PPE6014

COMPARATIVE EDUCATION
5. Culture and Education
Learning Outcomes

▪ At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

1. explain the meaning of culture, and national culture in particular;
2. explain the relationship between national culture and education;
3. discuss cultural context in which education takes place.

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Activity 1 – What is Culture?

• How would you

define culture?
• Can you give
examples of
what represents
your national
culture?

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Importance of Understanding Culture &
Education

▪ When we compare education systems, we find similarities and differences.

▪ Is this because of cultural difference?
▪ A major criticism and limitation of statistics is that they fail to consider the
cultural dimension of education.
▪ When we examine education in different countries, we notice that learning
does not happen in isolation, and that it is a cultural activity.
▪ “the things outside the schools matter even more than the things inside the
schools, and govern and interpret the things inside the schools”(Sadler,
1900).

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Education and Culture: A Two-Way Process
▪ Education is an important tool for building nations.
▪ How does education contribute to nationalism?
▪ Nationalism – a common language, common customs, common culture.
▪ “Each national system of education is characteristic of the nation which has
created it and expresses something peculiar to the group which constitutes
that nation” (Kandel, 1933).
▪ So, there are two questions:
▪ How does education contribute to a common culture?
▪ In light of globalisation, does a common culture exist nationally?

Education Culture
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What is Culture?

▪ There is no agreed definition on the meaning of culture.

▪ Tylor (1871) – …that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art,
morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society.
▪ Keesing (1960) – Culture is concerned with actions, ideas, and artefacts which
individuals in the tradition concerned learn, share and value.
▪ Barnouw (1985) – …the set of attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviours shared
by a group of people, communicated from one generation to the next via
language or some other means of communication.

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This Course’s Adopted Definition

▪ Hofstede et al. (2010) –

▪ A mental software which guides peoples’ patterns of thinking, feeling and
acting. The programming for the software stems from the social environment –
family, schooling, the community, friends, and the workplace.
▪ Mental programs vary as much as the social environments in which they are
acquired.
▪ Culture is shared or partly shared with the people who live in the same social
environment.
▪ It is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of
the group or category of people from others.

▪ So, how do education and schooling in particular help to ‘program’

individuals, societies and nations’ ‘software’ of the mind?

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Activity 2 – Education and Socialization

▪ What is meant by
socialization?
▪ How are we socialized
through education?
▪ Why might this be
culturally-specific?
▪ Can you give an example?

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Education and Socialization

▪ A set of core values and traditions is a primary feature of all cultures and can
be defined as a broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others.
▪ Our values are programmed early in life and are concerned with things such
as evil vs good; dirty vs clean; dangerous vs safe, etc. Values determine what
is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and are closely related to the ideals shared by a group.
▪ Our values are invisible but can show themselves in our behaviour (norms)
and form the basis for order in many aspects of society.
▪ Norms are how we should behave and can be both formal (law) or informal.
▪ Education plays a key role in promoting the shared values of a particular
culture.
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How Does Culture Shape Education?

▪ Education plays a major role in teaching young people about the world.
▪ Education – a way of passing on information from one generation to the
next.
▪ Education – a way of preserving particular cultures and traditions.
▪ The young are inducted into the values and beliefs which an individual
society holds dear.
▪ Aboriginal stories, Chinese revolutionary fables, English fairy tales, are all
about teaching young children the ideas and values which are important to
their society.

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How Does Culture Shape Education?

▪ What is taught, and how it is taught are based on beliefs and values
or ideologies.
▪ An ideology of education may be defined as the set of ideas and
beliefs held by a group of people about the formal arrangements for
education, specifically schooling, and often by extension of by
implication, also about informal aspects of education, e.g. learning at
home (Meighan & Harber, 2007).
▪ The educational ideology adopted by a society or country will depend
on their cultural values and beliefs.

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Educational Ideology and Cultural Values

▪ Educational ideology can emphasise on:

▪ The individual – the needs and interest of the learning;
▪ Knowledge – the importance of formal knowledge arranged in
subjects and where students start by learning basic facts and then
progress through complex levels;
▪ Society – to develop, improve and modernise the economy.

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Curriculum and Culture

▪ Educational ideologies play an important role in shaping the

curriculum, and culture is evidently displayed in a country’s
curriculum.
▪ The curriculum embodies distinct beliefs about:
▪ the type of knowledge that should be taught in schools;
▪ the inherent nature of children;
▪ what school learning consists of;
▪ how teachers should instruct children; and
▪ how children should be assessed.

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Curriculum and Culture

▪ Robin Alexander (2001) conducted a comparative research on primary education

in England, France, Russia, India and the USA to look at the cultural context in
which education takes place.
▪ Similarities and differences on the subjects taught, how the curriculum was interpreted,
and how it was implemented in schools.
▪ Distinct variations in the amount of attention given to science.
▪ England – English, mathematics and science (core subjects)
▪ France – French, history, geography and civic education (core subjects)
▪ Beliefs and values in what is important for society and the economy are
demonstrated by the findings.
▪ On the one hand, we have imperatives of economy and employment; on the
other those of civil society and citizenship.

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Dimensions of National Culture

▪ Hofstede (2001) conducted research on how cultural values influence

the workplace with IBM employees between 1967 and 1973 in 72
countries.
▪ He found four dimensions of national culture:
▪ Power distance
▪ Uncertainty avoidance
▪ Individualism vs collectivism
▪ Masculinity vs femininity
▪ Long-term vs short-term orientation (added later)
▪ Indulgence vs restraint (added in 2010 – data from 93 countries)

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Activity 3 – dimensions of national culture

▪ Look at the comparison on Malaysia’s and South Korea’s

cultural dimensions. How might these relate to education?

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How Do National Culture Dimensions Relate to
Education?

▪ A good example can be seen when comparing power distance (PDI)

differences between countries.
▪ E.g.: In societies with high PDI (Slovakia, Malaysia and Guatemala),
inequality is seen as the basis of societal order. In societies with low PDI
(Denmark, Ireland and Austria), inequality is seen as a necessary evil that
should be minimized.
▪ In societies with low PDI, students treat teachers as equals. Teachers expect
students to take initiatives in class. Quality of learning depends on two-way
communication. Those who are less educated hold more authoritarian
values than those who are more educated. Educational policy focuses on
secondary schools.

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How Do National Culture Dimensions Relate to
Education?

▪ In societies with high PDI, students give teachers respect both in and
outside the classroom. Teachers are expected to take initiatives.
Quality of learning depends on their excellence rather than the
students. They are considered ‘gurus’ who transfer personal wisdom.
Authoritarian values are demonstrated equally in those who are
more educated and less educated. Educational policy focuses on
universities.
▪ HOWEVER, high PDI does not always mean that educational
systems are equitable, as shown in the next slide.
▪ Why are these education systems with high PDI not more equitable
and fair if equality is an underpinning core value of their culture?

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PDI Scores and Equity Values
Power Distance scores (PDI) Equity levels
Slovakia 104 87
Panama 95 110
Russia 93 78
Romania 90 86
Serbia 86 65
Mexico 81 85
Slovenia 71 88
Bulgaria 70 130
Peru 64 131
Austria 11 105
Israel 13 104
Denmark 22 86
Ireland 28 86
Sweden 31 92 19
Individualism and Collectivism

▪ Individualistic society – interests of the individual prevail over the group.

▪ Individualistic countries (the US, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, Hungary
and the Netherlands).
▪ Collectivist countries (Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia
and Pakistan).
▪ Individualist societies: students to speak up in class, aim of education is
learning how to learn, education should enable people to be resilient.
▪ Collectivist societies: students speak when permitted, purpose of education is
learning how to do, educational qualifications provide entry to higher status
group.

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Activity 4 – individualism vs collectivism

▪ Which type of society do you come from? Individualist or collectivist?

How did your experience at school reflect this? Was there an
emphasis on ‘knowing how to learn’?

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Conclusion

▪ The relationship between education and culture is important if we

are to understand both the similarities and differences when
comparing education across national boundaries.
▪ We cannot understand aspects of education without examining the
cultural context in which it takes place.
▪ This difference can only be explained, in part, when we look very
closely at national culture

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