Bridging Cultural Divides: Role Reversal as Pedagogy

Abstract

Research on the education of international students sheds light on the difficulties of studying in a foreign language, but often underplays the opportunities provided by cultural diversity in the classroom. This study, prompted initially by the authors’ experiences of the contrasts between East/West learning styles, explores how education systems, language, and cultural orientations inform students’ approaches to learning. It explains how role reversal in the classroom can be implemented in higher (university) education settings, to generate deeper perspectives of meaning and understanding when teaching internationally diverse cohorts to show how imaginative postgraduate student engagement can not only bridge cultural differences, but also capitalize upon them. While the apparent polarization between East and West educational system stereotypes served as the catalyst for the search for effective pedagogies of engagement, the proposed methods were found to have universal application, clearly resonating with culturally diverse cohorts studying in the UK. The approach benefits international business teaching as cultural, national, and institutional perspectives become explicitly incorporated into course material, using the students’ own background, knowledge and experience as resources to add value.

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