Page 329 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

Schools and cultural difference 307

Traditional pedagogical views have accordingly seen the task of schools as pre-
cisely that of upholding the basic postulates of the national culture, and they
succeed to the extent that pupils acquire the conviction that these have no alter-
natives or are superior to those of other nations.
Seen this way, school-induced socialization has an enormous socio-political
meaning, and as a result the forms and content of schooling are an enduring
source of social conflict. School is thus not only the place where the hegemony
of the dominant culture is played out and transmitted; it is also the scene of daily
conflicts about legitimate vs. illegitimate behaviors and language, as well as
about recognition of the social relevance of hegemonial values, norms and
knowledge (Willis 1977, Gumperz and Cook-Gumperz in this volume). Here
children from diverse cultural backgrounds come in contact and in conflict, and
this alone demands an examination of the cultural norms of the schools’ institu-
tional frameworks as well as of their daily practice. Relevant questions concern
the ways in which stereotypes of nation, race, ethnicity and religion affect com-
munication in schools, how legitimate vs. illegitimate knowledge and language
are distinguished, how normal and deviant behaviors are marked, and how
national, religious, ethnic and sex-related identifications are established and
represented. Discussions on the legitimate use of languages in schools in multi-
lingual settings can so be linked to “struggles over the establishment of author-
ity and legitimacy” (Heller and Martin-Jones 2003a: ix). One possibility of
carrying out social conflicts is by means of the legitimate language and lan-
guage uses (Heller and Martin Jones 2003b).
Hence theories and programs of multicultural education demand that peda-
gogical practice include sensitivity to cultural differences. They reject peda-
gogical models meant to enforce conformity to a nationally oriented culture and
instead emphasize a perspective that accepts a multiplicity of differing and
equally valuable nationally, religiously and ethnically formed cultures. In
contrast to traditional social and pedagogical theories, they adopt a comparative
view that sees the immediate social forms not as unquestionably given and natu-
ral, but rather as constitutive elements of various cultural frameworks. Adopting
such a perspective imposes definite and pedagogically significant requirements
for communication and understanding: individual knowledge and/or communi-
cative activities must be interpreted within one of many possible cultural back-
grounds. Accordingly, difficulties in mutual understanding among individuals
and social groups are traced to differences among cultures. Problems and con-
flicts are likely when the participants in the intercultural dialogue – in contrast
to scientific observers of the dialogue – remain naively caught in the perspective
of their own culture, unable to adopt a larger view that would allow them to go
beyond their own implicit assumptions and certainties. Thus, concepts for inter-
and multicultural education attempt to instill awareness in all participants of the
cultural embeddedness of individuals’ experience and action. Further, multicul-