Getting comfortable with differences

In thinking about the results of the research conducted with AFS by Mitchell Hammer a few years ago, I was struck by two different outcomes.

1. When they return home from their experience, AFS students show a much lower level of social discomfort, anxiety, and embarrassment around other cultures than they had before they went abroad.
   
2. The returned students generally focused more on cultural similarities and some worried that paying attention to cultural differences would lead to conflict. In the words of one student:

"Ya que en el mundo en que vivimos, las diferencias culturales son inmensas, y es por eso que existe tanta violencia -- las personas no ven las similitudes, y el hecho de que todos somos iguales." ("In the world we live in, the cultural differences are huge and that is why there is so much violence -- people don’t see the similarities and the fact that we are all the same.")

This leads me to ask:

• Are these returning students more comfortable around other cultures because they focus on the similarities instead of the differences?

and

• Is this always a good thing?

and

Why should differences cause conflict?

Maybe this is the most interesting question. If we believe that differences inevitably cause conflict, how would we behave? In the USA we have an expression: "like walking on egg shells" -- the idea being that you need to tread very carefully for fear of breaking the delicate shell.

With this philosophy, any mention of differences can be dangerous, reminding the other person of the conflict we have, because... you know, because we're different. So maybe if we focus only on the ways we are similar, nothing bad will happen.

Another expression we use in the US: "You have to break some eggs to make an omelet."

When we introduced the Five Frameworks of Culture we followed Bennett's order; building trust by talking first about less threatening differences such as language use or non-verbal behavior, and then moving to on to talk about differences that might feel more threatening to consider, like values and assumptions.

Assumptions about love and marriage and family

What could be MORE threatening that looking at cultural differences in love, marriage and family. This is interesting because, first of all, we often tend to assume that these are universals. Everyone has the experience of falling in love, every society has marriage, all societies include families. True or False?

Let's look at some different reactions to these topics in different places, both of which surprised me.

India. Back in the early 1990s, while I was doing research in India, almost a young woman told me: "I'm happy to have my parents help in finding a husband. It's such an important decision." She mentioned how much her parents has always looked out for her best interests, and how well they understood her nature and would be able to select the right boy. Another woman told me, "I always wanted a love-match, but it didn't happen, so I was grateful that my brother was able to help me find my husband." I also carry with me still the image of the young Punjabi fiancés, meeting for the third time at a party normally designed as a celebration to tease the bride before her wedding. In this more modern couple, the groom-to-be was allowed to attend, and in fact sang a song for the bride while she danced. Was it only me who felt the chemistry  between them beginning to build with their smiles and blushes?

Contrast this with a situation familiar to me in the USA. It was about 5 years ago that I decided to marry again, and I brought my future husband to meet my mother. Thinking perhaps an "old fashioned" approach might be appropriate, he asked my mother for her approval of our decision. "Why are you asking me?" she replied. "I think it should be up to Betsy."

Where was anything in my background ready to expect the reactions of these Indian women who found comfort and even great pleasure in their arranged marriages? I suppose when I went to India, I imagined that the arranged marriage was "still" common, thinking perhaps that this was something that would eventually change to a more "western" pattern with time. And yet I related the "arranged" marriage with tragic stories from my own traditions, such as Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. For anyone who does not know, Juliet's family was arranging a marriage for her with the County Paris, someone they felt suitable, but she, of course, had fallen in love with Romeo, her family's enemy, and in the end the two lovers killed themselves.

Peru. Love is not always kind and marriage does not always mean living happily ever after. I don't intend to imply that marriage is any less successful in Peru than any place else, but the way this may play out was what surprised me. Walking down the street in Lima one evening, I observe two women fighting in front of me. They are yelling and striking each other. One justifies herself: "She was with my husband." Another woman I knew, suspecting her husband was with another woman, went directly to that woman's home, found him there and dragged him home so she could then kick him out of the house. "I would kill to keep my husband," she told me. Then there was the case of a jealous ex-novia who telephoned the new girlfriend, repeatedly, to talk endlessly about the situation and what the relationship had meant to her.

Again, I had stories from my own traditions that got in the way of my interpretations and made these situations quite uncomfortable. Wasn't it supposed to the two men fighting each other over a woman, like Popeye and his nemesis Bluto (sometimes Brutus) from television cartoons, fighting over Olive Oyl? And more than anything else, I felt embarrassed for the women and wondered --

• "Where is her pride?"

and

• "Why does she put up with him?"

and 

• "What can she hope to achieve by this?"

-- all questions that are clearly irrelevant in the cultural sub-context in which these women live.

What was more helpful was again to reinterpret the behavior without the cartoon and to recognize that I was seeing was a way to use a large dramatic gesture to assert their rights in their relationships. The fact that others witness this gesture can make it more powerful: Love overcomes pride.

Whether the stories from your own tradition are as revered as Shakespeare or as modest as a Popeye cartoon, the ones that you hear repeatedly, perhaps particularly when you are young, can be enormously powerful and will influence your reactions to anything you experience that remotely resembles the story line. By identifying these influential stories that led to my reactions, I can then try to remove the story context and look again at the behavior I observe.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research

AFS International

A big "Thank You" and welcome to my guest blogger, Leo Hitchcock from New Zealand, pictured here with a former AFS student that he had hosted. Leo is currently researching the assessment of intercultural competence. His reactions to the Intercultural Eyes blogs seem to call for a bigger space than the semi-hidden "comment" boxes. Here is Leo's first full posting.

                                                                                                                               Betsy Hansel

The significance of language, social networks, and food to study abroad sojourners

I read with interest Betsy’s language posts, and thought I’d share with you data from some readings I have recently completed along with some thoughts.

Language is central to human communications, therefore host language proficiency is assumed to be one of the most important determinants of successful cultural adaptation [1].  It is considered ‘cultural capital’, and is a source of status and power for study abroad students (sojourners) [2].  Sojourners who expected to speak the host language but had low language skills, interpreted unwillingness on the part of the hosts to speak in return as exclusion from the local culture! [1].  

Learning and speaking in another language can present challenges to a person’s sense of themselves, as this quote illustrates: 

In order to be a wit in a foreign language you have to go through the stage of being a half-wit – there is no other way. If the problem is not addressed explicitly, learners may be just aware of it as a constant resistance against opening their mouths! [3].

To learn a new language is to create a new identity, as it is the principle process by which identity formation takes place [1, 4].  Eva Hoffman, a Polish 13 year old who moved to live in Canada, and struggled with whether to write her diary in English or Polish remarks;

This language is beginning to invent another me.  However I discover something odd.  It seems that when I write (or for that matter, think) in English, I am unable to use the word ‘I’.  I do not go so far as the schizophrenic ‘she’, but am driven, as by a compulsion, to the double, the Siamese-twin ‘you’ [4].

One is drawn into the interactive nature of language and culture, going beyond mere structure and grammatical rules, and learning to unravel the inner meaning of the language that leads to refining and extending one’s knowledge of the culture.  The educational implication is an imperativeness to become a sensitive user of the other language, which includes recognition that a different language can lead to a different way of expressing or experiencing oneself [4].
But there is a paradox [1].  As sojourners become adapted they often find difficulties around language, with the result that the more culturally adjusted they become, the more they tend to feel excluded!  While high language skills provide for a deeper level of communication it does not automatically facilitate cultural adjustment.  Instead, it brings one into an ambiguous realm where neither host nor sojourner is clear of the extent of fluency, with hosts treating them either as unable to speak the language, or expecting native-like fluency, treating mistakes as deliberate and insulting. Neither attitude encourages cultural adjustment.  Deeper involvement with the host culture entails a different ‘cultural logic’ that has been recognised as the most challenging level within cross-cultural encounters, sometimes producing negative attitudes to the host culture (Culture Shock!) [5].  All sojourners that were researched encountered this at some stage, but those with higher language proficiency brought it on sooner and had higher expectations of being able to deal with it [1].

Recognition of intercultural competence, however, need not include a corresponding learning of a foreign language for those who do not have a second language component in their sojourn [6].  If a second language were a prerequisite to gaining intercultural competence, how would a sojourner ever achieve it if their sojourn was to a culture that speaks the same language, yet may be substantially different culturally (for example Spain/Spanish speaking Latin American countries; New Zealand and Australia/English speaking North America).  Notwithstanding the obvious significance of the adaptive demands of language as an important element of attaining intercultural competence, intercultural competence can certainly be attained without it.

Social networks play a major role in determining how a person interprets and responds to their new environment.  Three social network types have been identified: monocultural (your own culture), bicultural (the host culture), and multicultural (other foreigners in the host culture) [7].  Additionally, contact with home family and friends is another social network that places demands on the sojourner [1]. 

Movement from left to right across the networks represents adjustment away from the sojourner’s reliance on home, and increases the number and closeness of host culture ties.

Willingness to accept change in social relationships is essential for adjustment to another culture [8].  Relationships formed within the host culture social network results in the sojourner feeling part of the host culture.  Such relationships must develop beyond the superficial level, be of equal status, satisfy the needs of individuals, and be free from discrimination and negative attitudes [1].

And food has been shown to be of central importance in developing and maintaining social intercultural relationships [9].  Changing one’s food preferences is a conscious expression of changing identity.  Since food and its associated rituals embody a culture’s values [10], the sojourner’s reactions often indicate the extent they understand and appreciate their host culture’s core cultural values, and are an important part in participating in the culture.  Rejection of the local culture’s food seems like rejection of the local culture!

All of this is based on solid research of study abroad students, and I believe are very important notions to become aware of and become familiar with within the pre-departure preparation stage.

References:
[1] Pearson-Evans, Aileen; 2006, Recording the Journey: Dairies of Irish Students in Japan. In Michael Byram & Anwei Feng, (Eds), Living and Studying Abroad: Research and Practice.  Multilingual Matters Ltd,Clevedon, U.K.
[2] Kim, 1988, in [1]
[3] Harder, 1980: 269. In [4]
[4] Alred, Geof; 2003, Becoming a Better Stranger: A Therapeutic Perspective on Intercultural Education and/as Education. In Geof Alred, Mike Byram, & Mike Fleming (Eds), Intercultural Experience and Education.  Multilingual Matters Ltd,Clevedon, U.K.
[5]  Condon, 1974, in [1]
[6] Zarate, Genevìeve; 2003, The Recognition of Intercultural Competences: From individual to certification. In Geof Alred, Mike Byram, & Mike Fleming (Eds), Intercultural Experience and Education.  Multilingual Matters Ltd,Clevedon, U.K.
[7] Bochner et al, 1986, in [1]
[8] Anderson, 1994: Kim, 1988; in [1]
[9] Bourdieu, 1986; Fischler, 1988; in [1]
[10] Douglas, 1966: Levi-Strauss, 1968; in [1]

After our staff training in Istanbul last September, I found a new interest in Istanbul and Turkey. So recently my daughter gave me a copy of Orhan Pamuk's The Black Book, which I am now reading. I happened to turn to the "afterward" by translator Maureen Freely, and I want to thank her for giving me this insight into the Turkish language:

There is no verb to be in Turkish, nor is there a verb to have. It's an agglutinative language, which means that root nouns in even the simplest sentences can carry five or six suffixes. ("Apparently, they were inside their houses" is a single word.) There are many more tenses--you use one mode for events you have witnessed with your own eyes, for example, and another for anything you know by hearsay. There is a special syllable you can add to a verb to emphasize the active role someone played in whatever you are describing. The passive voice is as graceful as the active voice and rather more popular, with the result that a fine Turkish sentence may choose to obscure exactly who did what. (from the Vintage International Edition, 2006)

To learn Turkish, I certainly would need to adjust my thinking, and so I marvel at the work Ms. Freely has done with this book. After reading the "afterward" I needed to go back to different passages and reconsider how they might have been constructed in the original Turkish. And in doing this I connected more with the mindset of the main character and the character that he is pursuing and imitating.

So often we are dependent on interpreters, and I am grateful for those who are able to do this. We are now working with a small group of AFS staff from several countries, trying to learn together how to interpret our own cultures to each other so that our behaviors, values and beliefs make sense to each other. Tonight (in New York, but already tomorrow in Hong Kong, India and New Zealand) we will have our first conference call for this "seminar." It is an experiment I hope will succeed.

On a related note: in Issue 10 I talked about some research on language learning through study abroad. Both studies I cited can be found in Barbara F. Freed's book, Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context.(Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1995).

 Learning a Language and Learning a Culture

The research that Mitchell Hammer conducted with AFS students in 2002 included a very simple measure of language facility provided by the host family at the beginning of the experience and again after the students returned home at the end of their year. (For a summary of the results of this study, please go to the AFS Research and Education section of the AFS web site where versions of "Assessment of the Impact of Study Abroad Experience" can be found in English, Spanish or Portuguese.) This language rating by host families turned out to be an important one.

• We found that the host families who rated their students as more fluent also tended to rate them as having a better knowledge of the host culture.
• Students who stayed with the same host family all year tended to be given higher fluency ratings by those host families.
• Japanese students were assessed by their families as having the greatest improvement in language ability over the course of the year.
• Students who felt more comfortable and confident around other cultures also tended to have higher fluency ratings from their host families.

We discussed this last outcome extensively. Was it that the ease of language use made the students more comfortable and confident with people from other cultures, or did more confident students become more fluent simply because they were not afraid to use the language? Or, since he research also showed that this comfort and confidence around other cultures increased strongly (and anxiety declined) as a result of the AFS program, was it simply a case that both are related to participation in the program?

I tend to favor the interpretation that the sense of confidence these students have makes them unconcerned about making mistakes, and leads them to focus on building their communication skills through conversation. The host families are more likely to report that they are speaking with greater fluency because they have had deep and meaningful conversations with these students. No one is really assessing whether they have properly used the subjunctive case.

Linguists, of course, are much more interested in the appropriate use of the subjunctive and other forms specific to the language. Barbara Lafford's research among students learning Spanish shows that those who studied abroad were better than classroom learners in using many of the appropriate subtle conversational cues and patterns that are necessary for real communication with another person. She found that they had picked up more of the social context of their conversations and could "improvise" a conversation better than those who only studied in the classroom. They also stumbled less and sounded more like native speakers. Even those who had been beginner seemed to be able to gain much of this competence through study abroad experiences.

Vera Regan made an interesting study of how students in the classroom and those studying abroad differ in their use of the French form "ne....pas" and related forms of negation, as found in Piaf's "Pink Martini" song ("Je ne veux pas travailler") that for some reason seems to be played these days in New York restaurants, and can be found in multiple forms on You-Tube. As I learned as an exchange student in France, native French speakers will often drop the "ne" part of the two-part construction when speaking to each other, so that "je ne sais pas" can become something like "chai pas" with very casual speech, the way in English one might say "dunno" instead of "I don't know." Regan's research found that the study abroad students in France picked this up quite readily and were more likely to drop the "ne" than those who had studied the proper form in the classroom. On the other hand, when native speakers of French knew that someone was monitoring their speech, they were more likely to use the "correct" form, while the study abroad speakers were not so likely to self-correct to a more formal speech, even when they knew their speech was being monitored.

It seems that maybe we're more than half way there with the language learning. We know that our students become more confident and more fluent with the learning by experience and they clearly sound more fluent. However, as they imitate more the casual styles of speech that they use with their friends and host families, they may need some classroom instruction or maybe just some additional feedback to help them shift appropriately to more formal speech when this is expected.

I'm certainly going to be watching my own tendency to drop the "ne" and hope that I can self-correct when needed.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research

AFS International  

Learning from Each Other

In recent weeks, my husband is spending hours in front of the computer using special software to learn French. He's doing this because in April I will be attending an intercultural education conference in Paris sponsored by our AFS organization there, and he is coming along. (See notice in Event Calendar) He likes the program's technique of using mental images related to English as a way to remember French words, and he is having fun making up sentences that might or might not be of much use to him in France.

One of the challenges of learning a language is finding someone to talk to. Last November, the BBC reported on a case in Mexico of an indigenous language that is about to go extinct since the last two speakers of that language have refused to talk to each other. (See story from the BBC)

Fortunately for my husband, in addition to his efforts to speak with me in French, he will find plenty of people with whom to practice French, even without leaving the computer. An interesting social networking site, italki.com, helps match you with someone with whom you can practice your foreign language. This and other language learning resources have been posted on the AFS web site's Useful Resources list for Educators.

Yesterday I came across an old interview in New Scientist on line with Steven Pinker. (See full interview.) He talked about theories of the origin of language in humans, and the fact that, unlike some birds, say, humans aren't born speaking but have to learn speech. He said, "Learning is an essential part of language because by its very nature language has to be a shared code. If you spoke a language of one you might as well not speak at all. The learning period synchronises the language ability of each child to that of everyone else around them."

Language is not the only thing that we learn better together; maybe we learn everything better in a community. What would I know without my colleagues here at AFS, for instance? For example, one of them led me to an article about different types of intelligence, which led me to a very exciting but not so new article on The social/situational orientation to learning by Mark K. Smith, and his article collects and reviews the thoughts of several other educators, including Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. What all these educators, anthropologists, and colleagues have discerned is that learning is not really an individual activity, but one that requires the input of others, and generally requires a community.

AFS intends to expand that community and promote intercultural education. While our exchange programs physically place a person in a community within another culture, we also want to use our worldwide community to teach each other, and to teach our exchange program participants, how to develop a broader set of social skills that are flexible enough to adapt to unfamiliar contexts and cultures. This includes the Five  Frameworks of Culture that we have adopted from Milton Bennett, and it includes the nurturing of an openness to things that are unfamiliar and unknown.

I invite you, the readers, to also contribute to the learning by leaving your comments on any of the topics you read here, or to leave messages which I will answer promptly.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research, AFS International.