Universities in the United States continue to recruit international students in growing numbers (Institute of International Education, 2011), and institutions worldwide are becoming increasingly dependent on revenue generated by international student enrollments (Marriott, du Plessis, & Pu, 2010; Mazzarol & Soutar, 2008; Turner & Robson, 2007). It can be argued then, that since higher education institutions operate websites for the purpose of recruiting students and communicating with stakeholders, the content and design of their websites should take into account an audience that comprises individuals from numerous and varied national and cultural backgrounds. This argument may apply to the institution as a whole as well as to units inside the institution that have some control over their own pages of the institution’s website. This analysis therefore attempts to answer the following questions: To what extent, and in what ways, should universities adapt the content, design, and navigability of university websites for varying cultures? Do people from different cultures process information in different ways, and could inappropriate design result in communication failure? Drawing on literature from a number of disciplines including computer-mediated communication, advertising, and electronic commerce, the analysis investigates the extent to which cultural preferences and dispositions toward websites have been identified and built into website design, and seeks implications for university website design that will ensure effective communication between the institution and an audience of different cultures.
How Web Users’ Norms and Preferences Vary across Cultures
Much of the research examining the cultural variations in website content and design draws on the work of Geert Hofstede, whose extensive surveys of IBM employees worldwide (and later, students) resulted in five dimensions along which, he claims, cultures vary (“Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions,” 1987). The dimensions are: power distance, or the extent to which less powerful members of institutions and organizations expect to belong to a hierarchy comprising more and less powerful individuals; individualism/collectivism, or the extent to which individuals are perceived as being integrated into groups; masculinity/feminism, which refers to the distribution of roles between men and women and roughly equates to the extent to which members of a society are assertive or modest; uncertainty avoidance, or the extent to which members of a society have a tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; and long-term/short-term orientation, or the degree to which individuals tend to act to protect long-term or short-term interests (“Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions,” 1987). Studies of website design that draw on Hofstede’s typology make the assumption that how cultures vary along these five dimensions has some determining effect on the communication preferences of their members, and that this is, or should be, reflected in websites directed at members of those cultures. The five dimensions have the advantage of breaking the complexity of cultural differences down into something manageable (Gevorgyan & Porter, 2008). On the other hand, they were developed over 30 years ago, and other frameworks have been developed since, suggesting that multiple frameworks ought to be used to analyze cultural differences (Ahn, Kwon, & Sung, 2010).
Nonetheless, Hofstede’s work is the most frequently cited in research into web content and design across cultures. Several studies have compared U.S. and Chinese websites using Hofstede’s categories (Chang, 2011; Gevorgyan & Porter, 2008; Liao, Proctor, & Salvendy, 2009; Zhao, Massey, Murphy, & Fang, 2003; Zhu & Wang, 2011), and others have compared U.S. and South Korean websites (Ahn et al., 2010; H. Kim, Coyle, & Gould, 2009; I. Kim & Kuljis, 2010; Shin & Hu, 2009). Other studies based on Hofstede’s work include one on the level of adaptation of Mexican websites to international audiences (Gonzales-Trejo, 2010), and one that analyzes two U.S. business school websites to determine their level of “cultural competence” (Goebel-Lundholm & Reid, 2011).
Hofstede’s typology is not the only one used to distinguish the norms and preferences of people of different countries. Liao, Proctor, and Salvendy (2008) included consideration of cognitive differences between Chinese and American readers, drawing on research that found variance in image processing abilities, verbal fluency, and digit span (short-term memory for digits), as well as field dependence/independence (the ability to distinguish objects from the surrounding field) and relational-contextual cognitive style vs. inferential-categorical cognitive style (categorizing on the basis of thematic relationships vs. inferences made about objects grouped together). H.Kim, Coyle, and Gould (2009) compared websites on the basis of monochromic and polychromic time management (the ability to handle one task at a time vs. several tasks simultaneously). They related this dimension to high vs. low context cultures, that is, cultures in which communication is embedded to a greater extent in the context (believed to be true of Asian cultures) as opposed to being stated explicitly in words (truer of western cultures), a dimension also adopted by some other researchers. (Goebel-Lundholm & Reid, 2011; Gonzales-Trejo, 2010). Some studies (I. Kim & Kuljis, 2010) also draw on the work of Nisbett (2003) who argued that Westerners and Asians differ on a wide range of measures.
Cultural preferences for web content and design may not be related to culture-specific dimensions. Chinese website users may be less trusting of e-commerce sites because of relative lack of internet penetration in that country, as well as factors such as inadequate online security, low credit card use, and a lack of internet-related laws and regulations (and these factors themselves are related to China’s economic standing), all of which create a perception among the Chinese that online transactions are risky, compared with the perceptions of U.S. web users (Liao et al., 2009). The more advanced design features of South Korean websites (as compared with UK sites) may be related more to the relative advancement of Korean internet technology rather than cultural preferences (I. Kim & Kuljis, 2010). Finally, Vyncke and Brengman’s (2010) meta-analysis concluded that culture-specific differences among the peoples of different nations account for only some of the variance in web design, and that other factors such as countries’ economic, political, and legal situations need to be taken into account.
How Website Design and Content Preferences Vary across Cultures
Several research studies have attempted to identify the preferences among internet users in different countries for specific website features. The examples described below contrast Chinese and U.S. users, and South Korean and U.S users; and one study analyzes the preferences of Hispanics in the U.S.
In their survey of Chinese and American college students, Liao, Proctor, and Salvendy (2009) attempted to identify contrasting preferences in websites offering portable consumer electronics. Contrasting preferences in several areas were found. American respondents scored high in focus on price and lower on cost-effectiveness, the Chinese respondents vice-versa. This the researchers attributed to the relative economic standing of the two countries: U.S. consumers were thought to be concerned with affordability while the Chinese consumers were thought to be concerned in addition with the benefits of the product relative to the price. On the other hand, the Chinese respondents were less concerned with specific product features than the Americans. The researchers speculated that this may be attributable to the finding of previous research that advertisements which describe product features are more successful in low-context cultures like the U.S., than in high-context cultures such as those of the Far East. An interesting finding in this study is that Chinese consumers paid attention to product safety features, which scored higher than product convenience. Drawing on previous research, the study’s authors suggested that the focus on safety may be related to China’s one-child policy, which causes parents and grandparents to place emphasis on the health and safety of the only child in the family. An emphasis by Chinese users on product warranty and return policy information was attributed to China’s collectivist culture: the lack of face to face contact in the web transaction, contrasted with transactions in the society at large, may have contributed to a lack of trust of e-commerce. Additionally, the lack of a mature e-commerce infrastructure has already been mentioned.
In another paper, the same researchers reached three conclusions about differential preferences of Asian and U.S. consumers shopping for products online (Liao et al., 2008). First, East Asians tend to pay less attention to specific product features because they tend to see the product as a whole rather than the sum of its separate parts – what the authors referred to as holistic cognition and analytic cognition respectively. Westerners living in low context cultures tend to rely more on factual information for decision making, and thus seek out specific product information. Because their cultures are more individualistic, they are used to being rewarded for individual initiative, and so are more likely to want to seek out specific product information. Second, East Asians are more likely to look for price information, as well as guarantees, warranties, and return information. The researchers related this tendency to collectivist cultures, which have a stronger in-group/out-group perception, and where, therefore, people may be less trusting of outsider sellers represented on the web. Since they are not able to touch and see the products up close, they look for information that will give them reassurance about the purchase. Third, East Asians are likely to be trusting of research results presented on websites. Because their countries score high on power-distance, they tend to trust researchers, whom they perceive as having greater power or authority than themselves.
These results are consistent in part with those of Gevorgyan and Porter (2008), whose study investigated how internet users’ web design preferences were related to their nationality. Focusing on the dimensions of power distance (manifested in, for example, information about website ownership and certain types of pictures) and uncertainty avoidance (manifested in customer service and secure payment availability), they found that Chinese users prioritized features reflecting high power distance and uncertainty avoidance, compared with American users. They concluded that organizations need to tailor web design and content to different cultures if they want their websites to be effective.
Ahn, Hung, and Kwon (2010) compared the preferences of U.S. and South Korean web users in a study of online brand communities, that is, non-geographically bound communities of individuals who share an enthusiasm for a brand. Based on prior research that drew on Hofstede’s typology, the authors hypothesized that Korean users would exhibit a greater preference for website features that reflected greater collectivism (pictures of historic monuments, pictures of the national flag, pictures of groups of community members, etc.), greater uncertainty avoidance (site and member search features, guided navigation, FAQ pages, etc.), and greater power distance (depiction of community hierarchy, use of proper titles, description of membership approval process, etc.); and that the U.S. users would prefer features manifesting individualism (privacy statement, ability to personalize the website, pictures depicting self-reliance, etc.), and masculinity (depiction of men as powerful, separate pages for men and women, games, quizzes, and so on emphasizing the value of enjoyment, etc.). Although not all the hypotheses were supported (for example, a high degree of individualism was found on the Korean sites), the authors concluded that there was sufficient evidence of difference to recommend that marketers should adapt websites to differing cultures.
A study of a minority culture in the U.S. also revealed differing preferences for website features related to culture. Singh et al. (2008) studied strongly and weakly acculturated Hispanics in the U.S., and hypothesized that those who were weakly acculturated would demonstrate preferences for content relevant to Hispanic cultures, such as use of both Spanish and English on the site, evidence of the organization’s contribution to the Hispanic community, pictures of Hispanics in the top levels of the organization, and so on. The authors found their hypotheses supported – Hispanics in the U.S. demonstrated some preference for websites that reflected their culture – and made recommendations to marketers: that they use Spanish on websites targeted at Hispanic populations, include information about giving back to the Hispanic community, and emphasize family ties, among others.
How Cultural Preferences are Manifested in Websites
The research described above provides some evidence that website users from differing cultures exhibit preferences toward website design and content based on features of their cultures. Another strand of research has investigated the extent to which, or how successfully, websites targeted at different cultures are adapted to those cultures. Organizations, including corporations and universities, generally have attractive websites; but website design and content may be incomplete and therefore ineffective if they have not taken cultural factors into consideration; and merely translating websites into the target languages is insufficient if the website does not address the cultural preferences of the user (Zhu & Wang, 2011).
There are at least two schools of thought on the question of whether web design and content should be standardized or localized (that is, adapted to cultural preferences and local language). Those in favor of standardization believe that consumers around the world tend to be more alike than different in their preferences, while those who argue for localization stress the benefits of reaching consumers in diverse cultures by adapting to their needs (H. Kim et al., 2009; Shin & Hu, 2009). Around the turn of the century, cultural adaptation of websites was in its first stages, and corporations were not yet conscious of the need to tailor their websites to other cultures (Singh et al. (2003), as cited in Gonzales-Trejo, 2010). Recent empirical studies suggest that adaptation continues to happen only on a limited basis (H. Kim et al., 2009), but that when it does occur it is more effective than standardization.
Goebel et al. (2011) compared the websites of international business programs offered by two U.S. universities. The websites were created in a low-context culture (the U.S.) but were targeted at high-context cultures. Website features corresponding with high-context cultures include elaborate animation, a focus on the enjoyment of the product as opposed to the features of the product, and greater use mouse-overs (menus that appear when the user moves the mouse over an image or text), as opposed to links. They found that one of the websites was oriented to a greater extent than the other toward a high-context audience. An interesting feature of the high-context oriented website was its purposeful use of images, showing the expressions on the individuals’ faces, in contrast to the images on the other website which appeared to be “window dressing.” (Goebel-Lundholm & Reid, 2011, p. 146)
Another example of a website deemed inappropriate was that of a Chinese petrochemical corporation aimed at English speakers (Zhu & Wang, 2011). The homepage contained several features typical of high power-distance cultures, such as pictures of imposing company buildings, a speech by the company president, and an organizational chart. In contrast, the homepage of a website created by an American petrochemical company aimed at an American audience contained information about products and services, and appeared to be designed to give the impression of being in a store. The authors of this study claimed that the website of the Chinese company “seems to say…that anyone who wants to do business with me gets to know who I am.” (Zhu & Wang, 2011, p. 52) For this reason, they also deemed Dell’s website aimed at the Chinese market inappropriate, because although it contained pictures of smiling customers and detailed product information, it was not oriented to the cultural values of the Chinese. The authors concluded that homepages targeted at Chinese users should accommodate Chinese cultural preferences concerning power, collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance.
A study Zhao et al. (2003) suggests that researchers like the ones above do not selectively find evidence to support their hypotheses regarding cultural adaptation. Zhao et al. hypothesized that because web design tools are culturally neutral, this should lead to websites that are standardized, as opposed to expressing the cultural preferences of their designers. Comparing U.S. and Chinese websites using Hofstede’s typology, they found that neither the design nor content of the websites were culturally neutral (that is, websites varied depending on the culture), and their hypotheses were not supported.
Similar results have been found in studies of South Korean websites. For example, H. Kim et al. (2009) discovered that Korean sites contain information on consumers’ relationships to their communities, while American sites mainly provide product information. The authors found support for their hypotheses that the Korean cultural preference for collectivism would be manifested in website features: the Korean sites contained more rollover and pull-down navigation bars, pop-up windows, and splash pages – all suggestive of an ability to handle tasks in a polychromic way necessary in high-contact, collectivist cultures. A comparison of UK and South Korean charity websites yielded similar results: the Korean sites contained more dynamic drop-down menus, streaming video, and sound, features which the authors of the study attributed to differences on Hofstede’s individualist/collectivist dimension, but which they also speculated might be a result of more advanced internet technology in South Korea (I. Kim & Kuljis, 2010). The question of which country’s multinational corporations – U.S. or South Korean – adapted their websites to other cultures as opposed to keeping them standardized, was addressed in a study by Shin and Hu (2009). They found that in spite of the cultural differences between the two countries identified by Hofstede, multinational corporations from both countries tended to keep their websites standardized, though the websites of U.S. corporations were a little more likely to display adaptation.
This lack of adaptation was evident also in a study of Europe’s largest multinational corporations in the UK, France, and Germany (Halliburton & Ziegfeld, 2009). Although the study aimed to investigate how corporations communicate their identity across cultures, only 62% of the corporations were found to have developed websites for the other two markets outside their home market, and overall, little support was found for the hypothesis that corporations would adopt a local branding strategy in their foreign markets. Gonzales-Trejo (2010) also found little evidence of adaptation in his study of Mexican companies’ U.S. websites: the only adaptation displayed by the majority of them was a simple translation of the content into English. This is consistent with Gevorgyan and Porter’s (2008) characterization of web design for international audiences as “one size fits all” (p. 36), and runs contrary to the imperative to develop “culturally congruent websites” (Vyncke & Brengman, 2010) – websites that include features manifesting Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, as well as some non-cultural (i.e. economic, legal, political) aspects of a target society. Vyncke and Brengman’s (2010) meta-analysis suggested that such websites are more effective with regard to their usefulness, ease of use, and positive attitudes and intentions displayed by users (p. 27). Ahn et al.’s (2010) study comparing brand communities in South Korea and the U.S. reached a similar conclusion: that marketers should localize – that is, adapt design and content – their web presence when using online communities for marketing communications. Halliburton and Ziegfeld (2009) recommended a ‘glocalization’ approach in which essential branding features are standardized but design and content are adapted to the host country, while H. Kim et al. (2009) described a process of customizing to differing locales while maintaining centralized or standardized information technology. Similarly, Chang (2011) concluded that corporations should tailor websites to the language and cultures of the markets where they do business, in order to gain competitive advantage.
Discussion
This analysis has attempted to answer the questions of whether and how universities should adapt their websites to varying cultures. Although the literature reviewed is focused mainly on studies of commercial websites, and are therefore unlikely to be of direct relevance to the design and content of university websites, they nonetheless reveal some foundational knowledge that universities might use as a basis for exploring the possibilities for the cultural adaptation of their own websites. First, the people of different countries and cultures vary in the way they see society and the world, along a number of dimensions; second, these differences are reflected in the design and content of websites created in and by those cultures; third, this implies that websites aimed at users in other cultures might be more effective if their design and content is adapted to the people of those cultures; and fourth, so far the extent of this adaptation has been found to be limited. Absent more examples of how websites have been adapted successfully, it is difficult to recommend to universities and university departments (including my own) that they make the attempt, or what specific features might make organizational communication through a website more effective for a diverse audience. On the other hand, knowledge of how different cultural preferences are manifested in website design and content could lead to website design that is more conscious of these preferences and less oriented culturally to the designers’ own culture. While a lack of concrete recommendations might be seen as a disappointing result of the above analysis, this lack is itself a result: it demonstrates that the usability of an institutional website by people of different cultures is a legitimate concern, and that institutions have an interest in making their websites maximally usable by stakeholders from diverse cultures.
Future research that would be more relevant to universities might address the following issues. First, while there is some evidence that adapted websites are more effective, the question of whether web users from one culture are turned off by web features of another culture does not seem to have been thoroughly explored. Perhaps as more users become web literate, they themselves will adapt to various website styles. This would obviate the need for websites to be adapted to users. Second is the question of whether a single website can be designed to take into account the preferences of people from many cultures; the alternative is to create multiple websites aimed at different cultures, which is not likely to be a viable option except for the largest institutions. Third, universities might research user reactions to their own website: how is the website perceived by users from different cultures, and does their perception vary with different stages of the user’s relationship with the university – as an inquirer, an applicant, a student, and an alumnus? And fourth, is a university fundamentally different from a commercial enterprise in that applicants may one day become students who are expected to conform to the cultural norms of the society in which the university is located? Does this imply that universities should not make an effort to adapt their websites, but that they should expect users to adapt?
In addition to providing a basis for further research, the studies reviewed above may also be helpful in shedding light on current communication issues that universities have with stakeholders. An example that is of current significance is the recruitment of mainland Chinese students by U.S. institutions. While universities place their application information and process on their websites, implying direct communication between the university and the applicant, the majority of Chinese applicants prefer to apply by way of an intermediary such as a study abroad agent in their locality rather than engage with the recruitment process directly via the website (“Majority of Chinese Undergraduates in the United States Use Agents, Study Suggests,” 2011). Although many in U.S. higher education frown on the use of recruitment agents in foreign countries (Fischer, 2011), if China is indeed a collectivist culture in which relationships are important (“Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions,” 1987), then either reliance on the web is not realistic and the use of agents should be assessed in a more culturally sympathetic way, or institutions should consider how they might adapt their websites to encourage Chinese applicants to use them through the application process.
Communicating on the web presents a challenge for all organizations. While communication experts advise leaders to target their message to their audience (Baldoni, 2003), those who prepare content and design features of websites do not know their precise audience: they do not know what types of information their audience is seeking, nor how to present information in a way that corresponds with users’ goals (Liao et al., 2009). This challenge is exacerbated when the audience comprises individuals from diverse cultures. Being aware of the norms and expectations of members of different cultures can only support universities’ attempts to communicate effectively with culturally diverse stakeholders.
References
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Fischer, K. (2011, July 22). Use of Paid Agents to Recruit International Students Sparks Lively Debate at Forum. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved August 6, 2011, from http://chronicle.com/article/Use-of-Paid-Agents-to-Recruit/127980/
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Sunday, September 4, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
The Financial and Economic Rationale for International Student Recruitment
The number of students studying at institutions outside of their home country is growing significantly. The tertiary level international student population worldwide grew by half a million to two million in the late nineties and the number is forecast to reach five million by 2025 (Martens & Starke, 2008). This growth is driven by an increased ability and willingness of students to study outside their country’s borders on the one hand (Mazzarol & Soutar, 2008; Naidoo, 2010); on the other, it is encouraged by proactive recruitment on the part of institutions, in many cases in the context of government policies that encourage international recruitment activities and national growth in the number of international students (Codd, 2004; Douglass & Edelstein, 2009; Naidoo, 2010).
This review investigates the notion that that at the institutional and national levels, international student recruitment is driven primarily by financial and economic motives [1]; and that this can be problematic for students, institutions, and the idea of higher education itself. The review draws on three literature streams: one comes from observers who accept the financial and economic rationales for international student recruitment, and write within a discourse that focuses on education as an industry and international education as a competitive market (Harman, 2004; Naidoo, 2006, 2010). Naidoo (Naidoo, 2010), for example, draws on “international business and marketing literatures” to investigate institutions’ “export readiness.” (p. 7) A second stream is critical of this development, referring to it as a neoliberal approach to education, and pointing out its negative effects (De Vita & Case, 2003; Enslin & Hedge, 2008; Tilak, 2008). The third stream attempts to take an objective look at international student recruitment through a research-based approach (Bolsmann & Miller, 2008; Toyoshima, 2007; Turner & Robson, 2007) This survey of the literature on financial and economic rationales for international student recruitment, and concerns about its impact, may be useful in raising awareness of the financial implications and the potential pitfalls of basing international student recruitment on a financial or economic rationale.
The Economic and Financial Value of International Students
There are significant financial implications to the rise in international student enrollments. International education has been described as “one of the largest and dynamic service industries,” and “a major business” (Naidoo, 2006, p. 335) in several English-speaking countries. OECD figures estimated the value of the industry as US$30 billion in 2002; it was worth £7 billion in the UK that year, US$12 billion in the US in 2003, NZ$1.5 billion in 2000, and AUS$3.7 billion in 2002 (Naidoo, 2006). By 2006, the value of the international trade in education services had risen to between US$50 and 60 billion (Naidoo, 2010). Around half of this revenue was earned by the top five education exporters: the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada (Tilak, 2008). In each of these countries, education was among the top export-earning industries, and within this sector student mobility was the main source of revenue. Estimates of revenue earned through the presence of international students give a good indication of the growth of the industry. In New Zealand in 2003/2004, for example, education services were the fourth largest service export, worth NZ1.4 billion (Martens & Starke, 2008). The financial benefits are not limited to the higher education sector. In a discussion of the economic benefits of educational exports for Australia, Harman pointed out that missing from revenue estimates are, “employment in infrastructure necessary to support international students…income generated by visits to Australia of the parents, other family members, and friends of students,” (Harman, 2004, p. 113) in addition to an annual addition of 50 000 jobs to the Australian economy as a result of international students in Australian education.
The impact of international students on an institution’s finances can be significant. Lewis (2005) found that international fee-paying students accounted for 40% of tuition revenues at the University of Auckland. Fees from non-EU students in the UK made up between 17.7% to 33.5% of total fee income at universities in 2003-2004 (Bolsmann & Miller, 2008).
Hence, international student recruitment has a strong economic value at the national and institutional levels. It is one thing to establish this fact, however, and another to argue that international student recruitment is motivated first and foremost by economic and financial incentives. A survey of the literature reveals that this is indeed the case.
Economic and Financial: the Primary Rationale
The financial rationale for international student recruitment is not a new phenomenon, and has long existed alongside other rationales. Bolsmann and Miller (2008) described three rationales or strands that universities in England have followed. The first, Academic Internationalism, views the university as a place of learning for all nationalities. The second, Economic Competition, sees students as an economic resource for universities and therefore a source of competition among them. The third, a Developmental strand, saw international education as a means of providing aid and development to poorer countries, such as those of the British Commonwealth. The developmental strand was almost the almost exclusive rationale for international student recruitment in Australia until the mid-1980s, and had the aim of “establishing good relations with current and potential trading partners.” (Harman, 2004, p. 106) The first and third strands positioned universities, especially those in the U.S. and UK, to take advantage of the financial rationale by exploiting political and imperial connections to develop markets and earn income (Bolsmann & Miller, 2008).
The rationales for international student recruitment can be analyzed at the institutional and national levels. These levels may be closely intertwined. Jiang (2008) reviewed Knight’s (1997) four rationales for the internationalization of higher education. The four rationales are: political (for example spreading national influence and gaining knowledge of other cultures, systems, and languages); long-term economic (such as the need to maintain a country’s competitiveness in the global marketplace); academic (adding value to the academic program through international content); and cultural/social (understanding the relationship of one’s own culture and society to others). With the end of the Cold War and the rise of the global knowledge economy, the significance of the academic and cultural/social rationales for internationalization declined (Jiang, 2008). Universities were regarded as needing to become financially viable and globally competitive (Bolsmann & Miller, 2008). An example is provided in Cudmore’s study of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology in Ontario, Canada, which revealed that two of the top three rationales institutions gave for international student recruitment were revenue generation and the developing of international trade links (the other was the opportunity to expose the student body to international perspectives) (Cudmore, 2005). Cudmore summarized the view of several observers that “the humanitarian motivation to recruit international students has declined, replaced by a motivation to boost revenue and export earnings.” (Cudmore, 2005, p. 47)
Some studies have focused on analysis at the institutional level. Bolsmann and Miller’s (2008) survey of administrators involved in international student recruitment at different types of universities in the UK suggested that the financial rationale is an underlying or driving force behind other rationales at the institutional level, or is intimately tied to them. While the desire to become a ‘world-class institution’ appeared to be a motivator, one respondent acknowledged that this status would allow the university to charge more for tuition. Another respondent stated that while gaining an international profile was a key reason for international student recruitment, the full fees paid by international students were helpful to the university. Yet another claimed that the university finance department treated international student fee revenue as the bottom line, and doubted whether there would be such a strong push to recruit international students if it were not for the income they brought in. Bolsmann and Miller concluded that although the respondents at different types of universities had a difference of emphasis in their rationale, they all appreciated the importance of the revenue generated by enrolling international students, and that the primary discourse around international students was “economic and market-orientated.” (p. 87)
Tian and Lowe, (2009) also writing on internationalization in UK higher education, expressed concern that even where academic rationales appear to justify internationalization in education, internationalization is motivated primarily by the economic rationale. Toyoshima (2007), in a study that compared long-established UK universities with post-secondary institutions that were converted into universities in 1992, found that the economic rationale was emphasized in the latter. All respondents but one from these institutions stated that the chief motivations for international student recruitment were financial. This suggests that newly internationalizing universities place financial considerations above all others, a hypothesis supported by Zhao and Wildemeersch in their study of internationalization in European universities, which found that, “(i)n most cases, the first step of many universities toward internationalization has a numeric orientation, with the number of international students as the main indicator of success.” (Zhao & Wildemeersch, 2008, p. 51)
At the national level, international student recruitment is described as a significant contributor of export earnings (Bolsmann & Miller, 2008), or as a major export industry (Codd, 2004). Following from this development, higher education is coming to be seen as a national strategy for global competitiveness. Douglass and Edelstein (2009), for example, recommended that the Obama administration promote higher education as an export industry and a national asset, and proposed that the administration build capacity in the sector.
Harman (2004), who investigated the development of higher education service export in Australia, also reached the conclusion that the most significant development in the internationalization of higher education was the rise in enrollments of full fee-paying international students. Although Harman described a broad governmental vision for higher education internationalization – including cultural understanding and the development of a more international outlook in Australia, following a period of approximately seven years during which the emphasis was on the commercial export of higher education - the most notable changes in export education that Harman acknowledged were all expressed in numerical terms, such as a 282% increase in international student numbers between 1990 and 2000, and an increase in the proportion of international students in Australian higher education from 5% to 14%. (p. 108) The most obvious benefit to Australian universities of increased international student enrollment, Harman stated, is financial (p. 113). Harman’s focus on the quantitative data associated with international student recruitment is typical of the market-centered discourse adopted by writers who view international education as a form of international trade. Other observers ground their discussion of international student recruitment in a discourse stressing global markets and competition, and the importance of international student fees to institutional success (Douglass & Edelstein, 2009; Mazzarol & Soutar, 2008). In this market-centered discourse, the focus is on student numbers and monetary value.
The literature surveyed confirms Jiang’s (2008) claim that higher education internationalization “is becoming increasingly dominated by economic imperatives that focus on exporting education and generating income from overseas students” (p. 347), indeed that “an economic rationale…dominates over political, academic, or cultural/social rationales.” (p. 352)
International Students and Full Fees
Underlying the revenue contributed by increasing numbers of international students are the full fees they pay to attend foreign institutions. In many countries, charging international students full fees is a relatively new development, but one which institutions have come to depend on. In New Zealand, only 13% of international students in higher education paid full tuition in 1990; this had risen to 95% by 2003 (Martens & Starke, 2008). Enslin and Hedge (2008) and Bolsmann and Miller (2008) detailed the history of how full fees came to be instituted for international students in the UK. Prior to 1967, international students and domestic students paid the same fees; all were subsidized out of public funds. A fee differential for international students was introduced in 1967 with the intention of reducing demand from international students and the strain on funds; ironically, this move encouraged institutions to step up efforts to recruit international students, since those students now represented a financial benefit to the institutions. In the 1970s, quotas on international student recruitment were put in place, while tuition fees for international students continued to rise and government support was withdrawn. In 1980, when the government withdrew all support for international students, it also removed limits on international student numbers, and full fees became an incentive for institutions to recruit them. According to Coate (2009) in reference to UK higher education, “the entire rationale for designating certain students as ‘international’ rather than ‘home’ is based on a need to decide who pays full-cost fees (of up to £18,000 for some courses) when registering.” (p. 276) Institutions in New Zealand, where the government has been the source of a significant amount of funding in the past, have come to depend on the income contributed by full-fee paying students (Codd, 2004). In Australia, the switch from government-subsidized aid to a full-fee model for international students confounded expectations that international student enrollments would decrease as a result; it is estimated that there were 20 000 subsidized international students in 1986, but 48 000 full-fee international students in 1991 (Naidoo, 2006).
Neoliberalism and the Rise of the Economic and Financial Strategy
The chief cause identified in the literature for the rise of international student recruitment as a financial strategy by institutions is the reduction in traditional sources of funding, in particular of government funding. This is linked in the literature to the rise of neoliberalism, an ideology that promotes private enterprise and the free market as deliverer of goods and services, and a reduced role for government (Tilak, 2008). Neoliberal policies are associated with reduced public funding, the deregulation of markets, and the privatization of welfare provision (Cudmore, 2005). The rising importance of the financial and economic rationales for international student recruitment is considered “part of a broader shift in policy and discourse towards neo-liberalism where universities are seen as contributors to the national economy and are expected to compete globally for international students who would pay fees.” (Bolsmann & Miller, 2008, p. 76) Higher education, in the neo-liberal world view is conceived as an investment in human capital that brings benefits to individuals, corporations, and the national economy (Bolsmann & Miller, 2008).
Diminishing state support associated with neoliberal policies has provided a strong incentive to institutions to recruit international students (Cudmore, 2005; De Vita & Case, 2003; Naidoo, 2010; Tilak, 2008). In Britain, the shift occurred when the conservative Thatcher government came to power in 1979 (Bolsmann & Miller, 2008; De Vita & Case, 2003; Toyoshima, 2007). This position did not change with the incoming New Labour government in the mid-nineties, and the Prime Minister’s Initiatives of 1998 and 2006 called for the universities to recruit large numbers of international students (Coate, 2009). The result is a higher education policy that stresses international student recruitment for economic gain and as a way to strengthen Britain’s competitiveness on the world stage (Enslin & Hedge, 2008). Douglass and Edelstein (Douglass & Edelstein, 2009) recommended that the Obama administration adopt this strategy to revive U.S. public institutions. Consistent with the neo-liberal perspective, rather than recommending direct financial support for the universities, they proposed that the universities become more entrepreneurial in international student recruitment.
Similar developments took place in other countries. Reductions in government funding are reported by Cudmore (2005) to have impacted Canadian institutions, such that revenue generation was the prime motivation for international student recruitment in the institutions he studied. Codd, in a discussion of educational commercialization in New Zealand, claimed that commercialization was “the latest phase of a neoliberal agenda for educational reform that began with the policies of decentralization, marketisation, privatisation, and the general subordination of education to economic objectives.” (Codd, 2004, p. 23) This agenda was pursued following the election of 1984 (Martens & Starke, 2008), when public education came to be viewed by the Treasury, the most significant influence on national policy, as a drain on the nation’s economy, and a sector that should therefore be subject to market forces (Codd, 2004). In New Zealand, universities conceived as enterprises (Martens & Starke, 2008) compete for resources, and a significant means of gaining access to financial resources is through the recruitment of international students. Many institutions are now dependent on the revenue generated by international students (Codd, 2004). International students have become, in Lewis’s (2005) telling, a cash cow for the funding of institutions.
The result of thinking of higher education in neo-liberal terms is, according to critics, a conception of education as an internationally traded commodity (Martens & Starke, 2008; Tilak, 2008), packaged and sold like other products and services (Cudmore, 2005) Bolsmann and Miller (2008) described how a neo-liberal approach to education, which views universities as competitive providers and students as rational consumers, can cause knowledge and learning to be packaged into discrete modules that can be bought and sold as a commodity. Critics such as these deny that higher education institutions are producers of commercial goods and that higher education is a commodity.
Problems Caused by the Economic and Financial Rationales
Institutions considering international student recruitment as a means to resolving financial problems need to be aware that this strategy can have negative consequences. Too great a focus on financial goals can divert institutional attention away from important matters such as attending to international students’ specific academic, social, and cultural needs; it can have detrimental effects on the institution as a whole; it can have negative implications for equality among students, institutions, and nations; and it may lead universities away from their purpose of serving the public good.
International students, like domestic students, have a need to make friends and be accepted into a social group. For international students in an unfamiliar culture, and in many cases speaking a foreign language, the need for social support and acceptance may be particularly strong. Many international students may desire to interact with students from the host country or gain access to the country’s culture (Marriott, du Plessis, & Pu, 2010), but may feel uncertain and anxious about how to do this (Zhao & Wildemeersch, 2008). If they are unable to interact with students from the host country, they may be deeply dissatisfied with their experience at the institution (Romm, 1991, cited in Harman, 2004). Indeed, while an institution may celebrate diversity and inclusion, the social integration of domestic and international students does not occur naturally (Tian & Lowe, 2009) Students from the host country, unprepared for interaction with international students, may engage in deliberate social exclusion of international students. (Tian & Lowe, 2009) Alternatively, domestic students may be passive in their relationships with international students and not make attempts to reach out to them; or they may hold racial or ethnic stereotypes about international students (Zhao & Wildemeersch, 2008). As a result, international students may perceive themselves as outsiders, which may lead to feelings of anguish and loss (Tian & Lowe, 2009), and may result in their socializing only with conationals (Zhao & Wildemeersch, 2008). Hence, institutions need to address and make provision for international students’ social and cultural needs.
International students may also experience difficulties in the classroom, in part because of their lack of familiarity with the academic traditions and practices of the host country. In universities in the UK, it has been found that lecturers and British students do not make special accommodations for Chinese students in the classroom, but that the Chinese students are left to rely on their own efforts to learn to participate and assimilate, a situation which can lead to feelings of distress and exclusion (Tian & Lowe, 2009). For their part, faculty may only see language difficulties, lack of participation, and inappropriate learning habits among international students (Zhao & Wildemeersch, 2008), and regard these as an academic deficit (Coate, 2009) that is the students’ responsibility, rather than a difference that is the institution’s responsibility to address. International students may thus come to be seen not as a resource that enriches the institution, but as a problem (Tian & Lowe, 2009). Institutions should therefore reflect on their position on educating international students. On the one hand, they may send a welcoming message to them; on the other, classroom practices may make no provision for the fact that these students may have differing and greater needs than many domestic students.
The above concerns may arise wherever institutions recruit international students; they may be exacerbated in cases where the institution is overly focused on the recruitment for financial reasons. The next concern is directly linked to international student recruitment as a financial decision: how are international students, recruited for financial reasons, perceived by institutions and policy makers? International students may come to be treated as an economic unit that brings income to the institution (Lewis, 2005), or as financially important but academically deficient (Coate, 2009) As payers of substantial fees, students may come to be treated by the institution as customers, and, positioned in this way, students may come to view their degree as a right because they have paid for it (De Vita & Case, 2003). While traditionally students studied abroad to gain ‘soft skills’ such as cultural exposure and language skills, they increasingly see it as a means of earning high-ranking academic qualifications and access to the job market (Martens & Starke, 2008). Rather than traveling abroad seeking knowledge and wisdom, they may be in search of qualifications, a phenomenon that has been referred to as “diploma disease.” (Dore (1976), cited in Naidoo, 2006)
There may be an ethical tension (Enslin & Hedge, 2008) between universities that declare a commitment to social justice on the one hand, and their practice of charging international students substantially higher fees than domestic students for no other reason than that they are international. An example of such a tension is the Code of Conduct implemented by the New Zealand government for institutions recruiting international students, which seeks to ensure international student welfare. While the implementation of such a code might be evidence of a genuinely caring attitude on the part of the government, when seen in the context of a national policy of international student recruitment having a rationale grounded in international competitiveness, such a code may in fact be evidence for a government seeking to strengthen the international education industry in order to enhance its ability to generate revenue (Lewis, 2005). Indeed, some commentators state explicitly that they are seeking to improve the quality of service of higher education institutions to international students in order to increase New Zealand’s international competitiveness (Marriott et al., 2010). Therefore, international student recruitment as a financial strategy may set up an ambiguous relationship between institutions and students, in which knowledge development and dissemination becomes another service industry with providers on the one hand and customers on the other.
There are further caveats at the level of institutional management. Institutions believing that international student recruitment will improve the diversity of their student body may be disappointed because, while there may be an expectation that international students should originate from a variety of countries, in fact, a relatively small number of countries may be particularly active in sending students abroad. These students may be particularly easy or relatively cheap to recruit, and this can lead to a majority of international students coming from one country and forming a separate cultural group on campus, as some institutions in the UK have found (Bolsmann & Miller, 2008).
The temptation to increase the number of full fee-paying international students on campus can also lead to concerns of an overdependence on international student revenue, and an uneven balance between international students and domestic students on campus (Harman, 2004). This can result in a dilution of the international students’ experience of studying in a foreign country, since they have insufficient opportunities to engage with students from the host country (Martens & Starke, 2008). Too rapid an increase in international student enrollments or a lack of institutional coordination can lead to institutions or individual departments that have had a domestic orientation becoming overextended and unable to serve the international population appropriately (Douglass & Edelstein, 2009; Naidoo, 2010).
A further concern at the institutional level lies in the tension between the traditionally cooperative nature of academia, whereby faculty engage in international collaboration and international students are recruited within an ideology of “transformational internationalization,” (Turner & Robson, 2007) with international activities embedded in institutional routines; and a competitive, revenue-generating orientation that can alienate faculty from institutional efforts toward internationalization, in which faculty may feel cynical about internationalization; or that they are victims of it rather than participants in it; or that international students are being recruited in order to secure their continued employment (Turner & Robson, 2007).
The practice of charging international students higher fees than domestic students has led to concerns that this practice may exacerbate inequality among students, institutions, and nations. University and college recruiters may target their efforts in countries where there are students who can afford to pay fees, while ignoring students in poorer countries (Cudmore, 2005), resulting in a cycle in which richer countries are increasingly able to compete in order to provide a high standard of living for their citizens, while poorer countries are unable to enter this “race” (Enslin & Hedge, 2008). Aggressive international student recruitment driven by institutions that have the ability and strong financial rationale to do so places these institutions in a privileged position as knowledge providers to the world, increasing inequality among institutions worldwide in favor of those in wealthier nations (Jiang, 2008). Some argue that in a world in which authority is shared between national governments and supra-national bodies such as the European Union and the World Trade Organization, where states are mutually dependent and global flows of people and finance are on the increase, it is no longer ethical to discriminate against nationals of other countries by assigning them the designation ‘international’ and charging them higher fees (Enslin & Hedge, 2008).
Finally, international student recruitment as a financial strategy raises concerns about the changing nature and role of universities. Higher education can be seen as either a public good that should not be subject to market forces, or as a private good that is subject to competition and can be sold for a profit (Marginson, 1993, as cited in Codd, 2004; Martens & Starke, 2008). A public good can be defined as one that is non-excludable and non-rivalrous; that is, it cannot be provided to some and not to others, and its consumption by some does not diminish the ability of others to consume it (Tilak, 2008). Public goods also produce externalities in the form of benefits to the public. (Tilak, 2008) If higher education fulfills these criteria, as has been argued (Stiglitz (1999), as cited in Tilak, 2008) then it is not amenable to being provided in a competitive environment. Those who argue for treating higher education as a service to be bought and sold emphasize the benefits to individuals, but may neglect to take into account the public benefits of higher education, which are thus in danger of disappearing (Tilak, 2008). Since universities in many countries are becoming less dependent on national governments for support, and the individual nations of the world are increasingly integrated, it can be argued that this public good extends globally rather than merely within-country (Enslin & Hedge, 2008). There is evidence, however, that the view of higher education as a private good has triumphed over the public good position, a situation that some find offensive (Harman, 2004). For example, export education has been described by the New Zealand government as primarily a commercial activity, which is particularly significant in a country where higher education was originally conceived as being free, accessible, and universal (Codd, 2004).
Conclusion
This review investigated the extent to which international student recruitment is driven by economic and financial rationales, and sought to describe problems caused when institutions and nations adopt these rationales. The literature suggests that the economic and financial rationale is the most important.
The recruitment of full fee-paying international students can be beneficial for institutions and nations. The practice may strengthen higher education by generating revenue for institutions, particularly when government support is being withdrawn. Export education might be seen as a first step in institutional internationalization, one that helps institutions prepare to operate in a more globally integrated world through the development of greater sensitivity toward international students by faculty, staff, and students, as well as through the internationalization of the curriculum and international collaboration in research (Harman, 2004). However, too great a focus on the economic and financial rationale for international student recruitment may lead to neglect of a number of important questions, including those concerning the welfare of international students, the impact on the institution and its management, inequality among students, institutions, and nations, and the purpose of higher education.
Institutional leadership teams should therefore consider the following recommendations before being tempted to use international student recruitment for revenue generation:
1. Develop a strategy for international engagement, one that makes internationalization a central part of the institution’s activities (Douglass & Edelstein, 2009). Internationalization does not stop with the recruitment of international students; it means integrating an international and intercultural element into the teaching, research, and service functions of the institution (Knight (1999), as cited in Jiang, 2008). International student recruitment must be accompanied by a willingness to attend to international students’ needs. Additionally, domestic students, as well as faculty and staff, need to be open to their presence.
2. Reflect on the purpose of higher education. Conceive of it not merely as a commodity to be traded, but as a tool for good, such as attaining global justice (Enslin & Hedge, 2008).
3. Consider how a broadly and deeply conceived institutional internationalization can be a means for personal and institutional transformation, as opposed to focusing on international student recruitment as a means of revenue generation (Turner & Robson, 2007; Zhao & Wildemeersch, 2008).
In the end, an ethical approach to education requires that institutional decision-makers pay attention to the needs of students and the consequences of having them on campus, and not merely to their financial value.
References
Bolsmann, C., & Miller, H. (2008). International Student Recruitment to Universities in England: Discourse, Rationales, and Globalisation. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 6(1), 75–88. doi:10.1080/14767720701855634
Coate, K. (2009). Exploring the unknown: Levinas and international students in English higher education. Journal of Education Policy, 24(3), 271–282.
Codd, J. (2004). Export Education and the Commercialization of Public Education in New Zealand. Annual Review of Education, (13), 21-41.
Cudmore, G. (2005). Globalization, internationalization, and the recruitment of international students in higher education, and in the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology. The Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 35(1), 37-60.
Dictionary.com. (2011). . Retrieved June 16, 2011, from http://dictionary.reference.com/
Douglass, J. A., & Edelstein, R. (2009). The Global Competition for Talent ( No. CSHE 8.09). Research and Occasional Paper Series. Berkeley, CA: Center for Studies in Higher Education.
Enslin, P., & Hedge, N. (2008). International Students, Export Earnings, and the Demands of Social Justice. Ethics and Education, 3(2), 107-119. doi:10.1080/17449640802395984
Harman, G. (2004). New Directions in Internationalizing Higher Education: Australia’s Development as an Exporter of Higher Education Services. Higher Education Policy, (17), 101-120. doi:10.1057/palgrave.hep.8300044
Jiang, X. (2008). Towards the Internationalization of Higher Education from a Critical Perspective. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 32(4), 347-358. doi:10.1080/03098770802395561
Lewis, N. (2005). Code of Practice for the Pastoral Care of International Students: Making a Globalising Industry in New Zealand. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 3(1), 5-47.
Marriott, J., du Plessis, A. J., & Pu, M. (2010). Export Education: How Do International Students Experience New Zealand’s Service to Them? Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 2(8), 29-41.
Martens, K., & Starke, P. (2008). Small Country, Big Business? New Zealand as Education Exporter. Comparative Education, 44(1), 3-19.
Mazzarol, T. W., & Soutar, G. N. (2008). Australian Educational Institutions’ International Markets: A Correspondence Analysis. International Journal of Educational Management, 22(3), 229-238. doi:10.1108/09513540810861865
Naidoo, V. (2006). International Education: A Tertiary-Level Industry Update. Journal of Research in International Education, 5(3), 323-345. doi:10.1177/1475240906069455
Naidoo, V. (2010). From ivory towers to international business: are universities export ready in their recruitment of international students? Journal of Studies in International Education, 14(5), 5-28. doi:10.1177/1028315308327953
Tian, M., & Lowe, J. (2009). Existentialist internationalisation and the Chinese student experience in English universities. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 39(5), 659-676. doi:10.1080/03057920903125693
Tilak, J. B. G. (2008). Higher Education: a Public Good, or a Commodity for Trade? Prospects, (38), 449-466. doi:10.1007/s11125-009-9093-2
Toyoshima, M. (2007). International Strategies of Universities in England. London Review of Education, 5(3), 265–280. doi:10.1080/14748460701661328
Turner, Y., & Robson, S. (2007). Competitive and cooperative impulses to internationalization: reflecting on the interplay between management intentions and the experience of academics in a British university. Education, Knowledge, & Economy, 1(1), 65-82. doi:10.1080/17496890601128241
De Vita, G., & Case, P. (2003). Rethinking the Internationalization Agenda in UK Higher Education. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 27(4), 383-398.
Zhao, M., & Wildemeersch, D. (2008). Hosting Foreign Students in European Universities. European Education, 40(1), 51-62. doi:10.2753/EUE1056-4934400104
[1] Following the American Heritage Dictionary (“Dictionary.com,” 2011), financial is defined as relating to money matters; economic is defined as pertaining to the production, distribution, and use of wealth. The two terms are used somewhat interchangeably in this review.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
The Role of Nature in Educational Thought and Practice
Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.
(Huston 1952)
It is common in modern America for people to think that what is natural is good for us. Many people try to eat ‘natural’ food, use ‘natural’ products, and whenever possible get ‘back to nature.’ In the field of education, the question of whether and to what extent a natural approach is appropriate has been debated for over two hundred years, and continues today. For example, early childhood educators tend to stress the importance of teaching what is ‘developmentally appropriate’ to the child, even to the point of withholding formal work on basic skills such as letter and number practice. On the other hand, many parents fret over whether their child is learning enough, which accounts for the huge market in ‘kindergarten-readiness’ and other home-study materials, all of which involve attempting to push the child ahead, and betray a lack of faith in the ‘nature knows best approach.’ In my own field, language teaching, a number of – especially commercial – enterprises have made a name for themselves by claiming to have students learn a language ‘they way you learned your first language,’ a notion that has become discredited by psycholinguistic research. And throughout the whole educational enterprise, there is an attempt to align teaching and learning with ideas about the way people learn naturally, such as learning by doing or experiential education, or with theories about how individuals learn, such as multiple intelligences and neurolinguistic programming. By examining where ideas about nature in education came from and how they developed, we can better understand their manifestations in today’s educational world, and to form a clearer judgment about whether we should embrace a natural approach in education, or to ‘rise above’ nature in educational practice.
One of the earliest and most influential thinkers to address nature in education is Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778), who, in his book Emile proposed a ‘negative education’ in which the teacher does as little as possible to corrupt the innocent child with teaching. Rousseau was a romantic who glorified nature, abhorred organized religion, believed that society corrupted man, and idealized the innocence of childhood. Education, for Rousseau, does for children what cultivation does for plants, and “his entire philosophy rests upon this comparison of plants and children.” (Postman 1995 p.174) This metaphor, explicitly propounded by Rousseau, continued in the thinking of later educational thinkers. Rousseau, though, was the one who took this idea to its greatest extreme in his prescription for teaching. In his view, educating the child involved “letting the original benign nature of the child “unfold.”” (Hillesheim and Merrill 1971 p. 24) This meant that the teacher should withdraw and as much as possible let the child learn for himself (Power 1970 p. 478) allowing the mind to be “left undisturbed till its faculties have developed.” (Rousseau 1762 p. 29) For Rousseau, this meant withholding vocabulary, books, and correction, among other things.
As a romantic, Rousseau was part of a movement that glorified nature as a phenomenon ‘out there.’ Much romantic poetry, painting, and music depicted the great outdoors, with its mountains and valleys, rivers and oceans, powerful storms and bucolic scenes. Rousseau’s love of nature and antipathy toward civilization led him to recommend isolating the child from society and raising him in a rural environment in which he could learn by experience from nature. Rousseau’s examples of such experiential learning include the planting and cultivation of beans in a garden to teach a lesson about ownership, and having the child believe he is lost in a forest in order to discover from (bitter) experience how to find one’s way using the position of the sun.
If Rousseau’s recommendations seem extreme, we should remember that in the 18th century, man’s connection to nature was a Romantic idea and had little scientific basis. In later educational thinking, with the gradual development of psychological thinking, we see a shift from the external view of nature as teacher, toward an internalizing of nature (nature in man as opposed to man in nature), as well as a much more nuanced approach to nature’s and the human teacher’s respective roles than we find in Rousseau. In addition, Rousseau was not a teacher himself, and did not concern himself with the practicalities of his educational scheme. As Power states, “Rousseau was no schoolmaster and showed no interest in becoming one. He expounded theories; their application was left to others.” (Power 1970 p. 495) We should see his educational thinking as a source of ideas to be considered rather than as a teaching methodology to be implemented in its pure form.
Among those Rousseau influenced was Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746 – 1827), who became a source of educational advice and inspiration in his day, and was himself influential in American education. (Power 1970, p. 494) Having read Emile, Pestalozzi attempted to put Rousseau’s naturalistic principles into practice. He bought a farm in which he hoped to run a school, but, it failed, and he later stated that he had not been ready for the practical business of managing children’s education (Power 1970 p. 489) – testimony, perhaps, to the danger of relying on untested educational thinking such as Rousseau’s.
Nonetheless, as Reese (2005) reports, Pestalozzi wrote extensively about the power of nature, incorporating the elevation of the peasant woman and mother with nostalgia for the countryside. ( p.11) The farm incident and these writings suggest that Pestalozzi shared Rousseau’s passion for nature as external phenomenon, but it seems that as Pestalozzi became more experienced, his focus turned inward toward the mind of the child. As a teacher, he realized he could not leave the education of children to nature; he had to teach, and did, developing a methodology in which children engaged in oral repetition while engaged in other activities, as well as an approach to reading which emphasized the sounding out of combinations of syllables (Power 1970 p.491 - 2) By 1801, Pestalozzi could describe his wariness toward reliance on nature in education as follows:
Wherever you carelessly leave the earth to nature, it bears weeds and thistles.
Wherever you leave the education of your species to it, it goes not further than a
confused observation that is not adapted to your power of comprehension, nor to
that of your child, in the way that is needed for instruction. (Pestalozzi 1801 p. 44)
This was a clear rejection of Rousseau’s negative education. On the other hand, we see in Pestalozzi a concern with psychology and human development. He asserted that teaching should come at the correct stage of the child’s development, and not before:
Nature has enclosed man’s higher aptitudes as in a budding pearl; if you break
the shell before it opens on its own, you will find only a budding pearl. You
will have destroyed the treasure you should have preserved for your child.
(Pestalozzi 1951 p. 34)
Further, Pestalozzi attempted to align teaching with how he believed children learn naturally, through direct experience of objects to be analyzed according to their number, their form, and their name. (Power 1970 p. 492) He believed that reading should be subordinate to speaking, writing to drawing, the simple should precede the complex, and the familiar the unfamiliar. (Pestalozzi 1801 p. 39) In other words, though Pestalozzi shared Rousseau’s romantic captivation with external nature, he was first and foremost a teacher and observer of children, and we see in his thinking and practice an attempt to work with the child’s inner nature as opposed to merely trusting nature to do its work.
This idea was further developed by Friedrich Wilhelm Froebel (1782 – 1852) inventor of the kindergarten, the name and concept of which continues the ‘child as plant’ metaphor introduced by Rousseau. Power sums up Froebel’s general educational philosophy as follows:
He believed that man grew much as plants and animals grow, with this
difference: Plants and animals develop according to a definite inner law
of their nature; man, being endowed with a mental nature, is able to shape
many of the elements of his own nature. (Power 1970 p. 513)
Like Pestalozzi, Froebel believed that there were distinct periods of development through which children passed, and that therefore “the method of instruction must be directed by the laws of development of the human mind as well as those of the subjects to be taught.” (Power 1970 p. 511) He strongly believed that children should come into contact with the world through play at the early stage, and that these ‘plays’ should proceed from simple to more complex: his plan was to conceive of, catalog, and prescribe the ‘plays’ which would best provide learning opportunities at each stage of development . Froebel shared the Romantics’ devotion to nature as teacher, making regular trips to the fields and forests with his pupils, though not allowing them free rein there, as Rousseau counseled (Power 1970 p. 514) Though his vision of nature was infused with the idea of a unity of man, nature, and God, to which people should be led through education, Froebel was a teacher, and his main influence lies in his practical ideas for the organization of learning through the kindergarten, an environment in which children could develop, learn and grow naturally. In Froebel we see a continuation of the move away from the Romantic ideal of nature as teacher, and an attempt at a more scientific approach to nature, arising from a growing recognition that education should be aligned with the child’s inner nature.
In the course of the 19th century, the work of two men was of key importance in fundamentally altering perceptions of the relationship between human beings and nature. Charles Darwin’s 1959 book On the Origin of Species provided a plausible mechanism – natural selection - by which evolution proceeds, erasing any line that humans had wished to draw between themselves and the rest of creation. William James’ book. Principles of Psychology, published in 1890, laid out in greater sophistication than ever before what was known about the workings of the human mind. As a result of this and other scientific work, the journey of nature from ‘out there’ to within was complete, nature was the object of scientific study, and on this basis John Dewey built his educational approach.
Dewey wanted to replace the formalistic, age-graded elementary school of the 19th century, and its rigid curriculum, with an approach that connected pupils back to life – not to nature, as with some of his predecessors, but to the life of society, or what he called “the social consciousness of the race.” (Dewey 1897 p. 233) For Dewey, external nature was an object of study among others, but had little role in the educational process itself, in stark contrast with Rousseau. Internal nature – that of the child – took precedence in Dewey’s thinking. “The child’s own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education,” he wrote, and therefore “education…must begin with a psychological insight into the child’s capacities, interests, and habits.” (ibid p. 234 – 235) Children follow a chronology of development, and their interests provide ‘leverage’ and ‘propulsion’ (Dewey 1902 p. 112) to be utilized by the observant and sympathetic teacher, who, far from simply leaving the children to learn and discover by themselves, brings the subject matter into alignment with the pupils’ interests. Teachers should not take subject matter in its raw form and attempt to insert it into their pupils’ minds; rather they should attempt to mediate the material, making it comprehensible and useable to the children at their stage of development. Dewey believed that the schools of his day were set up for pupils to be passive recipients of knowledge. Children, on the other hand, were active, and education needed to marshal this activity and “give it direction.” (Dewey 1915 p. 25) Thus Dewey’s approach focuses heavily on the psychological, ‘inner nature’ of the child. He was child-centered, but did not promote a ‘laissez-faire,’ do-nothing approach in the classroom which was associated with the worst excesses of the progressive, child-centered education movement, though he has been thus maligned by some who wish to see a return to a more ‘traditional’ educational approach.
I have done little justice to the complex and nuanced thinking of the educational philosophers I have discussed above, but I hope that I have shown that the question of nature in education has not been answered in a uniform way by those who have addressed it. A reliance purely on nature has never been found to be effective in education, and such an approach has not been advocated by anyone of influence except Rousseau – and even his writings are not consistent on this point. To characterize child-centered education as an approach which allows children to grow naturally while actively teaching them nothing would be to attack a straw man. Nevertheless, in pre-schools and kindergartens I have visited, I have noticed an element of ‘withholding’ until the child is deemed ready, accompanied by the view that it is the child him or herself who will make this readiness known. For example, in conversation with my child’s pre-school teacher, I asked about her approach to writing. She stated that writing is a voluntary activity in the school, and that it is always based on the child’s interests. She gave the example of my son building a structure out of blocks. If he child seemed ready, she would ask him to draw a picture of the structure, and then, if he was inclined, to label the picture. “It sounds a lot like Dewey,” I remarked. “I love Dewey,” she replied.
What I left unsaid in this conversation is that I spend an hour each weekend on letter, word, and number practice with my son. We rarely use objects; he completes worksheets and books that provide extensive drilling of the writing of letters, words, and numbers. For his part, he is enthusiastic (for now) about our ‘study time’ and is becoming proficient in the skills we have practiced. But it raises the question: is he doing well because he individually is developmentally ready for this practice, or am I causing him to ‘rise above’ his nature? More importantly, is there a place for imposing on children tasks which may seem to be slightly ahead of their developmental level, in order to ‘pull them up’ to the knowledge and skills we want them to master? If the latter, then what is our responsibility – to pull children up as early as possible in order to give them a good start in life, or to ‘let them be children’ and introduce these skills when they show the inclination?
The latter position concerns me. There is much evidence, for example, that starting to learn a second language early is advantageous, and that the ability to become fully proficient in a second language diminishes as a child grows older. Given that knowledge, should we wait until the child shows a ‘natural’ interest in learning another language (which could take a very long time, especially in a more culturally homogeneous environment), or do we put to use the knowledge provided by cognitive science and take the initiative to begin teaching the language without the child’s initial interest?
In his 1938 book, Experience and Education, John Dewey wrote:
The history of educational theory is marked by the opposition between the idea
that education is development from within and that it is formation from without;
that it is based upon natural endowments and that education is a process of
overcoming natural inclination and substituting in its place habits acquired
under external pressure. (Dewey 1938 p. 248)
I see this potentially as a creative tension that could lead to innovative practices, and I read in Dewey not an attempt to impose unthinkingly the former view at the expense of the latter, but an effort to explore how to resolve the tension. He was not the easiest writer to make sense of, however, and his position is sometimes mischaracterized as being a representative of an extreme ‘development from within’ position. Unfortunately, questions like this can come to be seen as either-or positions, with theorists and practitioners dividing into camps that refuse to interact with each other. What I have tried to do in this essay is to demonstrate that influential thinkers who advocated a role for nature in education neither spoke with one voice, nor for the most part promoted a ‘hands-off’ approach in the classroom. It would perhaps help to move the debate forward in a constructive way if this were more widely understood.
References
Dewey, J. (1897). My Pedagogic Creed (extract), in Hildesheim, J.W. & Merrill, G.D., 1971. Pacific Palisades, Goodyear.
Dewey, J. (1902). The Child and the Curriculum, in The School and Society & The Child and the Curriculum. New York, Dover, 2002.
Dewey, J. (1915). The School and Society, in The School and Society & Child & Curriculum New York, Dover, 2002.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education (extract), in Hildesheim, J.W. & Merrill, G.D., 1971. Pacific Palisades, Goodyear.
Hillesheim, J. W. and G. D. Merrill, Eds. (1971). Theory and Practice in the History of American Education. Pacific Palisades, Goodyear.
Huston, J. (1952). The African Queen. USA.
Pestalozzi, J. H. (1801). How Gertrude Teaches Her Children (extract), in Hillesheim, J.W. & Merrill, G.D, 1971. Pacific Palisades, Goodyear.
Pestalozzi, J. H. (1951). The Education of Man. New York, Philosophical Library.
Postman, N. (1995). The End of Education. New York, Vintage Books.
Power, E. J. (1970). Main Currents in the History of Education. New York, McGraw-Hill.
Reese, W. J. (2005). America's Public Schools - from the common school to "No Child Left Behind". Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
Rousseau, J. J. (1762). Emile (extract) in Hillesheim, J.W. & Merrill, G.D. (Eds), 1971. Pacific Palisades, Goodyear.
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