Communicating in the intercultural classroom

Different cultures misunderstand each other because they have varying views on basic human problems that each society must solve in order to continue as a coherent whole: their relation to authority, the relationship of individuals to society and between genders, and their ways of resolving conflict, including controlling aggression and expressing feelings. The paper considers one example of how a lack of intercultural knowledge can lead to difficulty in the classroom. It discusses collective versus individual societies and particularism versus universalism.