Communications in Humanities Research
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Communications in Humanities Research
Vol. 7, 31 October 2023
Open
Access | Article
Rethinking the Long Standing Phenomenon of Silent Chinese Students Supported by the Cultural Dimensions Theory of Hofstede
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
This article examines this phenomenon after studying the previous literature on silent students. With the surge in the number of Chinese students, more and more foreign universities have their presence, so the characteristics of Chinese student groups have become a favorite research direction of many Western scholars. The main arguments of this paper are 1) The impression of Chinese students can be summarized by the following keywords: silent, passive, and inflexible; 2) Although the descriptions are close to reality, most of the current research is limited to criticizing and judging arbitrarily, which makes these studies inevitably one-sided, self-righteous, and therefore lacking a comprehensive attitude; 3) Different cultural heritage and historical backgrounds will cause significant differences in the characteristics of local people; 4) The characteristics of Chinese students must not necessarily be negative. Consequently, this article reconsiders this problem from another perspective of cultural dimension theory. In the analysis process, this paper shows the differences between Chinese and Western cultures with the help of Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory. It makes a comprehensive analysis based on China’s socioeconomic and political conditions. Therefore, this paper contributes to putting forward some suggestions to improve the current education situation, emphasizing the significance of family and social education for students’ growth and character development.
Keywords
Chinese students western scholars, learning characteristics, silence, passive, rethinking, culture difference, Hofstede
References
1. Lu, Chunlei, and Wenchun Han. “Why don’t they participate? A self-study of Chinese graduate students’ classroom: Involvement in North America.” Brock Education Journal 20.1 (2010).
2. Sun, Yuzhuo. “Listen to the silence-it speaks: understanding Chinese university student perceptions of silence during intercultural communication.” (2016).
3. Xiumei, S. H. I., and W. A. N. G. Jinying. “Cultural distance between China and US across GLOBE model and Hofstede model.” International Business and Management 2.1 (2011): 11-17.
4. Sit, Helena Hing Wa. “Characteristics of Chinese students’ learning styles.” International proceedings of economics development and research 62 (2013): 36.
5. Hodkinson, Chris S., and Arthur E. Poropat. “Chinese students’ participation: The effect of cultural factors.” Education+ Training (2014).
6. Sun, Yuzhuo. “Listen to the silence-it speaks: understanding Chinese university student perceptions of silence during intercultural communication.” (2016).
7. Ha, Phan Le, and Binghui Li. “Silence as right, choice, resistance and strategy among Chinese ‘Me Generation’students: Implications for pedagogy.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 35.2 (2014): 233-248.
8. Wang, Sihui, and Marta Moskal. “What is wrong with silence in intercultural classrooms? An insight into international students’ integration at a UK university.” Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education 11 (2019): 52-58.
9. Jin, Jun, and Susan M. Bridges. “Educational technologies in problem-based learning in health sciences education: a systematic review.” Journal of medical internet research 16.12 (2014): e3240.
10. Hofstede, Geert. “Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context.” Online readings in psychology and culture 2.1 (2011): 2307-0919.
11. Zepeng Zhang. Cultural Differences in Employing The Phrase” Thank You” between Chinese And Americans. MS thesis. Xi’an Foreign Studies University, 2015.
12. Cronjé, Johannes C. “Using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to interpret cross-cultural blended teaching and learning.” Computers & Education 56.3 (2011): 596-603.
13. Satam, Hussein, and Hussein Wisam. “Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions (Masculinity Vs. Femininity) And Its Impact On Earnings Management.” Opción: Revista de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales 35 (2019): 2953.
14. Fang Kuang, and Dexin Tian. “ The Difference between Chinese and Western opinions on Kiasu phenomenon from the Hofstede Cultural Dimension -- Take the American TV series “New Arrival” as an example”
15. Jinying Yang. “ Cultural Differences and Fusion between China and the United States in the Movie Sun Tzu Comes from America Based on Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension Model.”
16. Merkin, Rebecca S. “Uncertainty avoidance and facework: A test of the Hofstede model.” International Journal of intercultural relations 30.2 (2006): 213-228.
17. Zhouyuan, Y. U. “The analysis about the factors of silence in college English classroom.” Studies in Literature and Language 12.5 (2016): 105-110.
18. Lockette, Kenneth F. “Creativity and Chinese education reform.” International Journal of Global Education (IJGE) ISSN: 2146-9296 1.4 (2012).
19. Desforges, Charles, and Alberto Abouchaar. The impact of parental involvement, parental support and family education on pupil achievement and adjustment: A literature review. Vol. 433. London: DfES, 2003.
20. Rachel Zhou, Yanqiu, Della Knoke, and Izumi Sakamoto. “Rethinking silence in the classroom: Chinese students’ experiences of sharing indigenous knowledge.” International Journal of Inclusive Education 9.3 (2005): 287-311.
21. Tan, Charlene. “PISA and education reform in Shanghai.” Critical Studies in Education 60.3 (2019): 391-406.
Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Authors who publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See Open Access Instruction).
- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-037-0
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-038-7
- Published Date
- 31 October 2023
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/7/20230772
- Copyright
- 31 October 2023
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited