HOW DOES CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AFFECT CHILDREN'S BEHAVIOR IN EDUCATION?

Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, encompassing language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts.

Everyone has their own cultural background that affect the way they think and act. We are seldom aware of cultural differences because it is absorbed and passed down from the generation to generation than explicitly taught. Therefore, it is important to understand the role of cultural diversities in childhood education.

Adults such as parents or teachers should make use of the cultural differences in childhood education.

How does cultural differences affect student's behavior in education?

It is important to understand the behavior of the student. This is because they might act differently according to their culture. The meaning of that action might be different between each culture too. Therefore, by identifying the reasons behind their behavior, teachers can avoid the misunderstanding towards their student.

1. Eye contact

In classroom, teachers often expect a lot of eye contact from students. However, in western culture, student that are not providing direct eye contact is a sign of not paying attention. However, in many cultures, making direct eye contact is a sign of disrespectful.

Therefore, teachers have to be aware about this when they are conducting a class with different culture.

2. Questions

It is normal for teachers to ask questions during their class. Teachers will regularly ask the question which they already know the answer to test students. For example: "What are the alphabet after letter B? "

However, in some cultures, students think that a teacher who ask questions did not teach well. This is because they assumed that a person asking the question truly does not have the information requested. In the worst case, the student may feel that the teacher is trying deliberately to shame the student by revealing the student’s ignorance or incompetence to others.

This is a common problem for a teachers that conducted a cultural different classes.

3. Discussions

It is normal for teachers to conduct a class by having a discussion or debates in order to make the lesson more lively. However, there may be students who refuse to participate to a discussion. Regardless of their personalities, the reason of this is because of their culture.

As there are many cultures teach students that challenging teachers or authority figures is disrespectful. Therefore, debating or engaging in discussions with different point of views, can be seen to challenge the participants in the discussion. In many countries, students ignore the discussion activity as they do not recognize discussions to be a different learning strategy.

4. Competitions

There are lots of competitions in class nowadays. For example, the best athlete at various sports or whose contributions to class discussions gets the most verbal recognition from the teacher. Sports day, singing competition, writing contest and more, are the most common way that were design by teachers for students to stand out.

The competitive atmosphere can interfere with cultivating supportive relationships among students or between students and the teacher. In some culture, students are more prioritize in relationships than winning. Therefore, they might not cooperating in competitions as they are confused by the purposes. Students may share their effort or help their friends which are treated as cheating, laziness and freeloading in a competition.

Therefore, teachers has to remind the objective and rules of the competitions to students and put themselves in their shoes.

5. Hygienic Habit

Every culture has their own hygienic habits. Some believe that soil can clean everything and some believes that wipers could clean anything without water. The hygienic habits of children can be easily influenced by adults.

Therefore, teachers should start educating their students to stay clean and hygienic with the easiest way.

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