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Cultural hegemony? Educators' perspectives on facilitating cross-cultural dialogue
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Cultural hegemony? Educators' perspectives on facilitating cross-cultural dialogue

Zareen Zaidi, Daniëlle Verstegen, Rashmi Vyas, Omayma Hamed, Tim Dornan and Page Morahan
Medical education online, v 21(1), pp 33145-9
01 Jan 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3402/meo.v21.33145
PMID: 27890048
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.3402/meo.v21.33145View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY-NC V4.0,  Open

Abstract

critical consciousness cross-cultural communication culturally responsive andragogy discourse analysis educational cultural hegemony
We live in an age when education is being internationalized. This can confront students with 'cultural hegemony' that can result from the unequal distribution of power and privilege in global society. The name that is given to awareness of social inequality is 'critical consciousness'. Cross-cultural dialogue provides an opportunity for learners to develop critical consciousness to counter cultural hegemony. The purpose of this research was to understand how learners engage with cross-cultural dialogue, so we can help them do so more effectively in the future. The setting for this research was an online discussion in an international health professions educator fellowship program. We introduced scenarios with cultural references to study the reaction of participants to cultural conversation cues. We used an inductive thematic analysis to explore power and hegemony issues. Participants reflected that personally they were more likely to take part in cross-cultural discussions if they recognized the context discussed or had prior exposure to educational settings with cultural diversity. They identified barriers as lack of skills in facilitating cross-cultural discussions and fear of offending others. They suggested deliberately introducing cultural issues throughout the curriculum. Our results indicate that developing critical consciousness and cross-cultural competency will require instructional design to identify longitudinal opportunities to bring up cross-cultural issues, and training facilitators to foster cross-cultural discussions by asking clarifying questions and navigating crucial/sensitive conversations.

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12 citations in Web of Science
18 citations in Scopus

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Domestic collaboration
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Web of Science research areas
Education & Educational Research
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