Abstract
It is nothing out of the ordinary for Greenlandic educational institutions to employ foreigners and the average Greenlandic pupil in upper secondary school is accustomed to primarily Danish teachers. This thesis aims to examine the way cultural encounters between Danish teachers and Greenlandic students emerge in school focusing on cultural differences that complicates or even impedes effective communication in an educational setting. By use of qualitative methodology, the research in this thesis asserts that Greenlandic students experience learning disabilities in the cultural encounter with their Danish teachers regarding several communicative areas. To illustrate these cultural differences, three analytical approaches have been used in this thesis - individualism versus collectivism in addition to Geert Hostede’s idea of cultural manifestation on multiple levels, the Cultural Onion Model, is used to display the cultural differences between the Danish teachers and Greenlandic students. Edward T. Hall’s contextual theory is applied to demonstrate how different cultures have different perceptions of time and space, which entails that these cultures can talk across purposes in an educational setting. Furthermore, this thesis employs the Sapir-Whorf-hypothesis to corroborate the linguistic complications between teacher and student. This thesis hereby introduces and calls attention to concrete examples of cultural differences between Danes and Greenlanders in an educational setting and furthermore the thesis points out how the educational regime in Greenland is not suitable for the Greenlandic culture.
Key concepts: cultural encounter, cultural differences, Greenlandic students, Danish teachers, Greenlandic Upper secondary School, miscommunication, Greenlandic educational institutions.
Perspective in relation to the Commonwealth
In the Commonwealth, there is daily cooperation on many and important areas, including educational institutions. It is said that in a kingdom there is room for diversity. This can also be experienced in Greenland. Unfortunately, Greenland does not always experience the success of diversity. Diversity also involves barriers such as cultural differences that lead to misunderstandings. In this thesis, the focus is on the difficulties that arise at cultural meetings between Danes and Greenlanders in an educational institution and more specifically cultural meetings between Danish high school teachers and the Greenlandic students in the youth education GUX, in Nuuk.
Thesis statement
When I started my research project, the management of GUX-Nuuk pointed out that no study has been conducted in Greenland that can identify cultural differences between Danes and Greenlanders in an educational institution. Therefore, the management believes that it has been difficult for the education sectors to relate to cultural differences, as it is not possible to point out specifically where the differences lie and what consequences they have for Greenlandic students and outside teachers.
This thesis is therefore based on cultural meetings between Danish high school teachers and the Greenlandic students at GUX-Nuuk. Here, it is investigated how the cultural encounter has an effect on learning and communication between teachers and students. This dissertation focused on whether cultural differences can have an impact on learning among Greenlandic students. This deals with the question of whether the education system is suitable for Greenlandic culture. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to shed light on and more precisely concretize the cultural differences between Danes and Greenlanders in an educational institution.
The purpose of the thesis was also to demonstrate that there is not always a success on diversity within the Commonwealth. In this way, the thesis also aims for both new and future outside teachers from the Commonwealth, can use the thesis as a source of prior knowledge, and that respective areas can use this as research documentation. Therefore, as researchers, I think it is important to highlight various aspects and examples from the teachers and the Greenlandic students, which during the analysis part of the thesis itself have been reproduced as quotes from interviews. These should help future outside teachers to become wiser about the kinds of challenges that may arise in connection with cultural encounters within our kingdom community.
The dissertation also answers the following questions:
- Why cultural meetings in Greenlandic educational institutions?
How does history affect students' professionalism?
Is there a difference in the experience of the cultural encounter between new and old Danish high school teachers? - What types of cultural encounters are there within GUX-Nuuk?
Are cultural encounters perceived as difficult or easy by Greenlandic students and Danish high school teachers?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of cultural meetings in GUX-Nuuk?
What role does the language problem play between the Greenlandic students and Danish upper secondary school teachers? - Does the education system fit the Greenlandic culture?
Methodological basis
In this thesis, I have during the fieldwork chosen to carry out various qualitative data collection methods, throughout an entire school year (August 2019 to June 2020).
I have chosen to spend an entire school year as a research period, as in this way I could follow the teachers 'and students' adaptation during the cultural meeting.
In order to understand how Danish teachers and the Greenlandic students are different, based on their cultural differences, I have had to use different methods and theories during the research period.
Among other things, I have made:
- Observations
- Focus group interview
- With Danish high school teachers both new and old
- In Greenlandic students
- With Greenlandic high school teachers
In this way, I have been able to confirm or deny theories that I have used to be able to investigate which cultural differences cause difficulties in cultural encounters between Danes and Greenlanders.
Teoretical basis
In this dissertation, I have chosen various cultural analytical theories that will help me to concretize cultural differences between the Danish high school teachers and the Greenlandic students, in order to demonstrate that there is a greater scope of cultural encounters between Danes and Greenlanders that present difficulties and challenges. diversity. My study of cultural encounters between Danish high school teachers and the Greenlandic students is therefore based on three different resources of theoretical approaches. The three theoretical approaches are taken from cultural analytical tools that deal with cultural differences. The first was Geert Hofstede's onion diagram, which can be used to compare different cultures by looking at the different cultural values and his culture dimension which is about individualism and collectivism which I have used to see if the individual perceives himself as an individual or as a member of a group. As the second, I have used Edward T. Hall's context theory to help me understand that not only does a connection between culture and language exist, but that culture and communication were also an important part of cultural understanding. Finally, I dealt with the Sapir-Worfh hypothesis, which was to help me give a picture of language and thought, was a cultural difference that allowed ethnic groups from different cultures to misunderstand each other in this way as well.
Analysis, results and conclusion
In order to point to concrete examples of cultural differences between Danes and Greenlanders in educational institutions, based on cultural analytical tools that have been used as theoretical approaches in this thesis, it is shown that there is not only success at cultural encounters with many differences in the kingdom. The results from the research therefore show that in Greenland in the educational institutions difficulties, challenges and misunderstandings arise between the different cultures. In this thesis, therefore, more precisely demonstrates that there are cultural differences between the Danish high school teachers and the Greenlandic students. As the dissertation deals with cultural encounters with a focus on cultural differences, it appears that there are several ways to approach cultural differences on GUX-Nuuk. But it is clear that cultural encounters are not only found at GUX-Nuuk, but are also found in several areas within Greenland and the Greenlandic social system after becoming part of the Commonwealth. Difficulties at cultural meetings at GUX-Nuuk between Danes and Greenlanders are demonstrated from this research work and the way the dissertation has looked at cultural meetings, highlights the difficult meeting and does not focus on the positive approaches to the cultural meeting.
The first main aspect of this dissertation demonstrates that there are cultural encounters on the basis that we in Greenland's history have experienced the rapid modernization of society. The rapid modernization meant that many of Greenlanders were not given the opportunity to take an education. In the 1970s, emphasis was placed on the young people in Greenland taking over the positions held by called-up labor, here the mantra was "You are Greenland's future and you must educate yourselves". Unfortunately, there were too many Greenlanders who did not find it easy to integrate into the Danish school system, which had been directly transferred to the Greenlandic primary schools and educational institutions and thus arose the ‘lost generation’. The ‘lost generation’ therefore meant that many Greenlandic families experience education as a stranger. As part of the main results of this thesis, it is also shown that many of the current Greenlandic youth break with the ‘lost generation’ in their families within the field of education. This means that many of Greenlandic students also experience education as a cultural encounter, which in this thesis is demonstrated based on the Greenlandic students' behavior and approach to school. These students are known today within the school area as pattern breakers. As the second main aspect in this present thesis, it is also shown below that cultural meetings within GUX-Nuuk can have different categories and be experienced differently between the Greenlandic students and Danish high school teachers. For Greenlandic students, cultural encounters within the education system are perceived as difficult in that the approach to teaching is perceived as Western (individualistic) and therefore the Greenlandic students have difficulty adapting to the European school form that the Danish high school teachers use in their teaching approach. Whereas in Danish upper secondary school teachers, the approach to teaching is perceived as too academically low, as many of the Greenlandic students do not master the knowledge that European school form requires of them. The research results in this thesis thus show that Danish upper secondary school teachers and the Greenlandic students in many ways experience that the education system does not suit the Greenlandic culture. Advantages of this cultural meeting according to the Greenlandic students is that they already encounter the difficulty during upper secondary education, so that they can be prepared for their higher education. Greenlandic students, on the other hand, believe that the disadvantage of cultural meetings at GUX-Nuuk is that they do not have the professional knowledge to be able to understand the whole of the teaching.
The third main aspect of this dissertation demonstrates that Greenlandic students and Danish teachers experience cultural encounters within forms of communication between teachers and students. The research results in this dissertation fall into different categories of miscommunication. One aspect of miscommunication is that students experience Danish high school teachers' communication as difficult, as the form of communication is based on the verbal word. Whereas the Danish high school teachers experience difficult communication with the students, as the form of communication for the students, the verbal is not the most important and the students 'talk' a lot with the body language. Another aspect of the miscommunication is that Greenlandic students and Danish high school teachers perceive the concept of time in different ways that make the two cultures talk past each other. A third aspect of miscommunication is that Danish upper secondary school teachers find it difficult to involve the Greenlandic students' personal space and the importance of establishing a personal relationship with the students, which is considered to be an important part of Greenland. The research results show in this thesis that this kind of relationship between teachers and students creates a difficult cultural encounter between teachers and students, as Danish high school teachers experience it as foreign and thus do not know how to relate to it. On the other hand, this is considered for Greenlandic high school teachers as the most important thing in a teaching, as one cannot promote the students' professionalism without this personal relationship, since the students must first create security in the class to be able to stand out from the group. Another aspect of miscommunication is the language issue. Research results in this dissertation consider the language problem as another level, which has otherwise been dealt with in other research and debates in Greenland. Here, the research results shed light on the fact that the language problem lies in the fact that language cannot be translated into culture. This means that the Greenlandic students experience the language problem in the way that they have difficulty expressing themselves in the same way as when they express themselves in Greenlandic and thus experience misunderstanding. Another aspect of the language problem at GUX-Nuuk is that Greenlandic students have difficulty understanding the examples and expressions used by Danish upper secondary school teachers, because the same expression cannot be translated into Greenlandic. Linguistic miscommunication is experienced in the fact that many of the Danish and Greenlandic words and concepts cannot be translated into the other language, as the language does not have a word for it. Therefore, many of the concepts and words that Greenlandic students and Danish high school teachers use in their teaching are interpreted.
Research results in this thesis have therefore shown that there is a cultural encounter on various aspects.
If the research results are correct, it means that there is something within the education system and the school form that is not connected to the Greenlandic culture.
As the topic of cultural encounter between Greenlandic students and Danish upper secondary school teachers brings up, it is relevant because we as upper secondary school teachers encounter these difficulties in our days at work and because many of Greenlandic students encounter these difficulties in cultural encounter in their daily lives during their education. they experience education as unmanageable.
The future must show whether educated Greenlanders can take over the positions that are still held today by the Danish workforce, and then we must see how the education system can be better adapted to the Greenlandic culture without removing the possibility of acquiring other educations outside Greenland.
The language problems that have been worked on in this dissertation show that there is a difficult experience. But it also means that the young Greenlanders must be able to master the Danish language in order to complete an education in Greenland, as Greenland does not have enough Greenlandic labor to take on the positions currently held by Danes. This also means that this type of cultural encounter does not mean that it is negative, as young Greenlanders already in a youth education have to face difficulties, so they are better equipped for the next education they will take in their near future. Whether the cultural encounter between Danish high school teachers and the Greenlandic students results in something negative for young people's future or whether this helps to give young Greenlanders a better future and to what extent the Greenlandic education system fits the Greenlandic culture, I must not be able to answer exactly. On the one hand, the research results may be correct in that there are cultural differences that make two cultures talk past each other and thus be experienced as an indirectly difficult encounter with the other culture. This is partly due to the fact that their behavior is governed by fundamental cultural values as Hofstede points out and because, according to Hall, the two cultures have different forms of communication and perceptions of time.