A cross-cultural analysis of response to authority in the classroom.

Abstract

To test these hypotheses, the author developed a survey designed to test for different communication styles vis-a-vis authority, in the person of university faculty, on the part of students grouped by nationality to represent the different cultural types.

This study investigates response to authority on the part of students in a cross-cultural classroom setting.

The author begins with a consideration of the main theoretical division proposed in the literature of intercultural communication studies: that between individualistic and collectivistic cultures.

The author concludes with a discussion of the implications of her research for theory, and future avenues of research.

The author then constructs three hypotheses to test for the validity of the two major cultural types, and the pattern of these types' response to authority.

The results of the analysis of the survey indicate only moderate support for the separation of cultures into these two main types, as two of the three hypotheses are not supported by the final survey data. As the results on these data were inconclusive, the researcher is bound to reject the hypotheticals in favor of further testing.