Cultural borderlands: Cultural dissonance in the international school

• Published in: The International schools journal Vol. 38; no. 1; pp. 27 - 37
• Main Author: Allen, Michael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Athens ACS Athens American Community Schools 01.11.2018
• Subjects: Cultural differences; Cultural identity; Culture; Educational Environment; Intercultural communication; International Education; Learning; Multiculturalism & pluralism; School effectiveness; School environment; Students; New York; United States > US; Brazil
• ISSN: 0264-7281

Cultural borderlands International schools are areas where different cultures operate in the same environment, where there is often a dominant cultural ethos, both among the faculty and the students (Richards, 1998; Allan, 2000) and the culture of the host country can impinge on this school culture in varying degrees and ways (Hayden and Thompson, 1996). School culture For the students, the international school environment defines the situation in which these cultural interactions take place, and in so doing can ameliorate or worsen the process of acculturation of different cultural groups. The school ethos and management culture, teaching and learning styles, use of different cultural contexts in the curriculum, ideas of behaviour, discipline and pastoral care, even the very function of schools -many things that we perhaps take for granted and do not realise are culture specific- all contribute to this nebulous, but fundamental, cultural environment. The second more obviously, because the culture shock of diametrically opposed individual culture and culture of the school resulted in feelings of rejection and outsiderness and cultural inferiority; but also the first, because of the feeling of cultural superiority, where there has been no change in the cultural beliefs, norms and values of that student.