Journal of Research in International

Education
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Culture as a configuration of learning: Hypotheses in the context of international

education
Lodewijk Van Oord
Journal of Research in International Education 2005; 4; 173
DOI: 10.1177/1475240905054389
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JRIE

A RT I C L E

Culture as a
configuration of learning

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 AT I O N
(www.ibo.org)

and S A G E

Hypotheses in the context of international

education

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

L O D E W I J K VA N O O R D
United World College of the Atlantic, Wales
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 concepts
proliferation. A theory is presented that
identifies a culture as a particular
configuration 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.
academic curriculum, anthropology,
culture, international schools, learning

K E Y WO R D S

Cet article sinteresse au concept de la culture dun point de vue

anthropologique. Il place divers concepts culturels dans leurs
contextes historiques et traite de plusieurs mode`les utilises dans la
recherche en education internationale. Il est avance que le manque de
theorie est la principale explication de la proliferation du concept de
la culture. Une theorie est proposee, selon laquelle une culture est
identifiee comme etant une configuration particulie`re de
lapprentissage et du meta-apprentissage. Il est aussi avance que la
plupart des differences culturelles dans lenseignement et
lapprentissage ne sont pas reellement culturelles et que les veritables
differences culturelles vont apparatre dans le contexte des
programmes scolaires internationaux.
Este artculo se acerca al concepto de cultura desde una perspectiva
antropologica. Ubica varios conceptos de cultura en sus contextos
historicos y analiza distintos modelos que se utilizan en la
investigacion en el campo de la educacion internacional. El autor
sostiene que la falta de una teora es una de las razones primordiales
que contribuyen a la proliferacion de los conceptos de cultura. Se
presenta una teora que define una cultura como una configuracion
especial de aprendizajes y meta-aprendizajes. Siguiendo esta teora se
sostiene que muchas de las diferencias culturales en el ambito de la
ensenanza y el aprendizaje no son culturales y que las diferencias
culturales reales surgen en el contexto de los currculos academicos
internacionales.

Introduction
The scholarly debate on the influence of culture on teaching and learning
in the arena of international education is one of wide interest. Although
many different definitions 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 influence needs to be
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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 influences those involved in these schools remains
difficult to grasp.
This article analyses the social scientific 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 final 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 field 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 defined
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 difficulty of defining 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 definition of international
education as an education that sets out to foster, among 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
respectable league of anthropologists such as Edward Tylor, Claude LeviStrauss 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 field even argued that the concept of culture has come to be
so completely associated with anthropological thinking that . . . we could
define 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 influential ideas in 20thcentury thought (Keesing and Strathern, 1998). Influential ideas, however,
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van Oord: Culture as a configuration of learning

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 (1983: 87.).
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 hip-hop, 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 significance 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 first 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). Tylors
concept of culture as opposed to nature is currently being utilized in the life
sciences, where scientists are successfully trying to find and describe traces
of culture in chimpanzees, whales, dolphins and other intelligent mammals (de Waal and Tyack, 2003; Whiten et al., 1999).
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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 Tylors evolutionary approach. This third notion is connected with names of pioneering
American anthropologists such as Boas, Benedict and Herskovits. They
unravelled Tylors 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 reflections of our own culture (1940: 311).
Boas shift in orientation was fundamental. He changed Tylors 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 (first 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 the ways in which people were different. They developed the idea of
a so-called 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 Boass work, the
case for cultural relativism has mostly been made by his students Benedict
and Herskovits. Benedict argued that Our only scientific course is to consider our own culture, so far as we are able, as one example of innumerable
others of the variant of configurations 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 schema.
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.

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van Oord: Culture as a configuration of learning

Table 1 Three different approaches to culture
Approach

Focal area

Advocates

1 Classical-humanism

Focus on the arts and the

tending of the mind.

Plato; Cicero; Williams

(1983)

2 Anthropology

Focus on culture as evolution

(culture versus nature).

Tylor (1871)

3 Anthropology

Focus on comparison of cultures

(cultural relativism).

Boas (1940); Benedict

(1960); Herskovits (1967)

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

There is however a huge difference between, on the one side, the first
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 newspapers 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 definition
of the referent is always possible, the objects are definite 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, the 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 flavour. 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 of the recent literature in the field of research in international
education shows that different conceptions of culture are being embraced
as well. Some frequently used visualizations are Hofstedes (1991) onion
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and the iceberg (Fennes and Hapgood, 1997; Kohls, 1996). These models
share the idea that cultural traits in societies can be classified between
implicit and explicit ones (Allan, 2003).
Researchers in this field 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 fluidity, 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 signifies something solid.
It has been a while since Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1963) collected and
commented on no less than 169 different definitions of culture. This
collection is rewarding for anyone who seeks to understand the diversity
in definitions that scholars have composed since the emergence of anthropology as an independent social science. Some definitions 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, mans 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 definitions 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 to what they do and make (Keesing and
Strathern, 1998).
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van Oord: Culture as a configuration of learning

Restricting the term culture to an ideational system makes culture into a
pattern for behaviour, not a pattern of behaviour. The observable events in
a society, the things and phenomena we can count, measure and repeat,
are being ruled out. Patterns for behaviour become patterns of behaviour 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 behaviour. 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 behaviour is not far from Hofstedes
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 definitions 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 scientific 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 definitions, but too little theory. (1963: 357)

With similar tone, Herbert argued that no amount of individual particles

of observed data will suffice 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 reason 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
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definition. 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 field of research in international
education.
Although no one will disagree with the statement that human beings
differ, the question of 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 behaviour 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 behaviour in different ways, we
will explain these differences as determined by personal preference or
character. Likewise, the bullying of a Philippine student in the schools 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 behaviour
between three students with the same national identity would probably be
described as inappropriate childish behaviour. We could ask whether
usage of the adjective cultural makes scientific 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).
Configuration of learning
In his book The Heathen in His Blindness . . ., the philosopher Balagangadhara
(1994) has taken on the difficult enterprise to develop a theory of culture
that both explains what constitutes a culture and approximates what
makes differences into cultural differences. 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 briefly
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 definition.
In general terms, human beings learn in the framework of groups. One of
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van Oord: Culture as a configuration of learning

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 groups reservoir of customs, lores, traditions
etc. In his Les Structures Elementaires de la Parente (1949), Levi-Strauss emphasizes
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 define 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 identified in terms
of a specific configuration of learning and meta-learning. In each configuration, one particular kind of learning activity will be dominant: it
will subordinate other kinds of learning activities to itself. Such configurations of learning processes can be seen as culture-specific ways of learning
(1994: 446).
These culture-specific 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:
Specific to each culture is its way of learning and meta-learning. Cultural
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differences can, therefore, be characterized in terms of what brings about

this configuration of learning (1994: 447).
The mapping of different configurations of learning is not an easy enterprise and the academic debate of this theory has just begun. What then
brings about these different configurations of learning? Balagangadhara
has argued that it was Christianity as a religion that brought about the
western configuration of learning. As an orthodox religion, Christian teaching focuses on the intention and concepts behind certain behaviour and
practice. Christian ritual (be it 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 configuration, 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 significant 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 field 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
difficult 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 configurations of learning where different kinds of
learning dominate over the other kinds of learning. Such a difference in
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van Oord: Culture as a configuration of learning

learning configuration 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 find a solution. After that, theyre done. Someone from Europe would keep on thinking.
With the expatriates I am now trying to change the local peoples mentality.
(Trouw, 1996: 6, my translation from the Dutch)

This quote highlights a clash between two different configurations of learning. Conceptual thinkers from Europe seem unable to understand their
Asian colleagues whose performative learning configuration 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.
Levi-Strauss discusses different configurations of learning among
westerners and the Native American Navaho. In the Navaho family, he
writes, the art of weaving or jewellery making is learnt by example. The
young Navaho learn by looking. Then Levi-Strauss, the western scholar,
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 final example is taken from the life sciences. Primatologist De Waal
comments on the difference between western and Japanese colleagues in
the pursuit of scientific 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 (2001: 88). These kinds of
cross-cultural differences in learning configuration can be found abundantly
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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 configurations of
learning. Taking the development of these configurations 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
terrified by such a spontaneous outcry. Likewise, he mentions the stunned
Italian professor teaching in the USA 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
filled 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 behaviour 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: Senor,
puede usted indicanne come ir 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
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van Oord: Culture as a configuration of learning

in 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 fictitious 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 centre, tourists can be seen everywhere, quite well recognizable by the travelling guides in their hands. As a resident of the city centre,
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 first 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 first 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 Hofstedes 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
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Journal of Research in International Education

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saying: Nice to see you, Enrico! Enrico was shocked. How dare she
address him by his first 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 become 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
difficult and will not lead to much more than preliminary perplexities
fits well into the theory of culture presented in this article. According to
Balagangadharas 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.
Balagangadharas 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,
Balagangadharas 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 behaviour, preferred classroom environment, social
status of teachers etc.). However, these differences are in most cases not
determined by different configurations of learning. This leads to the
second hypothesis.
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van Oord: Culture as a configuration of learning

[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 conflicts in teaching and learning, however,
should not be seen as products of cultural difference.
[3] Due to the history of international education, the configuration of
learning presumed in international academic curricula is a western configuration 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 Blooms (1956) taxonomy. At the top end of the taxonomy, we find 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 configuration 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 configurations of learning. Westernized teachers who presume
conceptual ways of learning at the core of their students learning abilities
will perceive difficulties with students who come from a culture where, say,
performative learning dominates other kinds of learning. These differences
are not superficial and will be difficult 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 field of
research in international education. An understanding that prunes the proliferation of the culture concept in contemporary scholarship. A perception
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of culture that, hopefully, includes less and reveals more. A perception that
urges 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 fluidity, 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 scientific approach to culture in the
field 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 & Conflict Studies and West Asian
History at the United World College of the Atlantic, St. Donats Castle,
Wales. [email: vanoord@uwc.net]

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