Page 184 - Cultures and Organizations

160 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

less concerned with grades than they expected. Passing was considered
enough; excelling was not an openly pronounced goal. Gert Jan’s experi-
ences with students from all over the world are similar. Students from
masculine countries may ask to take an exam again after passing with a
mediocre grade—Dutch students almost never do so. Such experiences in
teaching at home and abroad and discussions with teachers from different
countries have led us to conclude that in the more feminine cultures, the
average student is considered the norm, while in more masculine countries,
the best students are the norm. Parents in these masculine countries expect
their children to try to match the best. The “best boy in class” in the Neth-
erlands is a somewhat ridiculous fi gure. 31
This difference is noticeable in classroom behavior. In masculine cultures,
students try to make themselves visible in class and compete openly with
each other (unless collectivist norms put a limit to this; see Chapter 4).
In feminine countries, assertive behavior and attempts at excelling are
easily ridiculed. Excellence is something one keeps to oneself; it easily leads
to jealousy. Gert Jan remembers being told by a classmate when he was
fourteen, “We know you are smart—but you don’t have to show it all the
time.” When he moved to Lausanne, in Switzerland, the following year, he
was admired, not rebuked, for being clever.
In the feminine Scandinavian countries, people call their own attitude
in this regard the Law of Jante (Janteloven). The Law of Jante, a nickname

chosen for a small Danish town, was codified in the 1930s by the Danish-
born Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose, and in an English translation it
runs as follows:

You should not believe that
you are anything

you are just as much as us
you are wiser than us
you are better than us
you know more than we do
you are more than we are
or that you are good at anything
You should not laugh at us

You should not think
that anybody likes you
or that you can teach us anything. 32