country perceive teacher behavior in different ways, we will explain these differences as determined by personal preference or character. Likewise, the bullying of a Philippine student in the school's dressing room by two Dutch students is understood as a `different notion of personal space, in this case Filipino and Dutch, which is one of the hidden rituals of societies' cultures' (Allan, 2003: 95) while similar behavior between three students with the same national identity would probably be described as inappropriate childish behavior. We could ask whether usage of the adjective `cultural' makes scientic sense in cases as the above. The lack of a demonstrable object is a major reason for the incredible growth of the culture concept. Only a theory of culture will be able to stop this conceptual proliferation. It will allow us to describe particular differences between groups of people as the facts of a culture (van den Bouwhuijsen, 1995; Vermeersch, 1977). Conguration of learning In his book `The Heathen in His Blindness . . .', the philosopher Balagangadhara has taken on the difcult enterprise to develop a theory of culture that both explains what constitutes `a' culture and approximates what makes differences into cultural differences (Balagangadhara, 1994). The more than 400 pages that precede the presentation of his theory, together with the scholarly following and criticism that his theory has received, lies beyond the scope of this article. As the available space requires, I will present his theory briey and to the point. Afterwards, its implications for the study of culture in the context of international education will be considered. Learning can be seen as a way an organism makes its environment habitable. Although learning can be understood in many different ways, the activity of creating a habitat appears to be a broad and suitable denition. In general terms, human beings learn in the framework of groups. One of 180

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the primary skills to learn for human beings is how to live with others in a given environment. Not only do newborns have to learn how to live with others, they also depend hugely on what the group decides to transmit to them. What a newborn learns is mostly a group decision: the group decides what is being transmitted from the group's `reservoir' of customs, lores, traditions vi-Strauss emphasizes etc. In his Les Structures Ele mentaires de la Parente (1949), Le this group choice when he writes:
Every newborn child provides in embryonic form the sum total of possibilities, but each culture and period of history will retain and develop only a chosen few of them. Every newborn child comes equipped . . . with all the means ever available to mankind to dene its relations to the world and its relations to others. . . . [Each group] represents a choice, which the group imposes and perpetuates. (English translation, 1969: 93)

Learning, in other words, is a balancing act between what our brains can do and what our group values and wants to pass on (Abbott and Ryan, 2000). By focusing on the transmission of the resources of the group, the emphasis is on what is being transmitted. By being instructed, however, the pupil also gets an important meta-message about how to learn properly. This meta-message (`learning how to learn') is often referred to as metalearning. Alternative terms in the literature are proto-learning for learning knowledge and skills and deutero-learning for learning how to learn (Wolcott, 1987). The groups' reservoir and choices do not only put constraints on what is learnt, but also on how this is done, in other words, on the mechanisms of its transmission. Different groups draw from different reservoirs, structure their learning differently and focus on different learning areas since their natural and social environments (`habitats') ask for different focal areas. Taking the above into account, Balagangadhara suggests the following theory of culture: a culture is a tradition that can be identied in terms of a specic conguration of learning and meta-learning. In each conguration, one particular kind of learning activity will be dominant: it will subordinate other kinds of learning activities to itself. Such congurations of learning processes can be seen as `culture-specic ways of learning' (1994: 446). These culture-specic ways of learning can also (at least partially) explain cultural differences. Each culture will constitute a kind of learning that subordinates other kinds of learning. In the words of Balagangadhara: `Specic to each culture is its way of learning and meta-learning. Cultural 181

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differences can, therefore, be characterized in terms of what brings about this conguration of learning' (1994: 447). The mapping of different congurations of learning is not an easy enterprise and the academic debate of this theory has just begun. What then brings about these different congurations of learning? Balagangadhara has argued that it was Christianity as a religion that brought about the western conguration of learning. As an orthodox religion, Christian teaching focuses on the intention and concepts behind certain behavior and practise. Christian ritual (being Catholic, Protestant or any other denomination) is motivated by its underlying meaning. The rituals are important for the believers involved because they are guided by theology. The ritual of baptism, for instance, refers to the theology of the covenant of God with mankind. This theory-oriented way of teaching has led to the emergence of conceptual learning as the dominant kind of learning over the other ones. Other kinds of learning do not disappear from the western conguration, but will be perceived as derived from or applications of conceptual learning. In Asian culture it is argued that ritual (orthopraxy instead of orthodoxy) has had the functional equivalent role as orthodoxy had in the West. In this culture, performative (or practical) learning appears to dominate over other kinds of learning. This does not mean that ritual has no underlying beliefs. However, they do not play a signicant role as an ultimate explanation of the ritual (Staal, 1979). A well-known description of this difference between orthodoxy and orthopraxy (or `true beliefs' versus `right practice') is the observation by the Nepalese anthropologist Pradhan, who conducted eld research in a Calvinist rural village in the Netherlands (Pradhan, 1989). The native villagers would often invite him for coffee after Sunday service and, naturally, the topic of conversation would be religion. The villagers were curious to know what their guest believed, a strange question that he found difcult to answer:
Everybody over here talks about believing, believing, believing. Where I come from, what counts is the ritual, in which only the priest and the head of the family participate. The others watch and make their offerings. Over here so much is mandatory. Hindus will never ask `Do you believe in God?' Of course one should believe, but the important thing is what one does (Vuijsje, 1988. Transl. by Hofstede, 1991: 159, original italics).

Orthodox belief (e.g. Christianity) and orthoprax ritual (e.g. Hinduism) are products of different congurations of learning where different kinds of learning dominate over the other kinds of learning. Such a difference in 182

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learning conguration can be observed in the following statement by a manager from Europe working for a multinational in Singapore. In an interview with a Dutch newspaper he comments on the native Singaporeans, saying:
The people here are different. It is mostly a difference in mentality. They are eager to come to a solution. You give them a problem and they will nd a solution. After that, they're done. Someone from Europe would keep on thinking. With the expatriats I am now trying to change the local people's mentality (Trouw, 1996: 6, my translation from the Dutch).

This quote highlights a clash between two different congurations of learning. Conceptual thinkers from Europe seem unable to understand their Asian colleagues whose performative learning conguration is adequate for solving problems without the western desire to conceptualize the problem and `keep on thinking.' The manager believes he is encountering a difference in mentality that can be solved by changing the mentality of the local people. vi-Strauss discusses different congurations of learning among Le westerners and the Native American Navaho. In the Navaho family, he writes, the art of weaving or jewellery making is learnt by example. The vi-Strauss, the western scholar, young Navaho learn by looking. Then Le asks himself:
Whence the complete absence of a way of life so common among us, even among adults . . . I mean the habit of asking questions such as `And that, why do that?' or `After that, what are you going to do?' It is this habit more than any other which has given the natives their strange opinion of white men, for the Indian is convinced that the white man is a fool. (1969: 95)

Apparently, this quote reveals, asking conceptual questions about practical skills such as weaving is ridiculous to the Navaho mind (see similar observations in Pinxten and Farrer, 1991). A nal example is taken from the life sciences. Primatologist De Waal comments on the difference between western and Japanese colleagues in the pursuit of scientic knowledge. He explains how western colleagues used to complain about the `lack of theory' in Japanese primatology. In Japan, `emphasis was on data gathering for example about what monkeys eat or whom they groom without mention of the idea behind it' (de Waal, 2001: 188). To western primatologists, de Waal explains, `data without a framework to put them in seemed pointless' (ibid.). These kinds of cross-cultural differences in learning conguration can be found abundantly 183

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in the scholarly literature (e.g. Almond, 1984; Balagangadhara, 1994; Madan, 1977; Todorov, 1984). Cultural differences, in sum, are in essence different congurations of learning. Taking the development of these congurations into account, validity can be assumed in huge distinctions such as `western culture,' `Asian culture,' `African culture' and so on and so forth (Rao, 1996). Adopting this theory of culture leads to the understanding that differences between, say, Belgium and the Netherlands, or between Indonesia and Malaysia, and between companies like Coca-Cola and Mercedes are not cultural differences. Despite the habit of describing these differences as `cultural' in contemporary scholarship and in everyday language, describing these different ways of going-about in the world as differences in social custom or habit is preferable. Likewise, we should rather speak of, say, corporate custom or school habit instead of school and corporate culture (Richards, 2002). On the nature of `cultural' differences According to Hofstede, cross-cultural learning situations are `fundamentally problematic' for both teachers and students (1986: 303). He illustrates this viewpoint with a number of anecdotes. He mentions an American teacher who exclaimed `You lovely girls, I love you!' to her Chinese students in Beijing. According to Hofstede, the students were terried by such a spontaneous outcry. Likewise, he mentions the stunned Italian professor teaching in the US who was not familiar with the formality of student-evaluation at the end of his course. These are just two examples of many. The literature on cross-cultural education is liberally lled with anecdotes like these. Are these kind of `perplexities,' as Hofstede calls them, as `fundamentally problematic' as he imagines them to be? It is my understanding that these differences in behavior and perception from people of different countries are neither fundamental nor essentially different at all. These differences are usually overcome rather easily. Perhaps the analogy to language can illustrate the argument I am trying to make. Imagine a person living in a small rural village. This person enjoys a calm and rather predictable life. All the people he meets, his neighbours, the shopkeeper, his barber and so on, speak the same language with a similar accent. Suddenly this person encounters a tourist from another country, asking him a question in a language that he does not understand: Sen or, puede usted decirme la direccio n a la ciudad? The poor fellow does not understand who this alien person is, where he comes from and which language he is speaking. The villager might feel uncertain and will probably not succeed in 184

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responding productively. His response might be similar to: Jongen, ik versta geen woord van wat je zegt, which is as unintelligible for the tourist as it is for most readers of this article. In this ctitious example both interacting persons, the villager and the tourist, are ignorant of language differences. This mutual ignorance leads to inconvenience for both. The city that I have lived in until recently is a popular destination for tourists from all over the world. Especially around the squares and canals of the old city center, tourists can be seen everywhere, quite well recognizable by the travelling guides in their hands. As a resident of the city center, tourists would regularly ask me for directions, usually in a language of their choice. Being aware of this situation and with a special interest in different languages and customs, I would often rehearse my explanation of the directions from A to B or from C to D in several languages. Therefore, the questions tourists addressed to me never led to fundamental problems. I might have used the German nominative wrongly every now and then, and when a non-English speaking Japanese tourist asked for directions I would have had to use my hands and body to make myself intelligible. In all cases, however, the tourists and I communicated effectively. Just as these linguistic encounters are not fundamentally problematic, so-called `cultural' differences are usually not either. Especially when the people involved are aware of possible differences in habits and traits, the differences can usually be overcome rapidly. Respect, a sense of perspective and humour are usually the ingredients that make the interaction work. I recall, for instance, a conversation with a Peruvian student attending an international school in Norway. Coming from a non-expatriate background in Peru, she had left her native country for the rst time to attend an international school in another part of the world, with a language of instruction she did not yet comprehend. When asked what struck her as the biggest difference, she complained a little about Nordic food and that the relationship between students and teachers was very different to what she had previously experienced. In Peru, she explained, teachers were close to almighty and would always be addressed by their last name. It took her at least two months, she said, to get used to the Nordic custom of using the teachers' rst names. `There you have it!' anyone familiar with the scholarly literature might exclaim. This striking difference can be explained easily, since Peru is a country, as most Latin American countries, with a large power distance while Norway scores extremely low on Hofstede's power distance index (PDI-scores of 64 for Peru and 31 for Norway, Hofstede, 1991). Her story continues, however. After going back to Peru during Christmas break, she visited her old school and greeted one of her former teachers 185

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saying: `Nice to see you, Enrico!' Enrico was shocked. How dare she address him by his rst name! Looking back at this event, the student considered the custom back home as odd. She was sure she would learn more from a teacher with whom she could interact in a more familiar manner, she explained. The speed with which this student got accustomed to Nordic habits and even learnt to defend them against the social customs of her native country is, however impressive, and not an isolated case. The viewpoint that cross-national encounters are not fundamentally difcult and will not lead to much more than preliminary perplexities ts well into the theory of culture presented in this article. According to Balagangadhara's theory, differences as mentioned by Hofstede, Trompenaars and many others are not cultural differences. They can better be understood as differences in custom or ways of going about. Although they can come across as very different, they are never essentially different. Balagangadhara's theory also implies that the focal area of culture as an ideational system is not culture free. It clearly unravels a western mind, focusing on culture as a system of ideas and concepts. The same can be said for concepts of culture such as the iceberg or the onion. Although there might be truth in these approaches in the context of western culture, Balagangadhara's theory suggests that we cannot automatically extrapolate these concepts to other cultures. His theory is a warning against the enticement to interpret other cultures as mere varieties of the west. One of the conclusions of his research is that if we presume that cultures differ, we should be aware that they will differ differently and that their experiences of difference will also be different (Balagangadhara, 1996: 512).

Four hypotheses on teaching and learning

What does this theory of culture and its implication for `cultural' differences mean for the international school and its academic curriculum? In order to address this question, the following four hypotheses are presented:
[1] Most differences in teaching and learning between teachers and students from different nations are not cultural differences. Students and teachers from different countries have different perceptions and goings-about concerning the different domains of teaching and learning (i.e. teacher-student interpersonal behavior, preferred classroom environment, social status of teachers etc.). However, these differences are in most cases not determined by different congurations of learning. This leads to the second hypothesis.

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[2] Differences in teaching and learning between teachers and students from different nations are not fundamentally problematic for both parties. Encounters by teachers or students from different societies might begin with some inconvenience, since both parties will need to come to terms with the fact that their perceptions and goings-about are not universal. It might take some effort to get rid of prejudices about people and traits from other societies. These conicts in teaching and learning, however, should not be seen as products of cultural difference. [3] Due to the history of international education, the conguration of learning presumed in international academic curricula is a western conguration based on conceptual learning as the dominant kind of learning. Since this hypothesis may come across as rather provocative, I will give two illustrations.

The International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma History guide provides IB history teachers with markbands that they can use to mark their students' essays. The upper end of these markbands mention `a good conceptual ability' as the most important skill an IB history student can demonstrate (IBO, 2001: 51). Likewise, an often applied device to categorize levels of abstraction in tests and examinations is Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy (Bloom, 1956). At the top end of the taxonomy, we nd skills under the heading `evaluation.' This includes interpretation and judging of material, creating new solutions, critical comparison and so forth. A hierarchy in academic abilities as mentioned in these two examples reveals a western conguration of learning and meta-learning. This leads to hypothesis number four.
[4] Real cultural differences in teaching and learning will emerge in the context of the international curriculum: the question of how to deal with matters like content, theoretical knowledge, analytical and abstract thinking are areas where cultural differences will emerge, since they concern different congurations of learning. Westernized teachers who presume conceptual ways of learning at the core of their students' learning abilities will perceive difculties with students who come from a culture where, say, performative learning dominates other kinds of learning. These differences are not supercial and will be difcult to tackle. These issues ask for serious consideration when deciding what makes our international curricula `international'. (Skelton, 2002)

Conclusion
In this article I argue for a new understanding of culture in the eld of research in international education. An understanding that prunes the proliferation of the culture concept in contemporary scholarship. A perception 187

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of culture that, hopefully, includes less and reveals more. A perception that urges for another approach to human difference. Labelling differences in social customs and habits between people as `cultural' does not help us to explain the incredible adaptive skills of people, especially of young people such as the Peruvian student discussed earlier. Labelling these differences as `cultural' suggests that differences between people, especially very different differences, are somehow essential. It suggests that human beings lose (or gain?) something essential, whatever that may be, as soon as they adapt themselves and incorporate different social customs than the ones they are familiar with, a process that often leads to, as some believe, `fundamentally problematic' perplexities, to `culture shock' and states of `cultural dissonance' (Allan, 2002, 2003; Hofstede, 1986; Oberg, 1960). My experience with students and teachers in international schools is different. The adaptive process by young people to new environments, to unknown social customs and habits usually takes place with incredible speed and uidity, and usually without signs of serious crisis and loss of anything essential in their personalities. It seems that a concept of culture based on an elusive object, in both popular language and academic literature, asks for more perplexities and shocking encounters than reality is willing to deliver. Hopefully, the theory and hypotheses presented in this study will contribute to a profound scientic approach to culture in the eld of research in international education.

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Biographical note
L O D E W I J K VA N O O R D teaches Peace & Conict Studies and West Asian History at the United World College of the Atlantic, Wales. Address: Atlantic College, St. Donats Castle, Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan, CF61 1WF, UK. [email: vanoord@uwc.net]

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