Classroom Encounters: Exploring the Impact of Cultural Differences

AbstractClassrooms of higher education are growing more internationalized in terms of both students and professors. With increasingly cross-cultural contact in the classroom, how individuals react based on their national culture becomes increasing important for educators. This paper investigates student/professor interactions and corresponding improvement strategies across four culturally distinct samples: China, New Zealand, Poland, and the United States. Differences are identified with respect to the types of critical incidents reported and desired responses to those encounters. The potential role that differences in the cultural dimensions of individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and time orientation may have in these findings are investigated. Suggestions are provided for specifically applying the research results in the classroom.