Annotated Bibliography and Reflection
Choose 4 articles out of Six
You have been asked to read several journal articles. You have also been asked to reflect on your cultural identity as you consider the many levels that constitute your identity. You also considered attribution, dialectics, and how all of this is applied to interpersonal communication.
For our final assignment, you will choose four articles from the articles you have been asked to read in class and/or from the article list provided for the assignment and you will complete three items for each of the four articles.
1. Complete an APA reference for the article
2. Complete an annotation of the article.
- The annotation is not a summary or paraphrase. In this paragraph, you will interpret and evaluate the contents of the article itself. It is a narrative paragraph of about 100 words providing information and assessment about the article.
3. Write a reflection of your own intercultural communication connecting the information from the article as it applies to you personally (This section only can be written in first person).
- In this paragraph of about 150 words, relate the information that you have evaluated in the article to your own cultural identity and intercultural communication. This is a reflective piece where you are able to connect the information in theory to an understanding of your own identity.
DISCLAIMER: Originality of attachments will be verified.
See attached articles
Speaking With A Stranger: Intercultural Classrooms’ Tensions And Managing Strategies
Kerdchoochuen, Jiraporn, PhD
.
Journal of College Teaching and Learning
; Littleton
Vol. 8, Iss. 9,
(Sep 2011): 9-17.
ABSTRACT
An increasing number of Thai students are enrolling in international programs recently with the expectation of real-life intercultural learning experiences. Most teachers in intercultural classrooms in Thailand are native English-speaking teachers who come from different cultures and have different perspectives. These teachers’ roles, teaching styles and relationships with their Thai students all impact instructional success and achievement in an intercultural classroom. Conflicts and tensions are expected in an intercultural classroom where diverse cultures meet. In order to enhance the quality of international education and explore classroom interactions, relationships, and conflicts; this study used qualitative in-depth inten’iews with 20 native Englishspeaking teachers and 20 Thai students at four international colleges in Thailand. The results indicate that when native English-speaking teachers and Thai students interacted, they encountered 3 dialectical tensions: stability/change, openness/closedness, and separation/connection. Additionally, they employed 6 different strategies; selection, cyclical alteration, segmentation, integrative reframing, integrative moderation, and indifference; to negotiate those tensions.
Keywords: Intercultural Classroom; Dialectical Tension; Native-English Speaking Teacher; Thai Student
INTRODUCTION
An effective educational system allows people to have a higher quality of life because higher educational attainment enables students to have more opportunities at their desired careers. Accordingly, most countries try to improve their educational system in order to help their people realize their desired career goals. The expected educational system must attempt to provide all levels of students with high-quality and valuable opportunities for education in order to enable them to acquire occupational competencies (Hamilton & Hurrelmann, 1994). Realizing the importance of job opportunities caused by the quality of good education, international programs in Thailand are emerging. International schools are believed to provide high quality education because they feature rigorous academic programs while at the same time exposing students to more global perspectives. Students who study at international schools are, therefore, expected to be good at cultural adaptation and proficient in the primary language taught at schools. In Thailand, the international education system has received a tremendous boost due to the Thai economic boom in the early 1990s (Monthienvichienchai, Bhibulbhanuwat, Kasemsuk, & Speece, 2002). Since then, international schools have been increasingly prevalent along with the continuing need for teachers who are native speakers of English. As a result, sojourners becoming teachers in international schools in Thailand are mostly from the native English-speaking countries: the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. However, not all foreign teachers teaching in Thailand understand the cultural differences. These cultural differences, therefore, lead to dialectical tensions native English-speaking teachers and Thai students have in their intercultural classroom.
Communication scholars have done extensive work exploring dialectical tensions. Given that most studies found similar dialectical tensions in interpersonal and organizational relationships (Baxter, 1990; Baxter & Montgomery, 1998; Chen, Drzewiecka, & Sias, 2001), scholars have begun to study dialectical tensions in other contexts, including classrooms. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to explore the dialectical tensions and managing strategies native English-speaking teachers and Thai students have in an intercultural classroom. When teachers and students from different cultures meet, they are likely to have contrasting expectations. Similar to the dialectical tensions, strategies used to balance the tensions were another main purpose of this study.
Dialectical Tensions
Dialectical or dialectics derived from a Greek word meaning the art of debate (Johnson & Long, 2002). Dialectics has been perceived as the use of contradictions to discover the truths. The word revived again in the 19th and 20th century as a means to study human social processes (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986). Although the perspective of dialectics had shifted from debate to social phenomena, it still emphasizes inherent elements of opposition in human communication. In psychology, tension is used to refer to conflict which occurs when differing forces of equal strength affect a person simultaneously (Lewin, 1948). In dialectical perspectives, Jameson (2004) defined dialectical tensions as “opposing needs that appear mutually exclusive but must be met simultaneously” (p. 257). Dialectical tension is caused by any phenomena that are incompatible and negate each other either by definitions or functions. Therefore, dialectical tension refers to the opposing needs relational partners have in their relationships.
Dialectical perspectives have been developed as an alternative way of conceptualizing relationship maintenance (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996, 1998). Most research on dialectical tensions has explored friendships and romantic relationships (see, for example, Baxter, 1988, 1994, 2004a; Baxter & Montgomery, 2000; Palowski, 1998). Dialectical scholars view relationship maintenance as an ongoing struggle of dialectical tensions. These tensions are caused by the continual presence of opposing forces in human lives (Montgomery, 1993). Baxter and Montgomery (1996) found that relational partners are constantly pulled by many different binary needs and neither need is more desirable than the other.
While many dialectical scholars use dialectical perspectives to explain interpersonal relationships, some researchers have applied them to study group communication. Based on dialectical perspectives, Johnson and Long (2002) viewed group communication process as the interplay between dialectical tensions that could be experienced by both individual and group level. Also, Barge (1996) examined the dialectics in group leadership. However, he did not study the whole group experience, but purely looking at leaders. Kramer (2004) similarly studied dialectics in community theater group and found that similar tensions occurred in both interpersonal and group relationships.
Strategies to Negotiate Tensions
Along with the studies on dialectical tensions, communications scholars had discovered approaches communicators employ to negotiate the tensions they encounter (Baxter, 1988; Pawlowski, 1998; Rawlins, 2000). According to Rawlins (2000), friends must negotiate their dialectical tensions with each other while they are communicating. However, to manage the tensions is to find a contented area between two forces instead of choosing one from the other. Since dialectical tensions, from dialectical perspectives, are in all relationships, examining the strategies relationship partners use to cope with each contradiction is important. Accordingly, Baxter (1988) proposed several strategic responses to contradictions. The first strategy is selection. That happens when partners select actions that support one polarity of their contradiction. The selection strategy can make a chosen action dominant, creating a dialectical transformation. The second strategy, temporal/spatial separation, can take two forms: cyclical alteration and segmentation. Cyclical alteration refers to a strategy of alternately responding to each polarity of the contradiction at different times, while segmentation occurs when partners mutually decide that some activities are responsive to one polarity of a contradiction. The last strategy is integration which consists of integrative reframing, integrative moderation, and integrative disqualification. Integrative reframing is an attempt to redefine a contradiction so parties do not perceive the polarities as a contradiction. Integrative moderation is the use of compromising messages in which both polarities of a contradiction are partially fulfilled while integrative disqualification refers to the use of ambiguous or indirect messages in order to avoid explicitly supporting or disagreeing with each polarity. The disqualification can involve content ambiguity, speaker ambiguity, target ambiguity, and context ambiguity (Baxter, 1988).
Even though most relationship partners encounter similar dialectics and strategies, the negation and equilibrium of dialectical tensions is managed differently within each relational turning point (Pawlowski, 1998) and relationship type (Baxter, 1994). Baxter (1990) studied how the three internal contradictions are managed by romantic relationship parties. The results indicate that the most frequent strategy to cope with the autonomy-connection contradiction is cyclical alternation while segmentation is the most frequent strategy used to manage the predictability-novelty and the openness-closedness contradiction.
The strategies used to manage dialectical tensions in interpersonal relationships and group contexts include a variety of explicit and implicit communication acts such as discussion or avoidance. However, those strategies might not be effective in every context including an intercultural classroom. Therefore, it is interesting to explore whether strategies native English-speaking teachers and Thai students use to manage the dialectical tensions in an intercultural classroom would be identical or dissimilar to those previously found in other contexts. The research questions of this study, consequently, were “What dialectical tensions do native English-speaking teachers and Thai students encounter in intercultural classrooms?” and “What strategies do native English-speaking teachers and Thai students use in order to manage those tensions?”
METHODOLOGY
The participants of this study were divided into two groups: 20 native English-speaking teachers and 20 Thai students. Both groups had to teach/study in an intercultural classroom at an undergraduate level in Thailand for at least a year. All 40 participants were interviewed individually. After the interviews, a coding process with constant comparison was used to analyze the data. In order to increase the confidentiality, pseudonyms were applied to all participants in this study.
FINDINGS
Based on interview data, native English-speaking teachers and Thai students encountered three main dialectical tensions which were stability/change, openness/closedness, and separation/connection.
1. Stability/Change
The first dialectical tension that native English-speaking teachers and Thai students encountered in intercultural classrooms is the contradiction of stability/change which is the dilemma between the need for a classroom to be stable, unchangeable and predictable and the need for it to be flexible, novel and unpredictable. Some native English-speaking teachers and Thai students preferred the orderliness of the class. Thai students liked an intercultural classroom because the class was well-organized and everything was stated in the outline. Ben was one of the teachers who preferred having a planned class. He said, “The beginning of my class, I had PowerPoint and I go through step 1 to 3, how I do my schedule, how I do my testing, when midterm is, when final is. I put the makeup ahead of time.” Similarly, Nitipong also liked a predictable classroom. The following statement shows his great appreciation of a planned class:
The teacher gave us the course outline since the first day of the class and he explained everything to us. Native English-speaking teachers strictly follow the outline. They try to control the content, start and stop the class on time. They’ve never made up the class just because they couldn’t cover the content in time. This is what I like. They ‘re very punctual so I know exactly when the class will be done. Nitipong
Even though some students accepted that stability made a classroom more structured, some Thai students preferred having a flexible and fluid class where teachers were less strict about the rules. Vanida said that native English-speaking teachers were kinder and less strict compared to Thai teachers. Apart from the flexibility, native English-speaking teachers and Thai students also looked for creativity and novelty although a nice and orderly classroom requires some routine and structure. In spite of the high praise for predictability, some Thai students found that it is boring. Kittipan said, “His [My teacher’s] class strictly adheres to the course syllabus so he tries to cover everything he planned. He has never been off the topic. I like him to deviate from the planned topic because the lecture is sometimes boring.” William is another teacher who realized the boredom of predictability. As a result, he did not need a course syllabus for his class. Consider his statement:
There is no official printed syllabus. I do announce at the beginning what I’m gonna do. I tiy not to do any lectures in that class, but it comes up with other types of things that require students to be prepared for. William
2. Openness/Closedness
The second dialectical tension encountered by native English-speaking teachers and Thai students is openness/closedness which is the opposing poles between the need for disclosure and secrecy within the teacher-student relationships. Native English-speaking teachers and Thai students had to balance between how much privacy they shared between each other. Some native English-speaking teachers revealed that their relationship with Thai students were professional because they did not share their personal issues to each other. Consider Trent’s statement:
My relationship with my students is purely professional and not personal… I am comfortable with our professional relationship. I think it is most appropriate. If they have personal issues, they should talk about those with a guidance counselor who is trained to help with those kinds of issues. Trent
Another form of the openness/closedness tension is when native English-speaking teachers and Thai students have to balance between how direct they should be to each other. Pongsak chose not to be open to his native English-speaking teachers because it might affect his grade. He said, “No way, I will never tell my teacher I have something I don’t like about them because my grade is in his hand.” As opposed to Thai students who were very protective in terms of expressing their true feelings towards the teachers, most native English-speaking teachers were very direct and expressive when it came to the needed time. Consider Surasak’s statement:
He will say what he thinks even if it’s not a good thing. He told me what I should change. He gave me advice. I know this is a college level, but I still want to have some advice. I don’t like a teacher who criticizes but doesn ‘t advice. I don’t mind being criticized, but at least let me know what 1 should do next. Surasak
3. Separation/Connection
Native English-speaking teachers and Thai students also have the separation/connection tension which is the contradiction between whether to be close or stay distant to each other. Many native English-speaking teachers were trying to find the reason why Thai students usually remained distant from them. Some teachers proposed some possible explanations of the distance which are culture, language, age and personality. The following are their statements:
That possibly would have to be farang, possibly cultural. Outside the class, I never got any e-mails from students asking about anything outside the lesson. But I forced myself to talk to them after class. I give them a project to do here on a campus and they were down in the canteen, clumped together on the table so I got the coffee and sat in the middle of the group whether they like it or not. It didn’t last long. We all found an excuse and got up and left. Oliver
In an intercultural classroom, teachers and students are from different cultures so they may not feel comfortable to be close to each other. Wanchai admitted that in a classroom, he was trying to keep distance from his teacher especially when he chose his seating. Wanchai said:
I will try to stay away from the teacher as much as possible (laugh). I think we’ve trained to not be too confident. So in class I prefer sitting in the back row. Sitting in the front is too close to the teacher. If the teacher doesn’t have anyone answer, there is a high chance for the frontage to be called. Wanchai
In order to improve an international classroom and the relationships between native English-speaking teachers and Thai students, tension management is needed. Six strategies were found to be used by native English-speaking teachers and Thai students to balance their dialectical tensions. The 6 strategies consist of selection, cyclical alteration, segmentation, integrative reframing, integrative moderation, and indifference.
4. Selection
The first strategy native English-speaking teachers and Thai students used to manage the dialectical tensions they encountered in an intercultural classroom was selection. Selection is used when individuals repeatedly select actions consistent with one pole of the contradiction. Some native English-speaking teachers used selection to negotiate the stability/change tension. Chris revealed the dominance of only predictability in his teaching. His class was much planned even for the exam. He prepared his students with the questions so they would know in advance what they would see in the exam. Look at Chris’ statement:
I have to prepare my students very carefully for their exam because I had samples of students who obviously don 7 understand the questions. They couldn 7 read. So I work very close with them so my students do very well in the exam because they’ve seen the questions before. I don 7 want to make somebody have a bad mark because they don 7 understand the questions. Chris
Another example of the use of selection strategy was when Surasak admitted that he emphasized concealment in his relationship with the teacher because he had never trusted any teacher enough to talk about his personal life. Similarly, Atita selected closedness to be dominant when she managed the openness/closedness tension. She made protectiveness dominant in her relationship with her native English-speaking teacher because she did not want to be direct with him. Consider her situation:
I’ve not told the teacher to use PowerPoint or let him know I don 7 understand his lecture. I just borrow my friend’s note. When he speaks too fast, I don 7 tell him to slow down. I don 7 think it’s appropriate to tell him directly. Atita
5. Cyclical alteration
Cyclical alteration was another strategy that native English-speaking teachers and Thai students used to manage their dialectical tensions. This strategy is used when individuals alternate the response to each force of the contradiction over time. The native English-speaking teachers and Thai students might balance their tensions by switching both poles through time. Ben used cyclical alteration to manage the stability/change tension when he was strict and predictable at the beginning of the class while he became more flexible and fluid later on. He said, “In Thailand, I would suggest be a little bit tough and strict at the beginning. If you’re too nice at the beginning, they’re taking advantage. But if you’re tough at the beginning, you will have no problems.” Piya is another participant who revealed the use of cyclical alteration with his stability/change tension. He thought that native English-speaking teachers should be strict in class and be flexible after class. The following is Piya’s statement:
Native English-speaking teachers should maintain their western standard in class so Thai students will realize the difference between Thai and international program. There is no need to come to international schools if everything in the classroom is the same. If they set a higher standard, students will be more active. However, teachers should be more flexible after class so Thai students will be more comfortable to talk to them. Piya
Apiradee is another participant who also used cyclical alteration to manage the separation/connection tension. She revealed that she was close to her native English-speaking teacher only after class and maintained the distance from him while she was at school. Apiradee said:
My close friend used to ask the teacher out for dinner and a drink and I went with her. I think it’s ok because when we weren 7 at school, he’s not a teacher and we ‘re not students. But at school, we shouldn 7 be so close. Apiradee
6. Segmentation
The third strategy used by native English-speaking teachers and Thai students to balance their dialectical tensions was segmentation. Segmentation is used when individuals tie one force to a specific activity rather than consistently responding to it in all situations. Although native English-speaking teachers thought both stability and change were important, they decided to be flexible in some situations and retained their stability in others. Louis used segmentation strategy to manage the stability/change tension between how fixed and fluid he should be with his students’ language. Here is Louis’ statement:
On the exam I realize one you have a small amount of time. Secondly, their English varies so I don’t really… as long as I can understand you. There is a certain level you have to read and I have to understand. I try to understand them but sometime the word may be not right but I try to give them credit or partial credit if I don 7 understand it. On the written assignment, I expect a better…On those projects, good English is more important but on the exam I don’t care. Louis
Louis was extremely rigid regarding the correctness of English only if it was the written assignment while he was flexible if it was an exam. Similarly, Nicolas revealed that the level of freedom he offered to his students depended on the subject. Here is Nicolas’ statement:
They do have complete choice on their term projects. They can choose whatever they want as long as it’s within the context. The business plan research that they do is completely their choice and that is worth 100% of their grade. And I think also the course itself dictates how much freedom the students have. Like the research class, you can’t constraint them that’s what research has to do. You let them go to find something interesting and they want to chase for. I don’t even care if they come to class as long as they get the work done. It’s very different from class to class. Nicolas
7. Integrative Reframing
The fourth strategy was integrative reframing. This strategy is used when individuals attempt to redefine the contradiction and transcend it. The native English-speaking teachers and Thai students also used integrative reframing strategy when they redefined the tension in order to avoid supporting or disagreeing with either contradictory pole. Atita managed her separation/connection tension by using integrative reframing. Instead of defining her relationship with the teacher as either distance or intimacy, Atita redefined it as a respect relationship. Using integrative reframing strategy, separation/connection was no longer a tension for her. The following is Atita’s statement:
I want our relationship to be respect. If native English-speaking teachers are too intimate with their students, some students will be rude to them. But if the relationship is too formal, Thai students who have poor English skills won’t talk to native English-speaking teachers. I love to have a respect relationship with them. Atita
8. Integrative moderation
The fifth strategy to manage the dialectical tension used in an intercultural classroom was integrative moderation. This strategy is used when individuals use neutral messages to support both forces. Some native English-speaking teachers made an effort to partially fulfill both stability and change. Consider Oliver’s statement:
If the class is too flexible, they will fall all over the place and you would get nothing back. So I find structure will work best because first of all the Thai students have directions. They know how to build on. They ‘re allowed certain freedom and I think they ‘re very happy having a form to fit to…I’m not just like another teacher who just got off the airplane, is here to revolutionize the world and he’s going to change you. I’m very accepting of Thai culture, Thai ways, Thai thinking, however, I got a job to do too… I think if you come to Thailand with an attitude of wanting to learn and to adapt, just more than being a teacher, the students will respond a lot to that too. Oliver
Oliver allowed both stability and change in his class. He offered his students’ freedom within his fixed structure. Also, Oliver realized he had a job to teach, but was also willing to adapt to his students.
9. Indifference
The last strategy native English-speaking teachers and Thai students used to manage dialectical tensions is indifference. Rather than viewing both poles as equally important, an individual just ignores them. Ben unfolded his situation when he had to manage the stability/change tension whether he should be strict or flexible about the language used among his Thai students in the classroom. He said:
I just ignore when they speak to one another whether it’s in Thai or English. It’s like two Americans tiy to speak French to each other. It’s like they try to be hi-so or something and they don’t feel comfortable with. I quit tiying to fight getting them to speak. Ben
In order to manage the stability and change tension, Ben chose to ignore the situation so it would not be a tension anymore.
Likewise, some Thai students did not pay attention to whether the class was predictable or flexible. They only came to class and did not care how the class was structured. Apiradee said, “I don’t want to suggest anything to the course because teachers should teach what they want to teach. They have the absolute right to design their course. Students are expected to study what they teachers have prepared.” Surasak is another student who used indifference as a strategy to manage the stability/change tension. Consider his statement:
He gave the course syllabus in the first class, but I lost it already. I don’t need the course syllabus because I go to every class and I can study in class. I don 7 have to prepare for anything. I will just listen to what he teaches each week. Surasak
DISCUSSION
For the first research question, “What dialectical tensions do native English-speaking teachers and Thai students encounter in intercultural classrooms?,” the interview data exposed 3 dialectical tensions including stability/change, openness/closedness, and separation/connection. These 3 dialectical tensions have been repeatedly identified as important dialectics in human relationships (Baxter & Montgomery, 1998). Although these three tensions were previously found in interpersonal relationships, they are also prevalent in a classroom. The dialectical tensions native English-speaking teachers and Thai students encountered in an intercultural classroom are one relational force against the other force, rather than a teacher against a student. A relational tension is conceptually located within an interpersonal relationship. Rather than being a source of antagonism between relational partners, relational dialectics reside in the relationship and indicate a connection, born through relational tensions, between the two people (Baxter & Montgomery, 2000). These forces result in teacher-student relationships. They are like turning points determining new directions and divergent paths for relationships. There is no finite set of contradiction found in relationships. The infinite possibilities, for relational contradictions, depend on cultural and relational contexts. Consequently, dialectical tensions found in this study might not be the same as those found in other settings.
For the second research question, “What strategies do native English-speaking teachers and Thai students use in order to manage those tensions?, the study indicated that both native English-speaking teachers and Thai students applied six strategies to negotiate different dialectical tensions as shown in Table 1.
The interview data revealed that different strategies were used to manage different dialectical tensions. For the dialectic of stability/change, participants employed selection, segmentation, cyclical alteration, integrative moderation, and indifference to manage the tension. For the openness/closedness tension, selection, and segmentation were used whereas every managing strategy except indifference was used to manage the separation/connection tension.
Enlarge this image.
Table 1: Intercultural classroom's dialectical tensions and managing strategies
Among the six strategies, selection and segmentation were used the most by native English-speaking teachers and Thai students. The possible explanation for the extensive use of selection could be its explicitness. Individuals who only need one polarity of the dialectics may experience less tension than those who need both ends (McGuire, 2001). In order to encounter less tension, there was a need to make one action dominant. Gollwitzer (1987) found that individuals use several strategies to prevent one end from the other’s interference. That is to say, people try to push their need to one end of a contradictory pole to reduce tension. Native English-speaking teachers and Thai students, therefore, repeatedly selected actions consistent with one polarity of contradictions and eventually made it a dominant condition. Similar to selection, segmentation is another strategy that native English-speaking teachers and Thai students used to manage all found tensions because individuals like to tie one pole to a specific activity and apply it to all situations as it is easier to remember.
In addition, the study found that individuals manage the tensions differently. This is perhaps because the individual is situated in a temporal-spatial location that provides them a specific perspective which is not available to others (Baxter & Montgomery, 1998). Very often, native English-speaking teachers and Thai students did not employ the same strategy even though they encountered the same tensions. The stability/change tension, for example, could be managed by different strategies. Furthermore, the same person also used different strategies to manage the same tension.
CONCLUSION
The study of dialectical tensions between native English-speaking teachers and Thai students and their managing strategies can benefit teaching and learning in an intercultural classroom. A small tension in an intercultural classroom may affect the international education system as a whole. The study of dialectical tensions in an intercultural classroom implies several applications. International universities can use these findings to improve their international programs, particularly in the training preparation for native English-speakers who have come to pursue their teaching career in Thailand. Coming to the country with the notions of plausible tensions they may encounter could help native English-speaking teachers prepare themselves for the cultural differences. In addition, the findings also benefit Thai students who are going to study with native English-speaking teachers. Thai students could realize the difficulties that may arise when they are in an intercultural classroom. More importantly, both native English-speaking teachers and Thai students could use managing strategies to negotiate their dialectical tensions in order to maintain their healthy relationships inside and outside the classroom.
Researchers could further this study to other intercultural contexts such as family or organization. In a family context, researchers could explore dialectical tensions and managing strategies cross-cultural married couples have. Similarly, a study of dialectical tensions could be conducted in an international organization where colleagues are from diverse cultures. In addition, a quantitative research methodology could also be applied to further studies.
References
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AuthorAffiliation
Jiraporn Kerdchoochuen, Ph. D., Bangkok University, Thailand
AuthorAffiliation
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Dr. Jiraporn Kerdchoochuen received a Ph.D. in Communication from Bangkok University (in collaboration with Ohio University, USA), M.A. in Linguistics from Chulalongkom University, and B.Ed. in Advanced English Teaching (l~ class honors) from Chulalongkorn Universit~’. Thailand. She is currently a full-time instructor at Language Institute, Bangkok University. Her research interest is in instructional communication, interpersonal communication, intercultural communication, and teaching strategies. She may be contacted at jiraporn.k@bu.ac.th.
Copyright Clute Institute for Academic Research Sep 2011
SPRING 2004
THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION IN INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
Mary Hinchcliff-Pelias
Associate Professor of Speech Communication
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
Norman S. Greer
Associate Professor of Speech Communication
Eastern Illinois University
International education should, by defi nition, assume intercultural
communication interactions. If this is not the case, then what is the
point? Why would those who study internationally place themselves
in an educational environment that does not expect and afford op-
portunities for interaction with persons from culturally different
backgrounds? From the standpoint of intercultural communication
educators, we fi nd the idea of isolation of international students from
their host national counterparts and other international students
philosophically and pedagogically untenable.
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
AND PERCEIVED DIFFERENCE
Intercultural communication involves the interaction of persons
from cultural communities that are different. The perception of dif-
ference is often a defi ning component of intercultural communica-
tion (Brislin, 1994; Dodd, 1998; Gudykunst, 1988; Gudykunst & Kim,
1992). Brislin (1994) articulated some of these differences:
…the others possess many qualities summarized by the word differ-
ent. The others speak various languages, have different skin colors,
possess an array of attitudes toward important aspects of life such as
work and recreation, eat different foods, and so forth. (p. 2
5
)
Gudykunst and Kim (1992) used the metaphor of the “stranger”
to refer to persons perceived as culturally different from ourselves.
They stated that “(t)he term stranger is somewhat ambiguous in that
5
6 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
HINCHCLIFF-PELIAS AND GREER
it is often used to refer to aliens, intruders, foreigners, outsiders,
newcomers, and immigrants, as well as any person who is unknown
and unfamiliar” (p. 19). In intercultural interactions, these perceived
differences may be suffi cient to make the participants uncomfortable,
embarrassed, fearful and/or unwilling to engage in such communi-
cation.
INTERNATIONAL STUDENT POPULATIONS
According to recent fi gures reported by the Institute of Interna-
tional Education (IIE) (2003), during the period of 2002-2003, more
than 586,000 international students were studying in the U.S. The IIE
places the number of U.S. students studying overseas during 2001-
2002 at a little over 160,000. Additionally, numerous other students
from many nations sojourn internationally to educational institutions
throughout the world. Thus, in recent years, upwards of three-quarters
of a million students have been in the position to interact with other
international students and host nationals in intercultural contexts.
But many of these international sojourners do not interact or have
limited interactions with culturally different others. The reasons for
the lack of social exchange are undoubtedly many, including such
factors as the aforementioned perceptions attendant to viewing the
culturally different as a “stranger,” as well as lack of networking op-
portunities within the campus/local community, language barriers,
social skills, time constraints, and separation/isolation in residential
facilities.
Individual personality traits as well as other psychological factors
may also work against international students seeking out intercultural
interactions. Many international students experience culture shock,
which may preclude or severely limit interactions with culturally
different others. Oberg (1960), the scholar credited with coining the
term “cultural shock,” viewed it as a generalized trauma affecting
individuals when placed in a new and unfamiliar culture. The stress
and anxieties associated with culture shock are the result of persons
losing those things familiar to them for their day-to-day social interac-
tions, such as rules associated with language interaction (verbal and
nonverbal) and cultural conventions and norms (Garza-Guerrero,
1974; Klineberg & Hull, 1979; Oberg). In essence, an individual’s
entire way of understanding her/his world may be turned on end.
The effects of culture shock can be lingering and result in further
SPRING 2004
The Importance of Intercultural Communications in International Education
7
isolation of international students from their host culture peers.
Additionally, limited social interactions, especially those between
international students and their host national counterparts, may well
refl ect understandings from both sides regarding how international
students are perceived.
Negative Perceptions of International Students
Research specifi cally focused on international students enrolled
at colleges and universities in the U.S. provides evidence that many
host nationals hold negative perceptions of international students
as a group. Spencer-Rogers & McGovern (2002) explained:
…a prevalent view exists of foreign students as outsiders who are
culturally maladjusted, naive, and confused. They are seen as psycho-
logically unbalanced individuals who suffer from a “foreign student
syndrome,” a controversial condition characterized by a disheveled
appearance, a passive and withdrawn interpersonal style, and a mul-
titude of psychosomatic ailments. (p. 613)
Negative Intercultural Encounters
Intercultural interactions have been characterized as producing
anxiety (Ekachai, Hinchcliff-Pelias, & Greer, 1998; Stephan & Stephan,
1985), uncertainty and/or diffi culty in interpreting interlocuters’ in-
tentions (Chen, 2002; Gudykunst, 1988; Gudykunst & Kim, 1992),
frustration (Ekachai, Hinchcliff-Pelias, & Greer; Hinchcliff-Pelias,
2003), and hurt and fear (Bresnahan & Cai, 2000; Hinchcliff-Pelias).
Most likely, contributing to these unsatisfactory interactions are
negative attributions ascribed to international students by host na-
tional peers and instructors, including descriptors of these students
as withdrawn, insular, and socially inhibited (Spencer-Rogers, 2001)
and educationally inadequate and/or behaviorally inappropriate
in classroom situations (Lind, 2002; Mestenhauser, 1983). It is not
surprising, then to fi nd that international students often limit their
social interactions with host nationals and spend more time with
co-nationals (Paige, 1990, Pedersen, 1991; Rajapaksa & Dundes,
2002-2003; Spencer-Rogers).
Positive Outcomes of International Interactions
Of course, not all intercultural interactions between international
students and host nationals (and with other international students)
8 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
HINCHCLIFF-PELIAS AND GREER
have negative outcomes. Although the participants may report
awkwardness and misunderstandings in their encounters, the ben-
efi ts of such interactions may be viewed as balancing or exceeding
the costs. Scott’s (1998) study of a group of Thai exchange students
found that they experienced signifi cant personal growth in terms of
self-confi dence and enhanced independence as a result of their stay
with host families in the U.S. Hinchcliff-Pelias (2003) reported that
students believed they gained important knowledge about others’
cultural perspectives and developed self-effi cacy related to their
communication skills as a result of their intercultural interactions.
In their study of university students’ intercultural interactions,
Ekachai, Hinchcliff-Pelias & Greer (1998) found that some students
confronted and re-assessed their negative stereotypes of culturally
different others as a result of those interactions. Additionally, many
studies have noted the connection between social networks (includ-
ing co-nationals, other international students, and host nationals) in
international students’ successful adaptation and adjustment to their
new cultural environments (Bresnahan & Cai, 2000; Heikinheimo &
Shute, 1986; Kim, 1994; Pedersen, 1991; Rajapaksa & Dundes, 2002-
2003; Zimmerman, 1995).
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
As intercultural communication educators, we want to reconcile
our belief that intercultural communication interaction is an essential
element in the education of students who study internationally with
our recognition that this form of communication interaction may be a
daunting and diffi cult undertaking. Thus, we conducted the present
study to increase our understanding of contributing factors that may
inform international students’ hesitancy to engage in intercultural
interactions. We posed the following research questions:
RQ1: How do international students characterize their reluctance
to engage in intercultural communication interactions?
RQ2: What barriers do international students perceive for effec-
tive intercultural communication interactions?
RQ3: What do international students believe might be done to
facilitate effective intercultural communication interactions?
We acknowledge that many intercultural interactions result in
positive outcomes; however, we limited our focus to factors that pre-
clude effective or satisfying encounters between culturally different
SPRING 2004
The Importance of Intercultural Communications in International Education
9
others in order to address the research questions for this study. For
this research we defi ned “international students” as those individuals
who study in nations other than their self-identifi ed permanent nation
of residence. Additionally, we defi ned “intercultural interactions/en-
counters” to specify those which the study participants characterized
as communications with persons whom they perceived as culturally
different from themselves.
Data Collection and Analysis
We collected data for this study though extensive interviews,
using focus groups (Morgan, 1993; Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990;
Vaughn, Schumm & Sinagub, 1996), one-to-one interviews (Patton,
1990), and collection of students’ written personal narratives. The
fi rst author conducted individual interviews and collected written
narratives from students studying internationally at two European
universities, in France and in Spain. The focus group interviews were
conducted by both authors and a research assistant at a Midwestern
U.S. university. Data were analyzed through content analysis (Holsti,
1969) of dominant manifest and emergent themes.
Study Participants
We collected information from 64 students from 20 nations. The
students were pursuing a variety of academic majors. The students,
enrolled in undergraduate and master’s degree programs at their
respective universities at the time of the interviews, were from the
following nations: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Estonia, France,
Finland, Germany, Haiti, India, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Moldova,
Morocco, Puerto Rico, Republic of China, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey,
United States, and Venezuela.
We did not expect nor do we present the international students’
responses reported in this study to be representative of their national
cultures. However, we consider these international students to be
representative of a contemporary “international student” culture,
comprised as it is of a group of people engaged in education in
university cultural environments, learning alongside others whose
national cultures are different from their own. This conceptualiza-
tion of an international student culture aligns well with Hofstede’s
(2001) observation regarding what constitutes a culture:
10 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
HINCHCLIFF-PELIAS AND GREER
The word culture is usually reserved for societies (operationalized
as nations or as ethnic or regional groups within or across nations).
Basically, the word can be applied to any human collectivity or cat-
egory: an organization, a profession, an age group, an entire gender,
or a family. (p. 10)
The results of the interviews with these 64 international students are
presented in the following section.
RESULTS
RQ1: Reluctance to Engage in Intercultural Communication
Our fi rst research question focused on international students’
characterizations of their hesitancy to engage in intercultural com-
munication interactions. Consistent with previous research fi ndings,
the international students viewed their interactions as having positive
and negative outcomes, oftentimes as a result of the same encoun-
ter. However, their reasons for not seeking out further intercultural
interactions focus on the negative outcomes they had experienced.
Every one of the 64 students interviewed articulated one or more
negative experiences related to their past and present intercultural
interactions. Many of the students had refl ected on their negative
experiences and had attempted to understand the reasons for the
problems they encountered. The students’ sense-making related
to their negative intercultural experiences clustered around the
themes of self inadequacies, others’ inadequacies, and contextual
constraints.
Self inadequacies. The students’ perceptions of self inadequacies
surfaced in self attributions regarding their personal shortcoming as
intercultural communicators (e.g., incompetence in a foreign language,
lack of knowledge about the other’s culture, unwillingness to place self
in an uncomfortable position, nervousness, impatience, and overall
poor communication skills). Additionally, several students reported
that they had arrived at their international educational destinations
with unrealistic expectations regarding their abilities to fi t in and do
well in the new environment. Confronted with this self-perceived
lack of success at fi tting in, they found themselves frustrated and
angry with themselves, which in turn often made them resent their
host-national counterparts. They understood that this contributed
to a negative spiral that kept them isolated from culturally different
SPRING 2004
The Importance of Intercultural Communications in International Education
11
others. When they did interact, they felt that the conversations were
often uncomfortable—forced and superfi cial—resulting in feelings
of being treated as a “patronized foreigner.” Some of the students
stated that they resorted to what they knew would be perceived as
negative behaviors in the classroom: passivity as well as aggression,
especially when they thought they were being excluded or patronized
by classmates and/or professors. Many of the international students
reported that they became impatient and upset when classmates and
professors asked them to respond to a question as a representative of
“their people” or culture. Ironically, however, several of the interna-
tional students noted that they sometimes prefaced their comments
with statements such as “in my country, we do X…”
Other’s inadequacies. In addition to recognizing how their own
inadequacies contributed to unsatisfactory intercultural interactions,
the international students placed responsibility for problematic com-
munication on their intercultural counterparts. The negative attributes
most often articulated by the international students regarding their
intercultural partners focused on their lack of interest in learning
about the other, stereotyping, cultural insensitivity, and failure to
disclose information that cued misunderstandings. Many of the stu-
dents observed that host nationals seemed too busy or disinterested
in getting to know them as individuals. One student noted, “When
I arrived here, I became ‘someone from Germany.’” The implication
is that he wanted to be recognized as more than his home country.
In classroom discussions and activities, many of the international
students reported feeling isolated and ignored by their classmates.
Particularly diffi cult and unsatisfactory intercultural interactions
were related to small-group work. One student made the following
observation:
I get a little sick in my stomach when the professor tells us to work in
groups in the class. I see my classmates—the American students—try-
ing to get into groups without me…they do not even try to listen to
me and they never ask me about my ideas. I stopped trying to talk in
the group because it hurt me that they ignored me.
Several of the international students stated that they believed host
nationals held negative stereotypes about foreign students generally
and their particular group specifi cally. In addition to unsatisfactory
12 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
HINCHCLIFF-PELIAS AND GREER
interactions with host nationals, some of the students reported they
had negative intercultural interactions with other international
students. One student noted, “…sometimes it seems we are in
competition to be the ‘best foreign students’ on campus.”
Issues related to cultural insensitivity were raised by the inter-
national students as well. While many of the students recognized
that they were expected to and needed to adapt to their new cultural
environments, they lamented the fact that persons in their host cul-
tures were not more sensitive to the signifi cant distress that such
adaptation could cause international students. This was especially
evident when the students expressed their needs to maintain certain
cultural customs and practices while living in another culture, par-
ticularly those related to dress, foods, family matters, and religious
observations. A particularly egregious display of cultural insensitiv-
ity noted by many of the international students was when members
of other cultural groups categorized them into cultural aggregates
(e.g., “the Asians”). Additionally, and related to this issue, some of
the students reported that they resented being misidentifi ed as a
member of a cultural group other than their own based on their
physical appearance.
The international students acknowledged that their own language
inadequacies and/or misunderstandings were a factor in problem-
atic cross-cultural communication interactions. However, they also
placed blame for these problems on their intercultural partners. The
students noted that their intercultural partners often failed to ask
for clarifi cation or checked to see if they were being understood in
conversations. Thus, the international students saw this as failure on
their interlocutor’s part to disclose information that could prevent
or clear up misunderstandings.
The international students also observed that negative unsat-
isfactory intercultural interactions were due, in part, to contextual
factors. Most often, they blamed unnatural situations (e.g., classroom
exercises, planned social interactions) where spontaneity was missing
from the encounters and their interactions felt rushed, forced, and
uncomfortable. Some of the students indicated that host city, local
elementary schools, and university-sponsored “international fairs”
were contexts for unsatisfactory intercultural communication interac-
tions. These students characterized these activities as “degrading”
to all involved and felt forced to interact with culturally different
SPRING 2004
The Importance of Intercultural Communications in International Education
13
others in situations that seemed both artifi cial and superfi cial. These
students observed that the contrived social interactions actually did
more harm than good in that they focused too much on the surface,
visible parts of culture (i.e., foods, clothing, traditional dance, slide
shows of the country, etc.), thus glossing over deeper, more impor-
tant aspects of the cultures they were trying to get the participants
to understand and appreciate. Two comments from international
students regarding these activities illustrate this point:
…I’m proud of my culture and I enjoy sharing information about
it, but I felt reduced to “the man who uses chopsticks.”
…painting henna on the hands of American girls loses its charm
after a while.
Additionally, several of the students discussed classroom contexts
where intercultural interactions proved to be unsatisfactory for
international students. Class and group projects where extensive
outside-of-class interactions were expected as well as in-class
discussions where language problems became apparent were
articulated by several of the study participants as causing anxiety
and distress and ultimately leading to unsatisfactory intercultural
interactions.
RQ2: Barriers for Effective Intercultural Communication Interactions
Many of the students’ observations presented in the previous
section point to obstacles that may preclude effective and satisfying
intercultural encounters. When asked to specifi cally address what
they thought were barriers to effective intercultural encounters, the
international students emphasized the diffi culties associated with
communicating in a language for which at least one of the partici-
pants is a second language. One student noted, “As an international
student, language is the biggest obstacle—you can’t freely express
yourself.” Misunderstandings due to language differences and the
frustrations associated with inabilities to communicate in a common
language were discussed by the international students as having im-
mense negative consequences—enough to discontinue or preclude
future interactions.
Attitudinal dispositions, characterized as ethnocentrism, were
also seen as creating barriers for communication. Most of the inter-
national students recognized that ethnocentrism is not just located in
14 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
HINCHCLIFF-PELIAS AND GREER
the other; both parties take their perspectives into the communication
interactions. As one student stated: “we can get caught in the ‘my
culture is better than your culture’ game.” Associated with their
understanding of ethnocentrism as a contributing factor to negative
intercultural interactions, some of the students stated that they be-
lieved their physical appearance (i.e., looking “different”) was likely a
barrier to intercultural interactions. Additionally, in-group/out-group
distinctions made when students confi ned their social interactions
to people from their own cultures were often interpreted by the
students as a lack of interest in others’ cultures. One international
student articulated his frustration with this phenomenon:
What intercultural communication? I would like to get to know some
of the other students here from different countries, but they only want
to be with their own people…the Americans hang out with other
Americans, the Spanish with other Spanish, the Italians with the Ital-
ians, and so forth.
However, many of the international students noted that they also
did this and understood the importance and the comfort of their
heritage culture social networks.
The media were also identifi ed by the international students as
posing barriers to satisfactory intercultural communication, especially
their depictions of certain cultural groups. The students pointed to
the media’s role in perpetuating stereotypes. One student articulated
his frustration related to this issue:
I think the students here, in particular, the females, believe everything
they see on television…they think an Arab man isn’t someone to get
to know.
Many of the international students reported that they are often per-
suaded by the negative media coverage of certain cultural groups but
also recognize that they do not seek out alternative understandings
unless their assumptions are challenged.
RQ3: What Might Be Done to Facilitate Effective Intercultural Commu-
nication Interactions?
Being mindful, thinking before you speak, trying to learn about
and appreciate others’ cultural customs and ways of thinking, and
SPRING 2004
The Importance of Intercultural Communications in International Education
15
addressing one’s own biases towards culturally different others were
often suggested by the international students when posed with this
question. The international students who participated in this study
articulated several areas for improvement (by self and others) that
could facilitate intercultural communication interactions. They
stressed the importance of developing knowledge beyond the su-
perfi cial about the culture of others. The need for direct experiences
that allow extended contact with culturally different others in natural,
spontaneous contexts was another area consistently discussed by the
international students. Additionally, they discussed the importance
of adaptability in intercultural situations. One international student
explained the measures she had taken in trying to be more open to
intercultural communication experiences:
Sometimes I just have to bite my tongue to keep from saying, “that’s
not how we do it in America,” but I am trying to keep an open mind,
even when I’m not comfortable with the way people do things here.
The students reported that some of their most diffi cult inter-
cultural interactions were those in which their ideas, attitudes,
and beliefs were called into question—both in the moment by
their intercultural partners and later through personal introspec-
tion stimulated by those encounters. A recurring theme across the
students’ responses was the need to refl ect on diffi cult intercultural
interactions and then to make the commitment to learn from them.
In effect, the students suggested a “no pain, no gain” approach for
enhancing intercultural communication effectiveness. This echoed
some of the students’ observations that it was necessary for people
to come to terms with their apprehension related to communicating
with culturally different others. Many of the international students
observed that effective, satisfying intercultural interactions cannot
take place unless the parties involved recognize and free themselves
of pre-conceived notions regarding persons from cultures other than
their own.
In addition to taking personal responsibility for facilitating ef-
fective intercultural interactions, the students indicated that better
efforts could be made by educational institutions to educate their
constituencies about the importance and benefi ts of intercultural
interactions. They suggested that university-sponsored “intercultural
16 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
HINCHCLIFF-PELIAS AND GREER
forums” in which people from different cultural backgrounds could
hold conversations on topics of mutual interest be used to replace
and/or supplement international fairs. They also stated that bring-
ing people from disparate cultural backgrounds together more fre-
quently, in non-threatening and more “natural” environments, could
be a signifi cant step in increasing the effectiveness of intercultural
interactions.
DISCUSSION
We undertook the present study to gain information related to
international students’ perspectives on the problems that accom-
pany communicating interculturally. Specifi cally, we wanted to know
why these students elect to limit or not engage in interactions with
culturally different others. Additionally, we asked them to consider
what might facilitate effective, satisfying intercultural encounters.
The students offered insights related to intercultural interactants’
knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors that led to negative outcomes
in intercultural encounters. Additionally, they spoke of the many
obstacles they and their intercultural partners face, and they offered
suggestions that could address many of the problems attendant to
unsatisfying intercultural interactions.
Interactions between culturally different individuals involve
complex understandings, dispositions, and abilities that must be
learned and enacted for mutual satisfaction. As educators of inter-
national students, we are in a position to guide this learning. The
international students who participated in this study identifi ed
many of the problems inherent in intercultural interactions. We can
address these issues in our classroom and our educational commu-
nities. We can fi nd ways to ask our international students to refl ect
on the cultural assumptions they hold. Furthermore, we can engage
them in learning that allows them to increase their knowledge, form
positive attitudes, and develop effective behaviors related to com-
municating with culturally different others. These are worthy goals
to be embraced by educators who work with international students.
Anthropologist and communication scholar Edward T. Hall (1989)
made this point quite eloquently:
…one of the many paths to enlightenment is the discovery of ourselves,
and this can be achieved whenever one truly knows others who are
different.” (p. 8)
SPRING 2004
The Importance of Intercultural Communications in International Education
17
It is important for our students to continue to make the commitment
to engage in international study. The benefi ts accrued will have lasting
and important results. Helping our students understand and work
through their diffi culties as intercultural interactants is a challenge
that we should be prepared to meet.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to thank Tessa Pelias, student, Department of Theatre,
University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, for her research assistance with
this study.
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Vol. 68, Iss. 1,
(Fall 2002): 40-56.
This study examined communication behaviors and perceptions of Black and White communicators. Seventeen behaviors were identified in the literature as representing either “Black” or “White” communication. Black and White university students (N = 525) were asked to recall a past conversation with a Black or White communicator and to complete a questionnaire regarding their overall impressions of the racial other’s communication behaviors. Factor analyses were conducted to create stereotype clusters for Black and White participants. The findings suggest three strong second-order stereotypic impressions for each sample. Multiple regression analysis revealed that certain behaviors are associated with each stereotypical impression. Results suggest that there is a diversity of communication styles among a single ethnic group and various stereotypic impressions are associated with particular communication behaviors.
Stereotyping is an obstacle to effective communication (Boyd, 1993; Waters, 1992) and yet seems inherently part of the communication process. This may be, in part, because stereotypes involve categorization, which social psychologists suggest is a necessary part of making sense of our world (Allport, 1954/1979; Stephan, 1985). Various psychological and social elements work together in a person’s mind to trigger stereotypes. The existence and propagation of stereotypes is inherently communicative, as it is communication that creates, maintains, or challenges stereotypes. Much recent research has examined how mediated messages (e.g., television representation) influence stereotypes as well as the notion that different stereotypes can be triggered by different behaviors (Macrae, Bodenhausen, & Milne, 1995). Yet research is scarce that analyzes the link between face-to-face communication behaviors and stereotypes. Thus, the present study investigates the relationship between potentially stereotypical communication impressions and communication behaviors in Black-White interaction.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
It is generally accepted, both in academic and popular literature, that intergroup stereotypes inhibit communication and relationships between people of different “races”1 and likely work against the well-being of African Americans and other nonwhite groups in the United States. Research on stereotypes has been both extensive and enduring. However, little attention has been devoted to the role communication may play in triggering racial stereotypes. In this section, we review pertinent literature on stereotypes and racial/cultural communication styles.
Racial Stereotypes
Stereotypes are defined as overgeneralizations of group characteristics, which are used to describe and evaluate people of those groups (Allport, 1954/1979; Macrae, Stangor, & Hewstone, 1996). Some have suggested that stereotypes are part of the process of cognition, that we cannot exist without some sort of categorization process (Stephan, 1985), and that they are “automatic” and help “streamline” our thought processes (Devine, 1989). Although some stereotypes may be favorable, such as seeing Asian Americans as a “model minority,” most stereotypes of outgroups are negative.
Stereotypes: Good, bad, and ugly. Stereotypes, like other cognitive categories, serve to help us organize and make sense of our world. In this way, some might consider stereotypes to be good. For example, as attitudes they can serve any of the functions that Katz (1960) suggests exist for all attitudes: they help us attain rewards (utilitarian function), defend our self-esteem (ego-defensive function), express important parts of how we think and see ourselves (value-expressive function), and organize the world around us (knowledge function). In addition, some might argue that certain stereotypes, such as the “noble savage” image of Native Americans, lead to favorable evaluation of groups and, thus, are positive.
Even if some stereotypes are positive in content, they are negative in outcome for a number of reasons. First, they bias individual thought processes by interfering with the perception of the qualities of others and the forming of complex impressions (Stephan, 1985). Second, stereotypes act as a heuristic device through which we place others in rigid categories. They lead us to “essentialize” groups or treat them as monolithic sets of undifferentiated, unchanging people (Rattansi, 1992). Third, they create unrealistic expectations of individuals, infringing upon their individuality. Finally, stereotypes lead people to have prejudicial attitudes toward groups (Devine, 1989) and to make unfair evaluations of the behaviors and performance of others (Stone, Perry, & Darley, 1997).
In their ugliest form, stereotypic evaluations lead to discrimination (Biernat & Dovidio, 2000; Salzer, 2000). They create stress for stereotyped individuals (Contrada et al., 2000) and reduce individuals’ self-esteem (Averhart & Bigler, 1997). Further, stereotypes impede effective communication (Biernat & Vescio, 1993) and lead stereotyped individuals to behave in ways that contradict stereotypes (Golebiowska, 2000), even if that decreases their performance on some tasks (Leyens, Desert, Croizet, & Darci, 2000).
The (un)changing nature of Black/White stereotypes. We see then that although stereotypes have some positive functions, their outcomes are primarily negative. An example of these undesirable outcomes is the generally negative nature of interracial stereotypes in the United States. For example, Katz and Braly (1933) found that Whites most frequently stereotyped Blacks as superstitious, happy-go-lucky, ignorant, stupid, and physically dirty. Although many Whites continue to perceive racial differences in athletic and abstract thinking ability (Pious & Williams, 1995), the general nature of White and Black attitudes seems to be shifting. Additionally, Gordon (1986) argued that the content of stereotypes has changed over time.
In 1971, Ogawa found that White respondents stereotyped Black communication as argumentative, emotional, aggressive, straightforward, critical, sensitive, ostentatious, defiant, hostile, open, responsive, and intelligent. More recently, Whites labeled Blacks as unreliable, materialistic, sportsmanlike, and pleasure loving (Gordon, 1986). Contrary to Gordon (1986), Leonard and Locke (1993) concluded that little changed in these stereotypes between 1970 and 1990. They also found Blacks tended to stereotype Whites as demanding, manipulative, organized, rude, critical, aggressive, arrogant, boastful, hostile, ignorant, deceptive, and noisy. Thus, although stereotypes may have undergone subtle changes, the overall nature of intergroup stereotypes has remained mostly negative.
Communication as a cause of stereotypes. Considerable research on stereotypes has investigated the factors that lead to or support stereotypes. Much of this work comes from a social-psychological framework and looks at issues such as internal character traits, prior experience with nonstereotypical people from the stereotyped group, and the effect of information that challenges the stereotypes. One can see that, while psychological, much of the creation, propagation, and reduction of stereotypes has an inherent communicative component. Thus, it is no surprise that much recent communication research has focused on the causes of stereotypes.
Research on mediated communication has presented many variables that lead to the formation or invocation of stereotypes. For example, research suggests that Black men and women are frequently portrayed on television in stereotypic roles such as criminal, matriarch, or welfare mother (Collins, 1990; Hall, 1981). Some researchers hold an ambivalent view of media (Jhally & Lewis, 1992). On one hand, shows such as Sesame Street (Graves, 1999) and The Cosby Show (Evuleocha & Ugbah, 1989) serve to challenge stereotypes. Conversely, negative news reports about ethnic crime have been found to lead to a perception of ethnic minorities as threatening (Vergeer, Lubbers, & Scheepers, 2000). And a recent content analysis shows that television commercials tend to portray Black women as inconsequential, Black men as aggressive, White women as sex objects, and White men as powerful (Coltraine & Messineo, 2000).
Recent research has turned beyond mass media content to consider Black-White face-to-face interaction (Gaertner, Dovidio, & Bachman, 1996). This line of research proposes that contact, under certain conditions such as roughly equal status and shared goals, will lead to more positive interactions (e.g., Sigelman & Welch, 1993). However, Leonard and Locke (1993) suggested that increased interaction between the races changed only specific interracial perceptions, but not interracial affect. Furthermore, they argued that modern stereotypes the “races” hold towards each other (e.g., manipulative, boastful, and noisy) show a focus on communication. This argument suggests that the increased one-on-one interaction between the races may have shaped, rather than ameliorated, racial stereotypes.
Research on the priming of stereotypes supports such a contention. Devine (1989), for example, found that all people-tolerant and prejudiced alike-can list the same stereotypes for a group. But tolerant people choose to replace stereotypical thoughts with nonprejudiced ones. Just as people can subdue stereotypical thought, they can also choose between stereotype sets, and such choosing seems to be based in part on the communicative behavior of the person stereotyped. Pittinsky, Shih, and Ambady (2000), for example, found that White students stereotyped women of Asian descent differently depending on behavioral cues in photographs. If the woman was brushing her hair, the respondents called upon gender-based stereotypes; if using chopsticks, upon ethnicity-based stereotypes. Macrae et al. (1995) conclude, “It may be the conjunction of social categories that is crucial in these cases, rather than a differential emphasis on age, gender, or ethnicity used singularly” (p. 404). Additionally, we suggest further that it is symbolic behavior that brings to mind the conjunction of social categories.
Similar stereotype differentiation can be seen in Black-White communication. In one study, Whites distinguished between different subgroups of Blacks, such as “streetwise” or “businessman” (Devine & Baker, 1991); these categories were stereotyped differently than a general classification of “Blacks.” Although specific behaviors related to these categories were not described, it is most likely that manner of dress, speaking, and so on influenced evaluative categories. Smedley and Bayton (1978) found Whites evaluated Blacks more on perceived social class (using specific cues, such as apparel) than “race,” although Blacks evaluated Whites based primarily on “race.” However, race combined with a person’s dialect and personal appearance predicts stereotypes better than impressions based only on race (Jussim, Coleman, & Lerch, 1987). In sum, these studies suggest that Whites and Blacks have baseline stereotypes of each other. But thestereotype is differentiated across different subcategories, more so for White attitudes of Blacks than for Black attitudes of Whites, and that differentiation seems to be based on communication behavior.
Black and White Communication Behavior
Research on Americans communicating with international students (Manusov, Winchatz, & Manning, 1997) found that stereotypical expectancies prior to a conversation were associated with certain behaviors. This same association may occur in interracial communication. Many researchers have noted that Whites and Blacks compose different speech communities (Collier, 1997) with different types of speech (Kochman, 1981), rules for interaction (Collier, 1988, 1996), core cultural values (Hecht, Ribeau, & Alberts, 1989), and different worldviews (Hecht, Collier, & Ribeau, 1993). Shade (1982) has suggested that Blacks and Whites process and interpret messages differently. To the extent that Black and White Americans share different meanings of words or actions and have different rules for effective or appropriate behaviors, they may be said to be different “cultures” (Collier, 1997; Collier & Thomas, 1988), especially if one defines culture as a “historically transmitted system of symbols, meanings, premises, routines, procedures, and rules” (Philipsen, 1987, p. 260).
Research suggests that these systems of symbols, premises, and rules are different for Blacks and Whites. Some writers have looked at communication rules in Black culture (Gumperz, 1982; Hecht & Ribeau, 1984; Weber, 1994) and in comparative ethnic cultures (Collier, 1988, 1996; Hecht et al., 1993). Other researchers have identified different features and functions for talk in intergroup communication (Hecht et al., 1989; Orbe, 1994; Stanback & Pearce, 1981). Others have examined the perceptions that Black and White Americans have when communicating with one another (Houston, 2000; Orbe, 1994).
In terms of verbal communication differences, research has suggested that Black communication is more direct or assertive than White communication (Kochman, 1981). For example, Ting-Toomey (1986) found that Black women were more likely than Black men or Whites to prefer a “dominating” conflict resolution style in relational conflict. However, in other ways, Blacks and Whites were similar. (Ting-Toomey, however, did not indicate for respondents whether they should think of interracial conflict or same-race conflict.) In a different study, Blacks and Whites used different information seeking strategies, depending on the race of the interaction partner (Shuter, 1982), with Whites more likely to ask questions of all groups and Black males more likely to make statements when addressing White males. Houston (2000) found that White and Black women attend to different features of speech when listening. Furthermore, Black women often perceived White women to be superficial, and White women perceived Black women to be confident, distinguished, to-the-point, and speaking with self-esteem. Hecht and Ribeau (1984) and Collier (1988) concluded that Latino, Black, and White Americans found different aspects of conversation satisfying.
In terms of nonverbal behavior, research suggests that Black women are more expressive and use more interruptions than White women in same-race interactions. However, when interacting together, Black women decrease their smiling behaviors and White women increase theirs (Booth-Butterfield & Jordan, 1989). Asante and Davis (1985) found that Blacks used indirect eye contact with individuals judged to have more status, and LaFrance and Mayo (1976) concluded that the ratio of eye contact between speaking and listening differs for Whites and Blacks. Specifically, Whites tend to look more while listening than they do while speaking; Blacks look more while speaking. Additionally, members of Black dyads tend to use lower levels of eye contact than Whites (Smith, 1983). Whites use more direct eye contact during interracial interactions, with White females looking at their interaction partners in interracial interactions more than Black females. Asante and Davis (1985) found differences in perceptions of head nods: Perpendicular nodding of Blacks may not be intended to communicate understanding or agreement, but is often simply used as a conversation starter or an indication of turn-taking. The nods of Whites more likely convey a direct message of understanding or agreement.
Some differences in the function of the behavior, rather than the behavior itself, also might be linked to stereotypes. For example, listening behavior (those behaviors that indicate one is attending to the other in a conversation) include both verbal and nonverbal cues. In Erickson’s (1979) study, Blacks used verbal behavior to show listening and provide feedback. Erickson found that verbal feedback was used for the function of listening more than twice as frequently as the nonverbal nod. For many Whites, direct eye contact was used more to demonstrate listening. Waters (1992) contends that a key problem in interracial communication is hyperexplanation, a form of overly simplified or repetitive communication that Whites sometimes use with Blacks. Differences in eye-contact, backchanneling, nonverbal nods, and verbal response may be leading White communicators to think Blacks are not listening to them (Waters, 1992). In this case, Whites may be misreading Black cues and over accommodating to an assumed lack of understanding. Such an assumption might stem from communication behavior differences as well as stereotypes that Whites bring to the interactions.
These behaviors should not be understood in isolation, but as existing in vibrant, continually changing communities. Several theories have addressed Black and White communication styles. The communication theory of ethnic identity (CTEI) contends that interethnic communication must be understood in the context of a history of misunderstanding between races, including a history of oppression (Hecht et al., 1993), at the individual as well as the societal level (Baldwin & Hecht, 1995; Hecht & Baldwin, 1998). Ethnic groups enact their identity through different behaviors, including nonverbal behaviors or particular styles of English. CTEI suggests that communication will not be competent if communicators criticize or ignore the identity the other wishes to claim in an interaction (Collier & Thomas, 1988).
Communication accommodation theory (CAT) would predict that, depending on norms for the interaction and other factors, communicators will diverge (Gallois, Giles, Jones, Cargile, & Ota, 1995). Effective intergroup communication is marked by convergence in some basic behaviors but not in others. Whites might value emotionality in Black communicators in intergroup communication, but not the use of certain aspects of Ebonics. Whites might be expected to converge in terms of nonverbal feedback (listening through speaking) or directness of communication content, but not in use of accent or word choice.
Communication Behaviors and Stereotypes
Both the CTEI (Hecht et al., 1993) and CAT (Gallois et al., 1995) extend the notion of cultural differences between racial/ethnic groups in the United States to the area of intergroup communication, discussing what happens when people of different groups talk to one another. Waters (1992) proposed a model that includes both stereotypes and communication behaviors as predictive of interracial conflict. However, what has not been done to date is an empirical test to determine what connection, if any, exists between communication behaviors and the attitudes Leonard and Locke (1993) list as “stereotypes.” Integration of the above literature suggests that stereotypes might be linked specifically to the pragmatic rules of interaction and to paralinguistic and other nonverbal cues.
Pragmatic rules: White politeness/Black directness. In terms of pragmatics, or social rules of communication, Hecht et al. (1993), Kochman (1981), and others argued that Blacks prefer direct and genuine communication. Directness for Whites is mitigated by politeness considerations (Booth-Butterfield & Jordan, 1989), even when discussing controversial matters such as racial issues (Tatum, 1992). Thus, Whites may smile for politeness or in interracial uncertainty or discomfort, but be perceived as manipulative and phony. If Whites speak readily, they may not speak about issues that concern many Blacks or address major social issues in general (Houston, 2000), resulting in Blacks seeing them as insincere or uniformed. Even if Whites are friendly, the baggage of historical racial relations may lead Blacks to perceive them as manipulative or deceitful. However, Blacks may perceive Whites’ favorably if the friendliness is seen as genuine (Hecht et al., 1989).
Blacks, on the other hand, may be more likely to speak their mind about any issue, including those of social importance. This straightforward communication style may leave Whites “puzzled” (Cheek, 1976). Whites also may consider straightforward Blacks as confrontive, argumentative, and aggressive. At the same time, because self-confidence is valued in White American society, directness might be seen positively as friendly and outgoing.
Nonverbal behavior: Dialect and pronunciation. The CTEI (Hecht et al., 1993) suggests that Blacks use certain communication styles within group to build solidarity and community (e.g., Gumperz, 1982). CAT (Gallois et al., 1995) states that groups may use these in-group communication styles with members of the outgroup to maintain or reinforce boundaries. Whites, used to the cultural hegemony of people speaking dominant English, may be uncomfortable when Blacks speak other variations of English around them, and Blacks may feel Whites’ so-called correct speech style is “organized,” if not an exercise in arrogance. The use of Black slang may call attention to itself, causing it to be seen as loud or noisy. Further, it may trigger stereotypes of “comic” Blacks (Hall, 1981) and be connected with a certain wittiness. Interestingly, Leonard and Locke (1993) found that both groups felt the other was “loud.” Loud communication on the part of either partner could be linked with perceptions of aggressiveness or argumentativeness. In addition, differences in eye contact or head nods might be associated with a variety of impressions, such as nonattentiveness.
It would be possible to identify a number of hypotheses based on this literature, such as the link between smiling and perception of manipulation, speaking loudly and perception of aggressiveness, “correct” White speech and the perception of organization, and so on. However, the number of hypotheses would be large, and alternative explanations would make many of these hypotheses nondirectional. For example, Whites being friendly might be seen either negatively (manipulative) or positively (authentic, outgoing). Thus, because of the number of possible hypotheses and questionable direction of many relationships, we opted for the following, simple research questions:
RQ1: Which perceived communication behaviors will best predict White participants’ impressions of Black communicators?
RQ2: Which perceived communication behaviors will best predict Black participants’ impressions of White communicators?
METHOD
Respondents
Three hundred and seventeen White undergraduates and two hundred and eight Black undergraduates (N = 525) from a large midwestern university participated in this study. All respondents were full-time students. Recruitment occurred in two ways. First, the authors recruited participants from a variety of history, sociology, and communication courses. Second, the authors contacted the university’s Black Student Union (BSU) to help in recruiting Black students because of the relatively low number of Black students in most course sections (Blacks constituted 8.6% of the university’s undergraduate population, Whites, 86.6%). The White sample (n = 317) ranged in age from 18 to 62 years (M = 21.59) with roughly equal numbers of males and females. The Black sample (n = 208) ranged in age from 18 to 37 years (M = 20.28) with roughly equal numbers of males and females.
Data Collection
Data were collected in two ways. First, the authors distributed questionnaires during participants’ regularly scheduled course sections. Second, students recruited through the BSU attended a meeting, during which they completed questionnaires. Participants were instructed not to complete the questionnaire if they had seen it or taken it elsewhere. Participation was voluntary and anonymous.
Measurement
The questionnaire contained two parts. Part one assessed communication behaviors and part two assessed communication stereotypes.
Communication behaviors. Seventeen communication behaviors from the literature were identified (Asante & Davis, 1985; Houston, 2000; Smith, 1983). These behaviors included eight behaviors generally characteristic of White communication (steady and direct eye contact, distinct pronunciation, appropriate terminology, variety of speech patterns, friendly speech, acting like a know-it-all, discussion of trivial topics, and speaking in a phony manner) and nine behaviors generally characteristic of Black communication (speaking more loudly than expected, using erratic and irregular head nods at the beginning of the interaction, listening through speaking or verbal behaviors, speaking one’s mind, speaking with a lot of self-confidence, getting to the point, using cultural slang, and speaking from cultural experience).2
Although actual communication behaviors affect perceptions in interracial communication, it is worthwhile to look at perceptions of communication behaviors. Following Hecht et al. (1989), we asked White participants to recall a past conversation with a Black partner and Black participants to recall a past conversation with a White partner. On the first part of the questionnaire, participants responded to the statement “The person . . . ,” followed by the list of communication behaviors found in the literature. The participants circled the degree to which they perceived the racial other had communicated in a particular manner (e.g., “The person appeared to speak his/her mind”), using a Likert-type five-point scale.
Communication stereotypes. The original Katz and Braly (1933) measure utilized 64 adjectives, with respondents circling the top five or so that they felt applied to a certain group. This method was used in many studies discussed above (e.g., Gordon, 1986; Ogawa, 1971), including the Leonard and Locke (1993) study that compared both White and Black attitudes on all 64 items. Although many global impressions are possible, we were most concerned with those found to occur frequently as stereotypes in past literature, as these seemed to be the most problematic. Thus, we created a questionnaire based on the 12 stereotypes listed most frequently by Blacks and Whites in Leonard and Locke’s (1993) study. The 12 stereotypes of Blacks held by Whites were loud, ostentatious (showy), aggressive, active, boastful, talkative, friendly, noisy, straightforward, emotional, argumentative, and witty. The 12 stereotypes of Whites held by Blacks were demanding, manipulative, organized, rude, critical, arrogant, hostile, ignorant, deceptive, aggressive, boastful, and noisy. Because noisy, boastful, and aggressive appear on both lists, the total number of stereotypes was 21. On the second part of the questionnaire participants responded to the statement “The person was . . . ,” followed by a list of the 21 stereotypes. The participants circled the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with each of the stereotypical impressions on a five-point scale.
Data Analysis
In order to reduce the number of tests conducted, the stereotype items were factor analyzed for both samples to construct shorter stereotype measures. Factor analysis with oblimin rotation was conducted to generate the factor structures, because it was assumed that there might be some interrelationships among the factors. The criteria for retention called for minimum eigenvalues greater than 1.0 and primary factor loadings at or greater than .60 with secondary loadings no greater than .40. Although some do not insist on the .60 – .40 rule for factor loadings with oblimin rotation, it provided a conservative standard for accepting or rejecting factors. Further, Reinard (1996) suggests that the type of rotation one makes is a theoretical decision, but the interpretation of the structure remains the same. This method produced three second-order stereotype factors for each sample. Stepwise multiple regression analyses (two-tailed) were conducted to answer research questions one and two. The communication behaviors were regressed on each factor for each sample. Items for each factor were summed to create stereotype subscales. The White Stereotypic impressions of Blacks suggest the following factors (see Table 1): Negative Feeling (14 items, [alpha] = .95), Positive Feeling (2 items, [alpha] = .60), and Activity (2 items, [alpha] = .55). The Black Stereotypic impressions of Whites suggest the following factors (see Table 2): Negative Feeling (10 items, [alpha] = .91), Expressiveness (2 items, [alpha] = .56), and Directness (3 items, [alpha] = .50).
The factor structure is unusual and requires some explanation. First, in each sample, the items in some factors defied simple categorization, yet showed a high degree of consistency in terms of correlations with the factor. For example, the White evaluations of Black communicators in terms of the adjectives ostentatious, manipulative, and loud were all interrelated. Being loud or ostentatious in itself may not be negative, but the general feeling of the other items in the factor led us to classify these perceptions as more negative. The same held true for the first factor of Blacks’ perceptions of Whites and the second factor of Whites’ perceptions of Blacks. Second, the number of items loading on the first factor in each sample was so great, it left few items to load in other factors. For that reason, despite their low Cronbach alphas, we decided to interpret the other factors, leaving our final conclusions tentative. Thus, the subscales derived from the three factors for each sample were used for remaining analyses.
RESULTS
Communication Predictors of Stereotypes
Analysis of White participants’ scores. Research question one asked which perceived communication behaviors would best predict Whites’ overall impressions of Blacks. Regression analysis allowed us to find the items, in order, that predicted the most variation between scores on each item (the following wording reflects any negatively correlated items). Five items predicted 68% of the variation in the Negative Feeling factor of Whites’ impressions of Black communication partners. In order of the variance they explained, these were speaking like a know-it-all, speaking loudly, using cultural slang, using direct eye contact, and discussing trivial topics. Four items predicted 30% of Whites’ Positive Feeling perceptions of Blacks: the person not speaking like a know-it-all, using distinct pronunciation, avoiding direct eye contact, and using a limited number of speech patterns. Thirty percent of White perceptions of Blacks’ Activity was predictedby the Black partner speaking his/her mind and using direct eye contact, not using cultural slang, and using a limited number of speech patterns (see Table 3).
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Table 1Factor Analysis of Whites' Impressions of Black Communicators (n = 317)
Analysis of Black participants’ scores. Research question two asked which perceived communication behaviors would best predict Blacks’ overall impressions of Whites. Four items explained 30% of Blacks’ Negative Feeling perceptions of Whites. In order of variation accounted for, these were: speaking as if they knew it all, speaking loudly, nodding erratically, and not using “verbal behavior” while listening. Four items predicted 11% of the variation in Blacks’ perception of Whites’ Expressiveness: did not use a variety of speech patterns, got to the point, spoke loudly, and spoke in a friendly manner. Finally, three items predicted 20% of Blacks’ views of Whites’ Directness: speaking one’s mind, using appropriate terminology, and speaking with confidence (see Table 4).
DISCUSSION
This study investigated the relationship between stereotypical impressions and specific communication behaviors in Black-White interaction. We found that specific communication behaviors predict certain stereotypic impressions. However, the communication behaviors that predicted participants’ views of the racial other were not based solely on a certain racial “communication style” that prior literature supposes to be “Black” or “White.” Rather, participants drew upon both the behaviors generally characteristic of White and Black communication to make their impressions. Furthermore, the factor analyses of the individual stereotypic impressions suggest that these impressions may be better understood as clusters than as single constructs.
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Table 2Factor Analysis of Blacks' Impressions of White Communicators (n = 208)
Factors of Perceptions: Second-Order Stereotypical Impressions
The analyses suggest factors of second-order stereotypical impressions. Three factors of impressions emerged for both the Black and the White samples. White perceptions of Blacks factor into three clusters: a Negative Feeling cluster with most of the perceptual items and two more limited clusters, each with only two items and marginal reliabilities, for Positive Feeling and Activity. The Black perceptions of Whites factored out similarly-three factors, with the Negative Feeling factor containing the bulk of the items. Two small factors emerged, dealing with Expressiveness and Directness. These factor structures are similar to, but also challenge, the categories of impressions that Mehrabian (1970) found for nonverbal behavior: evaluation, potency, and responsiveness. The factors for the Black sample resemble the structure most closely, with Directness relating to the potency factor, Expressiveness to the responsiveness factor, and Negative feeling to the evaluation factor. The White factors differ slightly in that there seems to be no potency factor. There is an Activity factor that relates to responsiveness, but the other two factors represent evaluation. This supports the Billig et al. (1988) suggestion that there is an ambivalence or a dilemma among Whites’ attitudes for Blacks, a tension between the rational desire to see Blacks positively and gut-level feelings of prejudice or subconscious desire for dominance.
Again, however, for both samples we must be tentative about the conclusions we draw on the second and third factors. What we can conclude from these findings is that the stereotypic perceptions for both samples seem to be more supported by an underlying feeling of negativity than by specific beliefs or cognitions about each other (Allport, 1954/1979). This conclusion is evidenced by the large loadings on each Negative Feeling factor. If this finding is true, challenging or even changing the surface beliefs or specific stereotypes of Whites toward Blacks and Blacks toward Whites may not change the underlying negative feeling that pervades these perceptions.
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Table 3Stepwise Regression Analyses on Whites' Impressions of Black Communicators (n = 317)
Predictors of Black and White Stereotypic Impressions
From the multiple regression analysis, we can see first which perceived behaviors are associated with each “stereotypic impression.” Notably, most stereotypic impressions were predicted by communication items from both lists (White and Black) of behaviors. First, Whites’ Negative Feeling impression of Black communicators was predicted by the expected “spoke loudly,” but also by “used cultural slang,” acting like one “knows-it-all,” “used direct eye contact,” and “discussed trivial topics.” Second, Blacks’ Negative Feeling impression of White communicators was predicted by acting like one “knows-it-all,” “spoke loudly” which in part also predicted Blacks’ impression of White communicators as Expressive, “nodded erratically,” and did not “listen using verbal behavior.” Moreover, Whites’ impression of Black communicators as Active and Blacks’ impression of White communicators as Direct were both partially predicted by one “appearing to speak one’s mind.” This suggests that a specific behavior may not culturally “belong” to one group, but rather that clusters of behaviors constitute the style or styles of a cultural group. No single behavior, decontextualized from other speech patterns and contexts, should be considered as an ethnic or racial style of speaking nor used to predict a specific impression.
These results also suggest that there is diversity of communication styles among a single ethnic group (Hall, 1992; Orbe, 1995), which clearly merits further investigation. For example, there are regional, social class, and urban-rural speech differences among Black Americans, just as there are among White Americans. Unfortunately, the tendency across much research, including the present project, is to “lump” groups together in a way that obscures such differences. The extent to which we did find significant predictors suggests that there are some similarities among the participants in each sample (e.g., the Black participants more often came from large urban areas and White participants from both large and small communities). Future research might investigate the attitudes among different subsamples of each group.
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Table 4Stepwise Regression Analyses on Blacks' Impressions of White Communicators (n = 208)
This analysis also revealed the various stereotypic impressions that are associated with a particular behavior. For example, Whites perceived Black communicators who used “cultural slang” negatively and as less active. Whites who were perceived to use “verbal feedback” during the listening process were perceived with less Negative Feeling. Whites who “used a variety of speech patterns” with their Black communication partners were perceived as less Expressive. Interestingly, perceived direct eye contact from the Black partner predicted the Negative Feeling factor, and little eye contact predicted the Positive Feeling factor. However, perceived eye contact from Whites predicted none of the factors for the Black sample.
CAT (Gallois et al., 1995) might suggest that Whites are not comfortable with what many Whites would call “black slang” and would prefer Blacks to accommodate. However, when Whites perceived Blacks were communicating with behaviors illustrative of “White” communication, perceptions were ambivalent: Blacks were perceived as Positive when they were seen using distinct pronunciation, less Positive and more Active when using direct eye contact, and less Positive and less Active when using a variety of speech patterns. This finding suggests that even something as simple as direct eye contact might lead to conflicting perceptions among White communicators and a need for further study.
When a White person interacts with a Black person communicating with so-called slang, the White person may feel uncomfortable because of differing speech characteristics. This uncomfortableness may heighten the White person’s self-awareness and otherness in a given context Unfamiliarity may lead the White person to feel threatened by a Black communicator (who may only be performing a particular cultural communication style) or to feel that the Black communicator is emphasizing difference or separateness. However, when a White person interacts with a Black person communicating in a characteristically White communication style, although this may represent the Black communicator’s desire to align with or demonstrate understanding to the White communicator, the White communicator may view this with suspicion (Broome, 1990).
In terms of the CTEI (Hecht et al., 1993), some of the behaviors in this study (e.g., using slang, speaking as if one knows-it-all) might be seen to either put down or exclude the other. CTEI and Layered perspective of intolerance (Baldwin & Hecht, 1995) suggest that both identity and intolerance can be enacted at the dyadic level. In this study, we see a link between perceived communication behaviors and stereotypic impressions in dyadic communication.
This same analysis might apply to Blacks’ perception of White communication. For example, Blacks seem to want Whites to use verbal behavior in the listening process (i.e., would prefer they accommodate), but not use a lot of head nods or speak loudly during interaction (i.e., prefer they not accommodate). Perhaps because some Black communication behaviors serve functions of unifying and establishing cultural boundaries (Hecht et al., 1993), when Whites use symbols of Black ethnicity (Collier, 1997), Blacks may feel defensive. Rather than Standard English articulation, Blacks may read this to be a crisp, almost staccato style of communicating that indicates disdain, such as Waters’ (1992) concept of hyperexplanation.
Although all participants relied on behaviors from both the “White” and “Black” behavior lists, these behaviors explained more of the variation in scores for the Whites’ negative perceptions of Blacks (68%) than for the Blacks’ negative views of Whites (30%). Also, beyond the overall negative perceptions, remaining factors of attitudes do little to explain White and Black perceptions.
The difference in variance explained for the negative factor may suggest differing complexity in interracial opinions. For example, Whites’ views of Blacks are less differentiated, based either on limited knowledge of the complexities of Black culture, on bifurcated media images of Blacks (Jhally & Lewis, 1992), or on White prejudice, than Blacks’ views of Whites. Blacks seem to construct their ethnic identity more complexly than Whites (Hecht, Larkey, & Johnson, 1992) and, based on their position in a culture that is ambivalent toward them, develop a complex standpoint (Orbe, 1998; Orbe & Harris, 2001).
One limitation in these findings that might, relate to the low ability of the communication behaviors, especially for the Black sample, to predict attitudes of the racial other is that the participants may have seen communication partners more on individual terms (Gudykunst & Kim, 1997). We asked them not to describe Whites or Blacks in general, as much stereotype literature has done, but to recall a specific interaction. People choose to interact with and remember people they like. Perhaps the participants consciously suppressed stereotypic impressions (Devine, 1989). This would suggest that, although we might have stereotypes that come to mind when we list impressions of a group, these same perceptions may not always come into play in interactions. More research should examine this possibility and include more positive items from the original Katz and Braly (1933) list of racial stereotypes.
Other limitations of the study should be kept in mind when interpreting these results. First, we did not account for participants’ age. Research suggests that younger and older adults have different expectations for intergenerational communication (Harwood, McKee, & Lin, 2000). In terms of communication accommodation theory and our list of characteristics intended to operationalize Black and White communication, behaviors such as “speaking loudly” and “speaking with distinct pronunciation” may be perceived by older participants as patronizing speech (simplified grammar and vocabulary and exaggerated intonation) and by younger adults as attempts to accommodate (Ryan, Giles, Bartolucci, & Henwood, 1986). Future research might investigate samples with greater age diversity.
Second, the means on the items3, although not the focus of the present study, suggest that the actual mean difference may not be too great. This may be because, although prior studies asked participants to describe a group, we asked about specific individuals. A participant may have specific information about the communication partner, which may deactivate stereotypes (Zebrowitz, Montepare, & Lee, 1993), especially if prior information on the partner is positive (Jackson, Hymes, & Sullivan, 1987)or the specific behavior of the partner discontinued stereotypes (Biernat & Vescio, 1993; Hewstone & Hamberger, 2000).
Finally, we are unable to tell if certain communication behaviors lead to, cause, or trigger stereotypes. However, we do know that racial stereotypes may change when applied to specific communication partners as stereotypic impressions in line with Tajfel’s (1978) continuum from interindividual to intergroup communication. And we know that communication behaviors in interracial interactions can predict “stereotypic impressions” with certain behaviors appearing to be especially problematic in interracial communication. Clearly, considerable theoretical development and empirical investigation remain to be done to understand these complex relationships.
Despite these limitations, the findings have implications for day-to-day interethnic communication. Our findings suggest that behaviors considered “Black” or “White” in past research are not essentially Black or White. In other words, behavior differences between Blacks and Whites may be much more complex than simple labels convey. Though we can make some useful predictions about Black and White communicator perceptions, we must keep in mind the diversity within both Black and White experience and culture (Hall, 1992; Orbe, 1995).
Race-based communication stereotypes remain an obstacle to effective and appropriate racial communication (Barna, 1994). Understanding these stereotypes may be the first step people can take toward avoiding them. This study provides both Blacks and Whites with information on the relationship between stereotypical perceptions and preferred communication style. Thus, interactants may tailor communication to meet particular goals (persuasion, respect, relational development, etc.). For example, in some contexts, Black communicators may choose to avoid the use of Black English or loud talk. White communicators may choose to be friendly, but be careful of superficial talk, condescension, or adopting admonition or hyperexplanation (Waters, 1992). In sum, we hope this study helps communicators recognize and manage, where appropriate to do so, intercultural and intergroup communication differences.
Sidebar
SOUTHERN COMMUNICATION JOURNAL, Volume 68, Number 1, Fall, 2002, pp. 40-56
Footnote
NOTES
1Any discussion of “race” and culture is problematic, especially given that “race” is more of a social construction than a biological reality (Rattansi, 1992). Thus, in this article, we choose to put it in quotations to highlight its social-constructedness. Also, as Orbe (1995) and others have noted, cultural diversity within “races” makes statements of cultural norms of a “race” problematic. Still, Asante (1987) and others suggested that there are components of African American culture that may hold across many subgroups of African Americans.
2We realize the sensitive nature of these terms. Our intention here is not to debate whether Ebonics is slang or a language. Rather, we would side with a great number of recent authors who suggest that Black English is a vital and resistant form of English with its own grammar and functions. The phrases “slang,” “appropriate terminology,” “erratic head nods,” “trivial topics,” and so on reflected terms from literature in a way we thought the respondents would understand.
3For a list of the means and standard deviations for the individual items on each measure, please contact the first author.
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AuthorAffiliation
Patrick C. Hughes, Communication Studies, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409-3083, (806) 742-1174, pahughes@ttu.edu; John R. Baldwin, Communication, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4480, (309) 452-1214, jrbaldw@ilstu.edu. All correspondence should be sent to the first author. The authors are grateful to Ken Cissna, under whose Editorship this article was originally submitted, Joy Hart, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
Copyright Southern States Communication Association Fall 2002
International Students’ Proactive Behaviors in the United States: Effects of Information- Seeking Behaviors on School Life
Cho, Jaehee
;
Lee, Seungjo
.
Journal of College Student Development
; Baltimore
Vol. 57, Iss. 5,
(Jul 2016): 590-603.
Considering the continuous increase of international students, the main goal of this study was to examine how international students’ proactive behaviors, particularly information-seeking behaviors, would impact key emotional outcomes including communication satisfaction with instructors and school-life satisfaction. For this investigation, we developed and tested a systematic model composed of those key factors. Results from structural equation modeling (SEM) supported most of the proposed hypotheses, It was particularly notable that the inquiry of information as a proactive form of communication was positively related to international students’ communication satisfaction with instructors, which ultimately predicts school satisfaction.
As society has become more globalized, the portion of international students in the United States has gradually increased (Campbell, 2012; Glass, 2012). The Institute of International Education (2012a) has reported the steady increase of international graduate students in the United States in 2012. Particularly, compared to 2011, there was the notable increase of undergraduate international students (18.5% increase of freshmen and 12.5% increase of seniors). Considering this significant portion of international students, scholars in various academic disciplines have come to study the diverse issues relevant to this population of students, such as cultural adjustment (Andrade, 2006; Ye, 2006), intercultural friendship (Gareis, Merkin, & Goldman, 2011), and social support (Mortenson, 2006; Ye, 2006).
These studies have often shown the various obstacles that hinder international students’ successful acculturation as well as their enjoyment of satisfactory life in the host countries; those barriers are of linguistic, social, political, and cultural nature. It needs to be considered that these obstacles often come from various uncertainties. As Gudykunst (2005) argued, international students are sojourners who are strangers in a host society. Thus, international students as sojourners often have a lack of knowledge about how to behave in appropriate ways in a host society. For instance, at the beginning stage of settlement, international students often experience cultural shock because they have limited knowledge of a host society’s main culture (Martin & Nakayama, 2010).
According to uncertainty reduction theory (URT), individuals tend to actively seek more information in order to overcome given uncertainties (Bradac, 2001; Kramer, 1993, 1999). Thus, it is quite understandable that international students actively seek information from diverse resources (e.g., instructors, friends). Moreover, previous studies have provided much evidence supporting positive roles of information-seeking behaviors in various settings (Miller & Jablin, 1991; Morrison, 2002). For example, informationseeking behaviors significantly and positively influence role clarity, finally increasing job performance (VandeWalle, 2003; Whitaker, Dahling, & Levy, 2007). Therefore, it is reasonable to argue that proactive behaviors of actively seeking information should improve international students’ school lives.
Nevertheless, we have limited knowledge of communicative behaviors (Urban & Orbe, 2007) and little understanding of specific roles of information-seeking behaviors among international students’ lives. Thus, mainly relying on the theory of motivated information management (TMIM; Afifi & Weiner, 2004), this study aimed to develop and empirically test a systematic model that explains how international students’ proactive behaviors of seeking course-related information mainly from instructors would impact their communication satisfaction with instructors and ultimately school-life satisfaction.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Theory of Motivated Information Management and InformationSeeking Behaviors
To comprehend information-seeking behaviors, TMIM (Afifi & Weiner 2004) is very helpful. The main theoretical frame of this theory relies primarily on Brashers’s uncertainty management theory (UM; 2001). Brashers (2001), Brashers, Goldsmith, and Hsieh (2002), and Brashers et al. (2000) argued the value of uncertainty and ways of managing uncertainty, rather than the traditional view of uncertainty as a negative product of complex and ambiguous alternative predictions that needs to be reduced. However, uncertainty per se is not necessarily negative. Rather, the value of uncertainty varies and is determined by different individual and contingent factors. The authors further suggested that it is necessary to address questions about “(a) the variability in uncertainty experiences and meanings, (b) the functions of appraisal and emotion in uncertainty management, and (c) the range of behavioral and psychological responses to uncertainty” (Brashers et al., 2000, p. 478). Based on this theory, it is very possible that an actor intentionally keeps oneself uncertain, not actively reducing uncertainty. For example, a study of patients with HIV/AIDS (Brashers et al., 2000) showed that patients maintain passive attitudes toward reducing uncertainty in order to keep themselves more optimistic. UM theory places emphasis on the necessity to “manage” rather than simply “reduce” uncertainty.
Following UM theory, Afifi and Weiner (2004) asserted the behaviors of managing information even in uncertain and ambiguous situations. Afifi and Weiner’s TMIM is composed of three phases: interpretation, evaluation, and decision. In the interpretation phase, people try to understand the extent of uncertainties in a given situation. That is, people compare the information that they currently have to the information that is necessary for predicting potential future outcomes. Any information discrepancies from this integral comparison trigger people to evaluate potential outcomes from seeking further information. In this phase, people evaluate whether they have enough ability to seek further information and whether potential outcomes would be positive. Then, in the final phase, based on the evaluation results, people make a final decision to seek or avoid relevant information. Moreover, corresponding to potential outcomes, people also select appropriate modes through which they seek further information. This process of selecting suitable modes of seeking information depends highly on given contexts.
In regards to modes of informationseeking behaviors, most previous studies have mostly based their investigations on two types of information-seeking behaviors: inquiry and monitoring (Ashford, 1986; Miller & Jablin, 1991; Morrison, 2002). Inquiry is considered to be a more active behavior of seeking information, while monitoring is regarded to be less active. An actor directly asking information-sources to provide necessary information is a form of inquiry behavior. In the case of monitoring, an information-seeker makes observations about the conversational and contextual information of a given situation.
The selection of one of these two different information-seeking modes is determined mainly by the social cost of seeking further information (Morrison, Chen, & Salgado, 2004). When information-seekers expect to incur higher costs from directly inquiring information, they tend to choose less active modes of seeking information. For example, veteran workers often hesitate to inquire directly about job-related information from their supervisors (Miller & Jablin, 1991). This is mainly because the inquiry of information may damage their public images as experienced workers, possibly resulting in negative evaluations from their supervisors regarding their job performance. This potential cognitive damage can be understood as a high social cost.
In regards to international students’ information-seeking behaviors, their limited linguistic skills will be significantly relevant to social cost. That is, international students who have limited linguistic skills often experience loss of face when they engage in direct communication with native speakers (Holmes, 2005). Furthermore, in regards to communication with instructors, international students are often afraid that even their wellmeaning intentions may be misunderstood because of their limited English skills. This is primarily because such misunderstandings will negatively impact their public image, possibly leading to instructors’ underestimation of these students’ true academic qualities. Based on this claim regarding hesitation of direct communication with instructors, the following hypothesis was formulated:
Hypothesis 1: International students will prefer monitoring to inquiry of courserelated information from instructors.
Furthermore, when researchers study international students, we need to consider that these students have unique cultural backgrounds. In other words, although international students share many common experiences in terms of personal, social, and school lives, their experiences tend to be bounded by their cultural backgrounds. In particular, when international students are of significantly different cultures from the host culture, they are more likely to feel difficulty in terms of cultural adjustment. This can be explained through the concepts of cultural distance (Kogut & Singh, 1988) and cultural proximity (Straubhaar, 1991), signifying distance and closeness between two different cultures, respectively. In regards to cultural distance, it is understandable that, for people who immigrate to a country characterized by a culture similar to their own (e.g., Canadian students in the US), cultural adjustment will be much easier compared to the cultural adjustment for people immigrating from a country of a distinctly different culture (e.g., Chinese students in the US). Considering the unique cultural backgrounds of international students, we explored the cultural variations in information-seeking patterns. For this exploration of cultural variations, the methodological approach of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used, because HLM is a useful statistical tool for detecting the potential effects of collectivelevel factors, such as groups, organizations, and countries (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002).
Research Question 1: How will information-seeking behaviors be influenced by international students’ cultural backgrounds?
Communication Satisfaction, School-Life Satisfaction
According to information-seeking models (Morrison, 2002), information-seeking behaviors significantly influence various cognitive and emotional outcomes such as role clarity (Whitaker et al., 2007) and job satisfaction (Anseel, Lievens, & Levy, 2007). Particularly, the provision of sufficient and clear information significantly contributes to communication satisfaction (Gray & Laidlaw, 2004). According to Redding (1977), communication satisfaction can be conceptualized as “overall degree of satisfaction [a person] perceived in his total communication environment” (p. 429). Moreover, one of the axioms of uncertainty reduction theory is that, as uncertainties are reduced, people feel higher communication satisfaction (Berger & Calabrese, 1975). This implies that information-seeking behaviors are positively related to communication satisfaction. In classroom settings, a significant portion of communication satisfaction is largely dependent on students’ active interactions with instructors. Thus, it is reasonable that an increase of student-instructor interactions through information-seeking behaviors will positively influence international students’ communication satisfaction with American instructors. Thus, the following hypothesis could be established:
Hypothesis 2: Information-seeking behaviors will positively predict international students’ communication satisfaction with American instructors.
Moreover, according to media naturalness theory, individuals have a preference toward more natural modes of communication (Kock, 2005). Thus, compared to communication through written documents, people are more likely to feel satisfaction from face-to-face communication. Although this theory is mainly used for understanding adoption of certain media, the basic assumption of naturalness is still important for examining modes of seeking information. In other words, considering that communication is fundamentally a two-way interaction, inquiry of information through mutual interactions will be more natural than monitoring of information. This is because while inquiry takes place through actual interactions between an information-giver and seeker, monitoring is solely reliant on an information-seeker’s collection of contextual information without mutual interactions. This implies that communication satisfaction with instructors should be more closely related to direct modes of communication than indirect observation of instructors’ behaviors. Thus, the following hypothesis could be established:
Hypothesis 3: The effect of inquiry of information on communication satisfaction will be stronger than the effect of monitoring of information on communication satisfaction.
Therefore, it is reasonable to argue that communication satisfaction is a considerable emotional outcome from information-seeking behaviors. Moreover, to more thoroughly scrutinize the effects of those proactive behaviors, it is necessary to examine potential ultimate psychological outcomes from communication satisfaction. Because inter- national students experience various barriers that interfere with their school lives, scholars have often focused on those students’ satisfaction with school lives (Cetinkaya-Yildiz, Cakir, & Kondakci, 2011; Sam, 2001) as well as stress (Misra & Castillo, 2004; Wan, Chapman, & Biggs, 1992). Students’ satisfaction with schools plays a crucial role in creating positive outcomes such as academic success (Samdal, Wold, & Bronis, 1999). Furthermore, students’ school satisfaction is closely associated with their perceptions of support originated from active interactions with school members, especially teachers (Danielsen, Samdal, Hetland, & Wold, 2009). This implies the necessity to scrutinize specific functions of communication satisfaction with instructors for improving international students’ school-life satisfaction.
Thus, this study aimed at examining the potential effect of communication satisfaction on an ultimate psychological outcome: school-life satisfaction. It is quite clear that a satisfactory communication with a target is likely to improve a communicator’s general life satisfaction (Bindah & Othman, 2012). In addition, international students experience much difficulty in developing personal relationships with instructors (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Thus, when international students feel more satisfaction with communicating with their instructors, they may ultimately experience significant heightening of their school-life satisfaction. Thus, regarding the close relationships between communication satisfaction and life satisf action, the following hypothesis was established:
Hypothesis 4: Communication satisfaction with instructors will positively affect international students’ school-life satisfaction.
METHOD
Participants and Procedure
In order to test the multiple hypotheses, international students from a large public university located in North Carolina were invited to complete an online survey. This online survey was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the university with which the primary investigator was affiliated. Survey invitations were distributed to international students through the university’s International Office. At the time of data collection, 984 international students were registered, and the survey invitation letter was sent to all of them. The students were informed that their participation in the online survey was completely voluntary. A total of 131 international students completed the survey, a response rate of 13.3%. After removal of surveys with missing data, a total of 119 surveys remained for analyses. Among the participants, 57.1% were male, and 42.9% female. The majority of participants were graduate students (76.5%). The average age was 27.8 years. The participants came from 33 countries; among those countries, the two dominant countries were China (28.3%) and India (23.0%). This nationality composition was similar to that found in a 2012 report from the Institute of International Education (2012b), implying that this study’s sample reached an acceptable level of representativeness. The average length of residence in the US was 3.12 years.
Instrumentation
Information-Seeking Behaviors. This study examined two different modes of informationseeking behaviors-inquiry and monitoring. The items used to measure these two modes were measured through a revised version of Callister, Kramer, and Turban’s (1999) feedback-seeking scale. In order to measure inquiry of information from instructors, the study considered face-to-face communication and e-mail as the two major channels used for instructor-student communication. This was because a pilot study for this main study showed that other forms of communication channels-phone calls, text messaging, instant messaging, and memos-were minimally used for seeking course-related information. Finally, incorporating the two different channels with the two different modes of seeking information, the following items were created: (a) directly asking your instructors during the classes, (b) directly asking your instructors right before/after the classes, (c) visiting and directly asking your instructors during their office hours, and (d) directly asking your instructors through e-mail. Monitoring of information from instructors was also measured through two items from Ashford’s (1986) feedback-seeking behaviors. The following items were used: (a) paying attention to instructor’s responses to other students’ questions, and (b) observing how my instructor reacts to other students’ behaviors.
The following prompt was given in order for the participants to respond to those items for inquiry and monitoring: “Before answering the following questions, please recall your communication activities for 2-3 typical courses that you are now taking. To more clearly understand and better perform class assignments (e.g., individual term papers, team papers) and exams, how frequently, in general, have you done each of the following?” The reliability scores for the two measurements were acceptable: inquiry (M = 3.47, SD = .86, α = .76) and monitoring (M = 4.06, SD = .84, α = .79).
Communication Satisfaction. Four items from Downs’s (1988) Communication Audit were used to measure international students’ general communication satisfaction with instructors. Those items were: (a) I am generally satisfied with my communication encounters with faculty/instructors; (b) I enjoy my interactions with faculty/instructors; (c) I feel good about my conversations with faculty/ instructors; and (d) I am generally pleased with my interactions with faculty/instructors. The reliability test showed an acceptable reliability score (M = 4.03, SD = .75, α = .90).
School-Life Satisfaction. To measure school-life satisfaction, this study reworded three items from the scale of satisfaction with work devised by Scott et al. (1999). The following items were used to measure school-life satisfaction: (a) My current school life at [name of university] gives me a sense of accomplishment; (b) My current school life at [name of university] is fascinating; and (c) I am satisfied with my current school life at [name of university]. The reliability for this measurement was acceptable (M = 3.51, SD = .88, α = .90).
Control Variables . To detect the true effects of the main predictors, this study controlled for the effects of the following variables. First, considering the fact that two of the most influential factors for international students’ success in the US are English speaking and listening abilities (Sawir, Marginson, ForbesMewett, Nyland, & Ramia, 2012), this study controlled for the effects of English language skills. To measure English skills, we used two items: one to measure for speaking and the other for listening. Participants were asked to rate both their English speaking and listening abilities, individually, on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good). Compared to more objective, standardized scores, such as those for TOEFL, this subjective rating is more suitable for understanding the cognitive and behavioral relationships among information-seeking behaviors and emotional outcomes. For example, it is highly plausible that an international student who has a low TOEFL score may perceive his/her English skills to be of high quality and actively interacts with native English speakers. Therefore, a composite measurement based on a subjective evaluation of English skills was created by averaging the two scores for speaking and listening. The measurement gained an acceptable reliability score (M = 3.94, SD = .83, α = .80). In addition to English skills, because communication activities are deeply related to the length of residence in the host society and the length of registration with the host university, the effects of these two variables on the main study variables were also controlled. Lastly, compared to undergraduate students, graduate students are likely to have more opportunities to personally and closely communicate with faculty members. Therefore, academic status was also included in the model as a control variable.
RESULTS
Hypotheses Tests
Hypothesis 1 posited that international students would more likely monitor than inquire information from instructors. To test this hypothesis, a paired samples t test was conducted. The result showed that Hypothesis 1 was fully supported (t = 5.54, p < .001), indicating that international students preferred monitoring (M = 3.96) to inquiry (M = 3.30) of information from instructors.
The remaining hypotheses were focused on the direct effects of information-seeking behaviors on communication satisfaction (Hypothesis 2) that affects school-life satisfaction (Hypothesis 4). As Lee and Lim (2007) argue, structural equation modeling allows researchers to simultaneously test multiple linear effects in a systematic manner. Thus, this study tested a structural equation model composed of all main study variables. Following the guidelines from Hu and Bentler (1999), we examined the absolute (RMSEA) as well as comparative (CFI, IFI) goodness of fit for the path model. For this SEM, the effects of four variables-length of residence in the US, length of registration with the university, academic degree (dummy coded: 1 = undergraduate students, 0 = graduate students), and English skills-were controlled for by adding them into the model. Particularly, the relationships between the four control variables and information-seeking behaviors were controlled for by creating links among them.
The results showed acceptable goodness of fit scores, χ2(df = 103) = 175.4, CFI = .92, IFI = .93 RMSEA = .08. The model indicated a significant direct effect of inquiry of information (standardized β = .38, p = .001) and a nonsignificant effect of monitoring of information (standardized = .17, p = .09) on communication satisfaction, partially supporting Hypothesis 2. The addition of these two independent variables into the regression equation significantly explained the variance of communication satisfaction with instructors (R 2 = .21). Moreover, as hypothesized, the standardized regression weight for inquiry was slightly larger than that for monitoring, supporting Hypothesis 3. For this comparison, standardized regression coefficients were used because these statistical indicators are more adequate for comparing two variables (Leohlin, 2004). Furthermore, the results also showed a strong and positive effect of communication satisfaction on school-life satisfaction (standardized β = .48, p < .001, R 2 = .24), supporting Hypothesis 4. In addition to those direct effects, as Table 2 shows, the SEM results indicated a considerable indirect effect of inquiry on school satisfaction (standardized β = .18)
Guided by Research Question 1, we explored how information-seeking behaviors would be influenced by cultural backgrounds. In order to explore RQ1, we checked for multilevel variations in the two modes of informat ionseeking behaviors. More specifically, using HLM, we tested the invariance in each of the two variables across the samples by country of origin. The test checked how significantly the variance in each level 1 variable would be explained by level 2 factors. Corresponding to the two main level 1 variables-two modes of informationseeking behaviors-two HLM analyses were conducted. The HLM results showed that the intraclass correlations for both inquiry (intraclass correlation = .017) and monitoring (intraclass correlation = .026) were too low to examine the effects of level 2 variables and that none of the level 1 variables was significantly explained by group effects (see Table 3). This implies that, in spite of unique cultural backgrounds, international students showed similar patterns of information-seeking behaviors.
DISCUSSION
Considering the continuous increase of international students, the main goal of this study was to investigate how international students’ information-seeking behaviors directly and indirectly impacted communication satisfact ion with instructors and school-life satisfaction. For this investigation, we developed a systematic model mainly regarding communication satisfaction as a mediating factor. This study analyzed data from international students from 33 different countries mainly through structural equation modeling (SEM). Statistical results supported most of the proposed hypotheses and presented meaningful findings.
First, mainly based on TMIM (Afifi & Weiner, 2004), this study hypothesized international students’ preference of monitoring to inquiring information from instructors. The result of a paired-samples t test fully supported this hypothesis. This may not be just because of limited English speaking and listening abilities but because of differences in power distance. Interestingly, a significant portion of research participants were from countries of relatively higher power distance cultures (e.g., China, India, Middle-Eastern countries). As Hofstede (2001) presented, power distance indicates the extent to which individuals accept unbalanced power relationships. In high power distance cultures, people tend to accept strong hierarchy and obey their superiors’ orders. Moreover, people are likely to save face in order to protect their own reputation (Morrison et al., 2004). To save their own faces, people from high power distance cultures tend to prefer passive modes of seeking information than directly inquiring for necessary information. Moreover, in educational contexts, students from high power distance cultures are more likely to be silent, giving more value to listening (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Thus, this particular finding may be explained not only by limited language skills but also by cultural backgrounds.
Next, the SEM results confirmed that information-seeking behaviors positively and significantly affected communication satisfaction. An interesting finding was the larger effect of inquiry of information on communication satisfaction than that of monitoring of information. This finding can be explained from two different aspects. First, as elaborated above, because direct and two-way communication can be perceived to be more natural, inquiry of communication through direct interactions might have a larger effect than monitoring of information. Media naturalness theory is useful for explaining this finding. Next, as Park, Lee, Yun, and Kim (2009) argued, the violation of international students’ initial expectancy about communication with instructors might positively affect their communication satisfaction. Based on findings of previous studies regarding teacher-student relationships, in their home countries, international students-especially from high power distance cultures, such as Far East Asian countries-often experience uneasiness in speaking with their instructors (Myers, Zhong, & Guan, 1998; Park et al., 2009). Therefore, it is very plausible that those students might have expected communicative distance from their instructors. However, American instructors often tend to have high immediacy-low social distance-and active communication with their students (Myers et al., 1998; Neuliep, 1997; Park et al., 2009; Roach & Byrne, 2001). This means that international students might have experienced a violation of their initial expectation towards instructorstudent relationships in positive ways. Based on expectancy violation theory (Burgoon & Le Poire, 1993), this positively violated expectation would predict high communication satisfaction for international students.
Third, mainly based on the concept of cultural distance and cultural proximity, this study explored how international students’ information-seeking behaviors are bounded by their cultural backgrounds. However, HLM results showed that there was no significant variance in either of two modes of information-seeking behaviors across the different countries. To explain this finding, it is useful to take into account the countries that send international students. According to the Institute of International Education (2012b), the top three places of origin for international students in 2012 were China (25.4%), India (13.1%), and South Korea (9.5%). Interestingly, among the top 25 places of origin for international students, the portion of students from either European countries (including Germany, UK, France, and Spain) or English-speaking countries (including Canada) was only 7.6%. This implies that a large portion of international students in the US come from countries with generally high cultural distance and low cultural proximity. The same pattern was found in this study, showing that only about 4.0% of the sample for this study came from European countries. Thus, because of the dominance of international students from relatively higher cultural distance, the effects of cultural backgrounds on individual-level informationseeking patterns would be diminished.
Lastly, this study found that while English skills did not significantly moderate the effects of information-seeking behaviors on communication satisfaction with instructors, it slightly significantly moderated the influence of communication satisfaction on school-life satisfaction. First, the former result indicates that regardless of English skills, internationals students’ proactive behaviors positively influenced communication satisfaction with instructors. Through such proactive behaviors, international students may be able to more actively cope with the given situations, maintaining positive, optimistic, and active attitudes (Holmes, 2005; Lipson, 2008). This finding reconfirms the significance of proactive behaviors for improving personal emotional outcomes (Miller & Jablin, 1991).
Although communication satisfaction with instructors generally increased international students’ school-life satisfaction, its effect was moderated by English skills in a unique way. This finding contributes to widening our knowledge about roles of international students’ communication. Although many scholars have intensively investigated wide ranges of issues regarding international students’ communication, we still know little about the micromechanisms of how international students’ proactive communicative behaviors influence their school-life satisfaction. Indeed, there exist very diverse factors (e.g., limited social networks, cultural distance, limited friendship) that influence international students’ school- life satisfaction. However, as findings from this study show, communication-oriented factors play critical roles of ultimately determining school-life satisfaction. Therefore, this study provides scholars with the opportunity to more thoroughly analyze various issues related to international students.
Practical Implications for Academic Practitioners
The findings of this study address the importance of international students’ proactive behaviors of seeking information from instructors for improving the affective outcomes of communication satisfaction and, finally, school-life satisfaction. In spite of abundant research on the intimate relationships between international students and instructors, there has been little research on the specific forms of information-seeking behaviors between the two groups of people. Because of this lack of research, host universities have paid even less attention to the communicative activities between international students and instructors, compared to international students’ communication with domestic students. Accordingly, we can find various university programs that support international students’ relationships with domestic students. Those programs include buddy programs, international tea time, international festivals, and so forth. These programs increase domestic students’ opportunities of exposure to other cultures, encouraging multicultural communication.
Likewise, based on the main findings from this research, it is recommended that host universities develop programs that can strengthen personal connections between faculty members and international students. These programs will be helpful for attenuating the communicative barriers between the students and instructors. A further recommendation is to organize departmental advisory committees that are committed to the well-being of international students. These specialized committees, unlike other general academic advisory committees, need to invest their resources toward improving their cultural understanding of international students through regular, open communication with the students. In addition, the main findings from this research need to be reflected in the organization of university orientations for international students. That is, during orientations, international students will benefit by learning about the importance of proactively communicating with their instructors in leading successful lives in the host university. Typically, these orientations are information-oriented; they primarily provide international students with critical information concerning their academic lives, including financial information (e.g., teaching assistantships), visa information, and so on. Due to the information-oriented characteristics of orientations, international students are limited in opportunities to hear the real voices of domestic instructors. Therefore, it will be effective to develop and strengthen sessions that allow faculty members to directly interact with international students.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Although this study holds significant theoretical implications, it does have the following limitations. First, as Morrison (2002) addressed, there exist diverse sources of information. In organizational settings, those sources are supervisors, colleagues, third parties, as well as documents (e.g., organizational handbook). In educational settings, sources of information for international students are instructors, other students, and online/off-line documents from the university. Although this study focused solely on instructors as the main source of information, it is recommended that future studies further analyze international students’ use of other sources for seeking academic information. In particular, future research is strongly recommended to thoroughly investigate the roles of co-ethnic groups among international students for seeking various types of information, such as educational, social, cultural information.
Next, the relationships between information-seeking behaviors and communication satisfaction might have possibly been influenced by the synchronicity of communication. Previous studies (e.g., Carlson & George, 2004) have confirmed the effects of media synchronicity on various communication variables (e.g., information overload). However, because this study focused more on modes of seeking information, it did not differentiate among the communication channels’ effects on information-seeking behaviors and communication satisfaction. Rather, it aggregated different channels into one factor. For future research, it is strongly recommended to further investigate how different communication channels in regards to synchronicity will affect students’ behaviors and attitudes of seeking information.
A third point to consider is that this study collected survey data from a single university. Although the sample well represented the actual portion of international students in the university, the findings from this study were limited to that particular context. In other words, the educational environments that shape international students’ experience vary from one university to another. For example, universities located in California (e.g., Los Angeles, San Diego) have larger numbers of international students and may have more open policies in regards to that population compared to universities in traditionally more conservative states such as Mississippi, Kentucky, or Oklahoma. Moreover, as Martin and Nakayama (2010) argue, intercultural communication is challenged by limited exposure to international interactions. That is, people in small cities have far fewer opportunities to engage in international and intercultural interactions compared to those in large cities (e.g., New York, Chicago). This implies that there is geographical variation among international students. Therefore, future research needs to consider such contextual factors that may influence the general attitudes toward international students.
Fourth, future research needs to pay more attention to the cultural variations of communication types and norms, especially related to communication satisfaction. Corresponding to cultural norms, people show different patterns of feeling comfort while communicating with others (Martin & Nakayama, 2010). For example, while Western countries (e.g., USA, UK, France) mainly emphasize speaking, Eastern countries (e.g., Korea, Japan, China) give more value to silence and listening. Thus, it is well known that, unlike Western countries’ emphasis on interactions between instructors and students, Eastern countries mainly depend on instructors’ one-way transition of knowledge to students. Thus, for future research, it will be valuable to scrutinize how such culturally bounded communicative norms and styles would impact international students’ communication satisfaction with instructors.
Lastly, it is recommended that future research scrutinize the moderating effects of academic majors of international students on information-seeking behaviors. According to the Institute of International Education (2012c), compared to other academic fields, such as the humanities (2.1%) and education (2.2%), engineering (18.5%) and business and management (21.8%) have notably larger numbers of international students. This implies that, corresponding to academic fields, international students may have different experiences in regards to cultural adjustment, communicative challenges, educational performances, and so forth. For instance, in general, Chinese students in communication studies may experience more challenges in their school lives, compared to Chinese engineering students who work with many other Chinese students in their department. This is mainly because the faculty and staff of engineering departments can be more familiar with working with Chinese students and because new Chinese students have more resources by which to obtain crucial information for their school lives. Thus, future research needs to analyze the unique patterns of international students’ information-seeking behaviors, corresponding to their academic majors.
CONCLUSION
Students’ communicative behaviors have received much attention by scholars in various academic areas including, but not limited to, education, communication, and psychology. Nevertheless, there have been a limited number of studies that have investigated students’ proactive behaviors of actively seeking information. Especially in regards to international students, there has been little research scrutinizing such proactive behaviors, even though these behaviors must play critical roles in determining their school-life satisfaction. Calling attention to this understudied topic, this study was able to highlight the significant roles of information-seeking behaviors for improving communication satisfaction, and ultimately school-life satisfaction. Those findings make significant theoretical contributions to the literature of international students’ communicative behaviors and their emotional outcomes.
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AuthorAffiliation
Jaehee Cho is Assistant Professor in the School of Media & Communication at Chung-Ang University, Korea. Seungjo Lee is Associate Professor in the School of Media & Communication at Chung-Ang University, Korea.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Seungjo Lee, Chung-Ang University, 84 Heukseok-Ro, Faculty Office Building #711, DongjakGu, Seoul, Korea; ijoylee@cau.ac.kr
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Copyright Johns Hopkins University Press Jul 2016
Reconsidering the Pipeline Problem: Increasing Faculty Diversity
February 10, 2016
Kimberly A. Griffin writes that a pathway is a better metaphor than a pipeline when considering how to diversify college and university faculty. This is the third in a
series
sparked by recent student protests and the national dialogue on diversity and inclusion.
Last fall,
students protested
on college and university campuses nationwide, demanding that institutional leaders pay attention to the challenges Black students, and students of color in general, regularly face.
While students engaged in various acts of resistance, one common strategy was to compose and deliver a
list of demands
to their president. One demand in particular appeared on many lists and has drawn a great deal of attention from the higher education community, the media, and others: Students want significant increases in faculty diversity, most notably, more professors from communities of color.
Increases in student diversity have not been matched in the faculty
, and most campuses have small numbers of Black, Latino and Native American professors. Many leaders have struggled with how to develop strategies that will address this concern. Some institutions have dedicated significant resources and initiated
action plans
to increase faculty diversity on their respective campuses. However, many still struggle with developing plans and initiatives that will both produce short-term results and long-term change.
Addressing the lack of diversity we see in academia first requires a clear understanding of the root causes of the problem. As we engage in this discourse as a community, conversations and strategies often turn to the “pipeline,” or the number of students from underrepresented backgrounds
entering and completing graduate programs
, the prerequisite for pursuing a faculty career.
In 2014, 13 percent of doctoral degree recipients were Black, Latino or Native American, up from 8 percent in 1994. Much of this growth was due to increases in the number of Latino graduate students. While increases in the number of students completing advanced degrees has indeed been slow and attention in this area is warranted, I suggest that there are limitations to framing a lack of faculty diversity as a purely a pipeline issue.
In some ways, using a pipeline metaphor limits the way that we think about increasing diversity. David Asai, senior director of science and education programs at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is one of many who critique the pipeline metaphor. He explains that student access and retention, particularly for communities of color in science, are rarely linear processes. Pipeline imagery focuses our attention on one point of entry into a potential field or career—and only one possible outcome for success.
Calls for developing the faculty pipeline can make us hyper aware of how many students are entering doctoral programs. Pipeline imagery allows us to assume that if we can get more students to apply to Ph.D. programs, more will be admitted, more will finish and more will be available to enter academic careers. Although this logic seems sound, many institutions have invested a great deal of time, attention and resources in attracting student applicants, with very little change in their graduate student population. Administrators who work on graduate diversity argue that
the struggle is not attracting students of color as applicants
; the challenge is in whether those students are admitted. In short, focusing on recruitment and the hiring of administrators to cultivate a more diverse applicant pool will only have limited success if we do not reconsider and address how talent is identified in the admissions process.
Julie Posselt’s
work on the graduate admissions process suggests that committees often embrace narrow definitions of merit, emphasizing students’ undergraduate institutions and GRE scores. Posselt and others remind us that GRE scores are
inconsistent predictors of success
in graduate school and emphasize that these criteria can limit the recognition of talented, high-potential students of color. Coupled with recent initiatives by the
Council of Graduate Schools
on holistic admission, this work pushes us to more closely attend to how we identify “rising stars” and whether the process and our criteria make it more likely that we will miss talented candidates of color.
The pipeline metaphor also creates a certain image of the progression from graduate school to an academic career. A pipeline conjures a picture of a straight line from enrollment, through graduate school, ending at a faculty position. However, a faculty career is not a given, and students’ level of interest in being professors appears to
decline throughout graduate school
. While it is important to honor individual agency and people choosing to align their work and their values, it is also important to note that patterns of departure from the academy aren’t the same across all groups.
Our study
of 1,500 biomedical scientists suggests that underrepresented minority trainees tended to have lower levels of interest in pursuing a faculty career at a research university than White and Asian trainees, even when they reported the same level of interest when starting graduate school, time to degree, quality and quantity of publications, and perceived advisor support, which were all variables measured in our study. This trend was particularly noticeable for women, who reported the lowest levels of interest in faculty careers at research universities and the highest levels of interest in pursuing non-academic careers. Our current research aims to explain why these patterns emerge, and how people of color experience their training and make decisions about leaving the academy.
Rather than focusing solely on increasing the number of people applying to or completing graduate programs, we must see increasing faculty diversity as a multi-step process that involves both institutional-level and systemic change. If we imagine a pathway to a faculty career instead of a pipeline, multiple opportunities for intervention present themselves.
Understanding that recruitment includes encouraging applications, admissions and enrollment allows institutional leaders to develop new programs and policies that recognize prospective student talent. Also, a deeper understanding of the messages we send students about what it means to be a professor and what faculty life is like, as well as whether they “fit” into the academy, can lead to policies and programs that encourage students of color to reconsider faculty careers.
Our research
suggests the desire to support underserved communities, discover concrete solutions to complex social problems, and develop the next generation of scholars of color appears central to the career aspirations of many women and people of color. Determining how these commitments can be incorporated into the values and reward structures of the academy would likely increase these students’ interests in faculty careers. These strategies begin to shift our focus from providing more scholars from diverse backgrounds with a potential opportunity to pursue a faculty career to actively cultivating talent and encouraging talented trainees to become professors. While there are no quick fixes, incorporating interventions that more directly address graduate student recruitment and training can accelerate our progress toward greater diversity and equity in the academy.