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Download by: [Joseph Nyemah] Date: 09 June 2016, At: 07:59
Studies in Continuing Education
ISSN: 0158-037X (Print) 1470-126X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csce20
Developing cultural capability in international
higher education: a narrative inquiry
Joseph Nyemah
To cite this article: Joseph Nyemah (2016): Developing cultural capability in international
higher education: a narrative inquiry, Studies in Continuing Education, DOI:
10.1080/0158037X.2016.1180013
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2016.1180013
Published online: 08 Jun 2016.
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2. BOOK REVIEW
Developing cultural capability in international higher education: a narrative
inquiry, by Sheila Trahar, New York, Routledge, 2011, 170 pp., £27.99 (pbk), $38.95
(pbk), ISBN: 978-0-415-57239-2, $130 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0-415-57238-5
As a student or professor, have you ever felt unsettled in a higher education class because of
cultural differences? Sheila Trahar offers you an opportunity to critically recollect your experi-
ences. The author argues that higher education in contemporary society has potential to
promote understandings between different cultures. The book is worth reading because the
author does not only provide a methodology, she also demonstrates that narrative inquiry
and auto-ethnography can facilitate critical examinations of how higher education can
promote intercultural harmony. Sheila draws on narrative inquiry and auto-ethnography to
critique her personal teaching experience in the UK of a higher education class of international
and local students, who were also culturally diverse.
The book can be divided into two parts. I would group chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 as the first part.
This section provides an interesting case study for the politics of managing cultural diversity
while teaching in higher education. This part of the book is particularly important for today’s
higher education academics. This is because it critically reveals some delicate teaching skills
that are usually at play when professors ignore the opportunity to turn cultural diversity
into intercultural learning that could latter enhance intercultural harmony. For instance, inte-
grating students’ experiences into the pedagogical process is well discussed.
I would treat chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 as the second category. This part of the book is
saturated with several letters in which the author and one of her former students reflect over
their shared experiences from in a specific culturally diverse higher education class in the UK.
There is a particular emphasis on their professor–student relationship in which both had
common understandings of their obvious differences in culture, for instance, language and
questioning, but the detailed implications were never shared and discussed. This context pro-
vides a rich case study that suits Sheila’s research methodology, which straddles narrative
inquiry, auto-ethnography and reflexivity as they both conduct an intellectual autopsy of
how the obvious cultural differences affected their respective experiences. Another factor con-
sidered in these exchanges is their respective identities – a white female professor, and a Tai-
wanese male international student in the UK, who struggled to speak the English Language
fluently in a class of British, English speaking European and English speaking African students.
Three theoretical issues arise from this book, particularly as it relates to designing and
managing pedagogical processes in a culturally diverse higher education class. The first is
how far a professor should go in identifying and deconstructing the meanings of existing cul-
tural differences within the classroom so that they enrich teaching and learning for the indi-
vidual, but also, so that the right conditions are created to promote intercultural
understandings. The research in this book shows that when these differences are only ident-
ified, and their implications not deconstructed, teaching and learning are affected, and the
potential to promote intercultural understandings is denied. For instance, it was obvious to
Sheila that she needed to use plain language during class so as to facilitate learning for her
non-English speaking students. Contrarily, for instance, the academic tradition of the Taiwa-
nese student conditioned him to expect the professor to use complex language, because it
shows mastery.
STUDIES IN CONTINUING EDUCATION, 2016
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3. Second, Sheila problematizes the use of the circle as a facilitation tool in a culturally diverse
higher education class. She particularly argues that although the circle allows learners to
engage and interact with each other, the presence of tables can be a hindrance to the
process. She tests this supposition by removing the tables in her class. But her reflection
with the Taiwanese student reveals that removing the tables has the unintended effect of
increased anxiety for some non-English speaking students who feel more compelled and inse-
cure to articulate themselves. As someone who was born and raised in Liberia, and later edu-
cated within the Canadian higher education system, I can relate to the circle experience from
both a cultural and psychological perspective. As a consequence of my Liberian accent, I
experienced insecurity and trepidations whenever I articulated myself in classes that were cul-
turally diverse. But I also found some kind of physical safety and comfort by resting my hands
a table.
The third theoretical point is the author’s choice of Hallak’s (2000, 25) definition of globa-
lization, which holds that ‘Globalization produces two contradictory phenomena: standardiz-
ation and diversification … diversification strives to preserve the multiple facets of society by
promoting access to the diverse features of world heritage’ (3). Sheila’s critical inquiry into her
personal management of cultural diversity in higher education is anti-hegemonic to the dom-
inance of standardized Eurocentric pedagogy. I am, however, puzzled as to whether her
research aimed at informing improved management of cultural diversity in higher education,
as demonstrated in this book will not result into a new standardization regime that will mar-
ginalize the cultures and academic traditions of local students in western universities. I won-
dered what the perspectives of local students would have offered to this book!
The politics of cultural diversity is not unpopular within contemporary higher education
discourse. This is partly because increasingly, many universities are being branded and mar-
keted as international and culturally diverse to the new global student and labor market.
But what is new about the way in which Sheila treats this concept is the use of her personal
teaching experience to critically trouble its seemingly uncritical acceptance, use and popular-
ization within higher education.
Joseph Nyemah
Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada
jnyemah@yahoo.com
© 2016 Joseph Nyemah
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2016.1180013
2 BOOK REVIEW
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