creating cultural competence

The impact of culture on education by

Huib Wursten

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food , and tyrannize their teachers.

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

1. Shanghai, China 556

2. Hong Kong, China 539

3. Singapore 536

4. Japan 533

5. South Korea 526

6. Finland 524

7. Taiwan 520

8. Canada 515

9. Ireland 508

10. Poland 506

11. Liechtenstein 503

12. Estonia 501

13. Australia 501

14. New Zealand 500

15. Netherlands 500

16. United States 500

18. Liechtenstein 499

19. Sweden 497

20. Germany 497

21. Ireland 496

PISA 2012:Reading

1. Shanghai,China 600

2. Singapore 562

3. Hong Kong, China

4. Chinese Taipei 555

5. South Korea 546

6. Macao-China

7. Japan 543

8. Liechtenstein 541

9. Switzerland 536

10. Netherlands 534

11. Estonia 529

12. Finland 527

11. Canada 526

12. Poland 525

13. Belgium 519

14. Germany 515

15. Vietnam 514

16. Austria 513

17. Australia 512

18. Ireland 507

19. Slovenia 503

20. Slovenia 501

PISA 2012: Math.

1. Shanghai, China 575

2 2. Hong Kong China 554

3. 3. Singapore 549

4. 4. Japan 542

5. 5. Finland 539

6. 6. Estonia 538

7. 7. South Korea 532

8. 8. Vietnam 529

9. 9. Poland 528

10. 10. Liechtenstein 527

11. 11. Canada 522

12. 12. Germany 520

13. 13. Taiwan 520

14. 14. Netherlands 520

15. 15. Switzerland 517

16. 16. United Kingdom 514

17. 17. Slovenia 512

18. 18. Macau, China 511

PISA 2012 : SCIENCE

The “Confucian”

connection Looking at the high Pisa scores of China, Korea, etc.

General: Virtue re one´s tasks in life:

- acquire skills and education - work hard Specific virtues:

• 1. Persistence (Perseverance) • 2. Ordering relationships by

status and observing this order

• 3. Thrift

• 4. Having a sense of shame

• 5. Personal steadiness and

stability

Ranking of Confucian virtues

Lessons in country performance in education November 2012

the Economist Intelligence Unit Pearson “The Learning Curve”

Finland [Rank 1]1.26 [Rank 1]1.50 [Rank 3]0.79

South Korea [Rank 2]1.23 [Rank 4]1.24 [Rank 1]1.21

Hong Kong-China [Rank 3]0.90 [Rank 3]1.26 [Rank 17]0.20*

Japan [Rank 4]0.89 [Rank 5]1.04 [Rank 8]0.59

Singapore [Rank 5]0.84 [Rank 2]1.39 [Rank 33]-0.26*

United Kingdom [Rank 6]0.60 [Rank 12]0.50 [Rank 2]0.81

Netherlands [Rank 7]0.59 [Rank 7]0.72 [Rank 11]0.32*

New Zealand [Rank 8]0.56 [Rank 9]0.61 [Rank 9]0.47*

Switzerland [Rank 9]0.55 [Rank 8]0.71 [Rank 13]0.22

Canada [Rank 10]0.54 [Rank 6]0.72 [Rank 20]0.18

Ireland [Rank 11]0.53 [Rank 16]0.42 [Rank 5]0.74

Denmark [Rank 12]0.50 [Rank 17]0.41 [Rank 6]0.68

Australia [Rank 13]0.46 [Rank 11]0.54 [Rank 12]0.31

Poland [Rank 14]0.43 [Rank 20]0.26 [Rank 4]0.77

Germany [Rank 15]0.41 [Rank 10]0.56 [Rank 23]0.12

Belgium [Rank 16]0.35 [Rank 15]0.43 [Rank 17]0.20*

United States [Rank 17]0.35 [Rank 14]0.44 [Rank 21]0.16

Hungary [Rank 18]0.33 [Rank 13]0.46 [Rank 25]0.07

Slovakia [Rank 19]0.32 [Rank 25]0.16 [Rank 7]0.65

Russia [Rank 20]0.26 [Rank 19]0.29 [Rank 19]0.20*

Index of cognitive skills and educational attainment

Overall score Cognitive Skills Educational attainment

Conclusion “Economist”:

The most interesting result of the analyses is: “how few correlations there

are. Education remains very much a black box in which inputs are turned into outputs in ways that are difficult to predict or quantify consistently”

“You measure what is measurable. The

softer inputs of education are left out These inputs, however can be crucial, such as the cultural context in which education occurs”

Source: The Wall Street Journal May 2008

Value differences between countries can Be explained by five “dimensions of culture” • Power distance (“pdi”) • Individualism (“idv”) • Masculinity (“mas”) • Uncertainty avoidance (“uai”) • Long term orientation (“lto”)

The 5-d model

6 culture clusters©

Contest Network Family Pyramid Solar system Machine

PDI IDV MAS UAI PDI IDV MAS UAI PDI IDV MAS UAI PDI IDV MAS UAI PDI IDV MAS UAI PDI IDV MAS UAI

The egalitarian group; empowerment, decentralization

The hierarchical group; centralized,

USA UK

Irland Nw Zealand Australie Canada

Denmark Sweden

Netherlands Norway Baltics

Germany Switzerl.(G) Czech rep. Hungary Austria Finland

Guatemala Brazil Russia Turkey Portugal S.Korea

France Belgium

Switzerl. (FR) Italy (Nd) Poland Spain

Singapore Hong Kong China

Thaïland India

Malaysia

Competition

Autonomy

Decentralisation

Risktaking

Results

Ambition

Innovation

Consensus

Cooperation

Decentralisation

Risktaking

Well being

Reliability

Social ethics

Structure

Autonomy

Decentralis

ation

Procedures

Expertise

Expert

needs

Hierarchy

Rules

Centralisation

Formalism

Analyses

Honour

Well being

Hierarchy

Loyalty

Centralisat

ion

Formalism

Procedures

Respect

Indirect

Comm-tion

Hierarchy

Loyalty

Centralisation

Harmoniy

Flexibility

Indirect

Communication

CONTEST PDI-;IDV+;MAS+;UAI-

Competition

Accountability

Winning/losing

Success breeds success

Sympathy for winners

„The best“

Inductive thinking „pragmatism“, „best practices“

Focus on practitioners

Pragmatism:

Definition of truth: “The truth is what works”.

William James

Michael Ignatieff:

“What is right does not

always work;

What works is not always right”

Sayings and slogans around this way of thinking: -Just do it -Whatever works -You have to walk the talk -The proof of the pudding is in the eating

NETWORK PDI_;IDV+;MAS_;UAI-(+/_)

-Strong emphasis on equality -Autonomy -4C’s: consensus, cooperation,

collegial administration and co-optation

-Sympathy for underdog -Suspicious about winners and heroes -Emerging insight -“Truth is found in the middle” -Decisions based on “shared interest” -“Reflect before you act” -”Good wine does not need a crown”

-Reluctance to enforce rules In Nl: “Gedogen”-

Back to conclusions of Economist: “best practices”

-Attracting the best people to the profession -Implementing clear goals and -Make teachers accountable -Providing the right training -Treating teachers like professionals

Attracting the best people to the profession

Cultural context

Culture plays an essential role in defining the how and what of “best"

For instance, in Finland a critical moment in education policy occurred when the Government decided that teachers should only be recruited from Universities to give the profession "high status.“

In other cultures an academic credential is not as highly valued.

For example, in a May 2013 speech by the education secretary in the UK, Mr. Gove told his audience that:

“Schools themselves should conduct

research into what produces great teaching and learning, rather than leaving such studies to universities, which he believes have offered little of practical value in terms of improving schools.”

Leaders should be trained within schools rather than being sent away to acquire abstract diplomas. Teachers should equally be trained within the schools themselves, rather than learning how to teach in university education departments. “

Nicholas Kristoff in New York Times 15-02-’14

Professors, We Need You!

“The most stinging dismissal of a point is to say: “That’s academic.” In other words, to be a scholar

is, often, to be irrelevant.

One reason is the anti-intellectualism in American life, the kind that led Rick Santorum to scold

President Obama as “a snob” for wanting more kids to go to college “

Accountability, goal setting, competition and enforcement Cultural context:

Example Contest: Michelle Rhee

at age thirty-seven, chancellor of the Washington schools. Upon taking the job, she knew immediately that she would have to get over “trying to be warm and friendly.”

By the spring of 2008, she had dismissed thirty-six principals, twenty-two assistant principals, and, before she was done, nearly three hundred teachers.

Approach Michelle Rhee:

(1) Students should compete for test scores and their teachers’ approval.

(2) Teachers should compete for “merit”

rewards from their principal.

(3) Schools should compete for funding within their district.

(4) School districts should compete for budgetary allocations within their state.

(5) States should compete for federal funds.

Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant September 2013

Last week Education Secretary Sander Dekker decided to go public with the Cito-scores of the primary schools in a comparative way. He is doing that under pressure of “RTL Nieuws”. RTL Nieuws is making use of the law on “transparency of public administration” to have a look at the data.

But yesterday he decided to postpone this to go to court first to see what the judge would decide. He does this as a result of the lobby of primary schools resisting strongly the comparative approach

Trouw 10-02-14

The Education Secretary says that the schools have to stop the lobby. He states that a wrong image has been created that in primary education a culture of accountabily/ enforcement (afrekencultuur) has been created. ‘That is not constructive” according to Dekker.

The Education Secretary says in Trouw that in primary education people have an enormous fear for openess. ‘I support openess. Not to make schools accountable. I don’t like comparative rankings.’

Sweden

Global Business Competitiveness 2013

Switzerland

Singapore

Finland

Germany

USA

Hong Kong

Netherlands

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Source: WEF

Japan

10 UK

The Shanghai students performed well, local experts say, for the same reason students from other parts of Asia — including South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong — do: Their education systems are steeped in discipline, rote learning and obsessive test preparation

Pisa 2010

“These are two sides of the same coin: Chinese schools are very good at preparing their students for standardized tests. For that reason, they fail to prepare them for higher education and the knowledge economy.” “Chinese schools emphasized testing too much, and produced students who lacked curiosity and the ability to think critically or independently.

Jiang Xueqin, a deputy principal at Peking University High School in Beijing in The Wall Street Journal shortly after the test results

were announced.

Pisa 2010

The Global Innovation Index published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Top Ten 2013 ranking Switzerland Sweden United Kingdom Netherlands United States of America Finland Hong Kong (China) Singapore Denmark Ireland

Economists who have studied the relationship between (University)

education and economic, cultural, and technological growth confirm that once a

certain level of knowledge is reached,other factors become more

important

What matters most for success is

“ambition, inquisitiveness,

independence,

and perhaps most important,

the absence of a fixation on testing and

test scores.”

” The more we focus on tests, the more we kill creativity, ingenuity, and the ability to think differently. Students who think differently get lower scores. The more we focus on tests, the more we reward conformity and compliance, getting the right answer.”

Source: Keith Baker, “Are International Tests Worth

Anything?

Conclusion:

Before you start copying and pasting……..

Gnothi Seauton

Source: oracle of Delphi