On Learning – by Krishnamurti

This is an excerpt from http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/

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Authority Prevents Learning Posted: We generally learn through study, through books, through experience, or through being instructed. Those are the usual ways of learning. We commit to memory what to do and what not to do, what to think and what not to think, how to feel, how to react. Through experience, through study, through analysis, through probing, through introspective examination, we store up knowledge as memory; and memory then responds to further challenges and demands, from which there is more and more learning. What is learned is committed to memory as knowledge, and that knowledge functions whenever there is a challenge, or whenever we have to do something.Now I think there is a totally different way of learning, and I am going to talk a little bit about it; but to understand it, and to learn in this different way, you must be completely rid of authority; otherwise, you will merely be instructed, and you will repeat what you have heard. That is why it is very important to understand the nature of authority. Authority prevents learning -learning that is not the accumulation of knowledge as memory. Memory always responds in patterns; there is no freedom. A man who is burdened with knowledge, with instructions, who is weighted down by the things he has learned, is never free. He may be most extraordinarily erudite, but his accumulation of knowledge prevents him from being free, and therefore he is incapable of learning. – J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Learning Has No Past Posted: Wisdom is something that has to be discovered by each one, and it is not the result of knowledge. Knowledge and wisdom do not go together. Wisdom comes when there is the maturity of self-knowing. Without knowing oneself, order is not possible, and therefore there is no virtue.Now, learning about oneself, and accumulating knowledge about oneself, are two different things. A mind that is acquiring knowledge is never learning. What it is doing is this: It is gathering to itself information, experience as knowledge, and from the background of what it has gathered, it experiences, it learns; and therefore it is never really learning, but always knowing, acquiring.Learning is always in the active present; it has no past. The moment you say to yourself, “I have learned,” it has already become knowledge, and from the background of that knowledge you can accumulate, translate, but you cannot further learn. It is only a mind that is not acquiring, but always learning, it is only such a mind that can understand this whole entity that we call the “me,” the self. I have to know myself, the structure, the nature, the significance of the total entity; but I can’t do that burdened with my previous knowledge, with my previous experience, or with a mind that is conditioned, for then I am not learning, I am merely interpreting, translating, looking with an eye that is already clouded by the past. – J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

On teaching and identity

It is important to keep in mind that, despite all our good intentions, we may still remain trapped in the cultural framework from which we have emerged and in which we operate. This means that we construct our professional identity as teachers not as freely as we may think, and frame it so as it conforms to the established context, which remains for the most part unchallenged and is self-perpetuating. We need to keep in mind that in some cases “the self participates in its own subjugation and domination whether it is through ‘false consciousness’ produced by membership of a particular social group, or the internalisation of social ‘oppression’ through individual ‘repression’ ”. (Chappell et al, 2003, p. 6) The challenge for me, as a teacher participating in a professional context is to recognize such dynamics when engaging in mindful reflection.

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE

by: Walt Whitman

On the beach at night alone

As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

Literature Review – reflections

Here are some thoughts on what I think/feel I gained from writing the lit review.

I think the writing process has helped me in several ways:

1) to gain insight into available scholarly work;

2) to explore available terminology and theories;

3) to articulate how we (the researcher) and our research interface with 1 & 2;

4) to thin out not-so-relevant literature and bring to the fore the one that will inform our research;

5) to use the literature to re-formulate (clarify?) our research question and extrapolate some specific questions that – in the case of a qualitative design – would then be put to the respondents.

Literature review

Link to forum (log-in required)

MY RESEARCH AREA AND RELEVANT LITERATURE

There is a large body of literature in my research area, stemming from as diverse fields as linguistics, anthropology, education, communication, psychology and cultural studies. It has extensively explored transcultural sojourners’ experience, levels of participation in their new cultural environment, and relevant stages of personal change, e.g. intercultural contact, reflection, adaptation stress, self-shock, disintegration, acculturation, learning, increased cultural and intercultural awareness, development of intercultural communication competence, and personal growth.

The focus of my research will be on people’s subjective experiences and interpretations of them, and its goal is to explore the factors that contribute to the nurturing and maintenance of multicultural identity in the respondents’ experience as long-term transcultural sojourners. Reviewing the literature will be done iteratively at several stages of the research as a way to link the interviewees’ experience with existing scholarly work.

NARRATIVE REVIEW

Bryman suggests that a narrative review is better suited for this kind of interpretative qualitative research (p. 94). In consideration of the design of my research, a narrative review will serve much better than a systematic review. Using a narrative review format will facilitate a critical approach to the very large body of literature available on the topic and at the same time it will allow me to approach my research without imposing existing categories on my findings. I will be able to use the literature narrative review to inform my research without it clouding the phenomenological nature of the interviews.

REFLECTIONS ON MY LITERATURE REVIEW

I have decided to do a narrative literature review, as I believe that the role of my literature review is to inform my inquiry by providing me with valuable information on relevant issues, and help me generate understanding through a process of discovery. In adherence to the phenomenological, hermeneutic research design adopted for my thesis, I won’t superimpose the literature review on the data/findings. This means that an effective literature review can only be outlined at a later stage, so that it will assist at the stage of data analysis and interpretation. To begin with an already structured literature review could unduly burden my approach to both data collection (the interviews questions) and analysis.

IC competence (SIETAR EU PROJECT)

George Simons of diversophy.com is working on a project initiated by SIETAR EUROPE to “initiate the conversation on ‘What is intercultural competence.’  The intention is to direct this discussion and the resources we are able to develop into a certification program for interculturalists.

More info at: http://www.diversophy.com/ic_comp/index.html

Here are some reflections on the topic. After re-reading paper after paper, it’s clear to me that a lot of what has been written on intercultural competence reads like reinventing the wheel. And so more and more definitions and labels are now available, but they still do not seem to make a dent into the role of intercultural communication in addressing urgent and practical issues in today’s world.

I believe that the level of IC competence we are trying to envision is one that goes beyond by-now known available taxonomies, to which increasingly wider audiences may respond with a sense of boredom.

One aspect of such competence that I am interested in is the level of supracultural synthesis that it could imply. Would the IC competence emerging from an increasingly intertwined world benefit from an approach rooted in Chaos Theory, as suggested by Casmir? In other words, is IC competence more about understanding and flowing with the dynamics developing in IC situations, rather than being about mechanistic knowledge of fixed cultural traits? One thing for sure: one cannot possibly develop a well-rounded and dynamic competence as long as this is made to depend on factual and rather essentialist descriptions of others’ reality. Real and dynamic IC competence, in my view, emerges from reflective, experiential learning stemming from dealing with the nuances, traps, and dynamics inherent in IC situations. We do not need a directory of “cultural differences to learn about” (although that has its merit, too); we might instead benefit from a new paradigmal approach to IC communication, which – like you say – would be outspokenly interdisciplinary, hardly scientific (in the way the hard sciences are), and widely chaotic with regards to predictability, ambiguity and definitions.

Cheers!

Published at http://www.diversophy.com/ic_comp/Componentsofculturalcompetence.html#Topic6

Safe landing! And Happy B-day, Australia!

Kia ora my fellow ocean travellers!

As we approach the landing site after sailing across the seven seas, I just want to say: It was a pleasant journey!

And as I ponder over the experience, I wonder whether we have all reached the Happy Isles. Hopefully, we won’t get there in a disarray, as it was the case with the epic First Fleet after its arrival on the fair land of OZ, an event remembered each year at the upcoming January 26 Australia Day celebrations.

When the First Fleet left Botany Bay to sail north in search of a better future (little they knew that Sydney Harbour was just around the bend), they paraded before French Captain La Perouse’s expedition. The following is an account of what happened, excerpted from a great book, The Fatal Shore, by Robert Hughes:

“The departing English now gave the French a spectacular show of fumbling.  Friendship rammed Prince of Wales, losing her jib boom. Charlotte nearly ran on the rocks, clawed off and cannoned into Friendship. Lady Penrhyn just avoided ramming her amidships.”

….the birth of a nation!!!

Wish you all a safe docking, and see you on land.

Ka kite ano!

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles……

Ulysses, by Alfred Tennyson

UR – Designing Intercultural Research

COURSE: Understanding Research—UR

FORUM: Designing the Research Proposal

TOPICS: explore your research interest

Step 3 – Part 2

Keywords: intercultural communication, Intercultural research, interviewing by e-mail, culture, reflexivity

Link to forum

Link to blog

CONSIDERATIONS ON DOING RESEARCH WITH AN INTERCULTURAL COMPONENT

Article review

Aneas, María Assumpta & Sandín, María Paz (2009). Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Communication Research: Some Reflections about Culture and Qualitative Methods [57 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 10(1), Art. 51, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0901519 Accessed on Dec.10, 2009 at http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1251

During the break I found this interesting article that addresses specific issues emerging in research with an intercultural slant. Considering that in the ALGC we are all one way or another going to deal with the intercultural dimension of our experience and of our relevant research project, I thought of sharing some reflections on this very issue.

What follows are my considerations. I posted them here not as a topic for discussion, but merely to share them.

Quotes are shown indented.

Content of the information being gathered (INTERVIEWING)

BHAWUK and TRIANDIS (1996, p.29) offer an interesting collection of insights and recommendations when it comes to the content of interviews. Interviewing is one of the fundamental techniques used in qualitative research on cross-cultural and intercultural communication. One of the principal concerns when conducting an interview is whether an emic or an etic approach is more appropriate—that is, whether to ask different, tailor-made and culture-specific questions or ask the same questions in all the cultural contexts being studied.

my comments:

My research won’t be about discussing, exploring, analyzing the participants’ host or original cultures; in that sense it does not take an emic approach. My research will explore the experience of the participants and the extent to which they may share similar views and experiences of processes of adaptation and intercultural competence building. In a sense, my research has an emic nature, in that it attempts an in-depth exploration of one specific culture, the culture that informs a transnational personhood/identity.

Doing semi-structured interviews through e-mail prevents the interviewer’s culturally-affected reactions to influence the respondents. See BHAWUK and TRIANDIS (1996, p.28) I believe this method has advantages that will be beneficial to my research. (see this article for more on this method).

It will also diminish opportunities for the emergence of intercultural anxiety provoked by the uncertainty typical of intercultural contexts, as defined by Gudykunst (1993) in his theory of Anxiety Uncertainty Management (AUM).

Language in the research process

In order to understand and interpret utterances or gestures in a given language, a minimum degree of language equivalence between the language of those being studied and that of the researcher is needed (LUSTIG & KOESTER, 1996; SAMOVAR, PORTER & STEFANI, 1998).

my comments:

Utterances or gestures in my e-mail interviews  will be automatically disregarded.

Language issues will be partly sidestepped by using English as the language of the research, and selecting participants who have a certain degree of fluency in English. Though this choice may introduce a level of bias, it will facilitate both the collection and the analysis of the narratives, based on the assumption that – to a large extent – the respondents share an equivalency in the meaning of the vocabulary they use.

Nevertheless, I will need to be mindful of this assumption.

Culture, analysis and interpretation in qualitative research

Mental schemas

In this same sense, according ERICKSON (1989), the base for theoretical constructions is the immediate and local meanings of action as defined from the point of view of the social actors involved. In other words, we interpret a reality, a given piece of information according to the parameters of our experience in which our culture occupies a fundamental position. Culture is the reason why a given phenomenon, a specific form of behavior can be given a very different meaning according to the origin culture of the person analyzing and interpreting the process. [47]

Mental schemas constitute a cognitive system which enables us to interpret the gestures, utterances and actions of others. Culture influences the organization of the schemas developed by individuals with the justification that different visions and interpretations of reality are culturally variable. In the same sense constructionism stresses the importance of socio-cultural background in the higher order psychological processes (VYGOTSKY, 1979) as an argument with which to demonstrate the union of culture with cognitive processes and the relation between learning, development and the contexts of personal relations.

Summing up, theories of categorization and social attribution facilitate the development of explanations concerning the perception and interpretation of the behavior of others in intercultural contexts.

Language and mental maps are cultural elements with which the researcher operates in the analysis and the construction of results.

Conclusions

The fallacy of the monolithic view of identity alerts us to the need for prudence and the importance of avoiding categorizing cultural studies of communication in stereotypical terms, as built on folklore beliefs and essentialist in terms of culture.

On the other hand, it is already widely accepted in qualitative research that the researcher becomes the “principal information gathering instrument,” and thus some of the objectives which have been identified for studies of cross-cultural and intercultural communication are associated with the reflexivity of the researcher (my note: see Bryman, p. 682) over her or his own cultural biases together with the associated theoretical, and even social and political standpoints.

For the outlook of researching cross-cultural and intercultural communication we would stress that

• Culture is a “system” and not the sum of a collection of fortuitous traits
• It is an integrated whole which cannot be understood by examining its components individually and in isolation.
• It is a dynamic whole which is in flux, and constantly changing, and which reveals itself as being in interaction with the world in a multiplicity of complex and diverse situations and contexts.

REFERENCES

Bampton, R. & Cowton, C.J. (2002). The E-Interview [27 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 3(2), Art. 9, Retrieve on Dec. 19, 2009 at http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs020295

Bhawuk,D. & Triandis, H. (1996). The role of culture theory in the study of culture and intercultural training. In Dan Landis & Richard W. Brislin (Eds.), Handbook of intercultural training (pp.17-34). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Erickson, Frederick (1989). Métodos cualitativos de investigación sobre la enseñanza. In Merlin Wittrock (Ed.), La investigación de la enseñanza, II. Métodos cualitativos y de observación (pp.195-301). Barcelona: Paidós/M.E.C.

Gudykunst, W. (1993). Toward a theory of effective interpersonal and intergroup communication. In Richard L. Wiseman & Jolene Koester (Eds.), Intercultural communication competence (pp.33-71). London: Sage.

Lustig, M. & Koester, J. (1996). Intercultural competence: Interpersonal communication across cultures. New York: Harper Collins.

Vygotsky, L. (1979). El desarrollo de los procesos psicológicos superiores. Barcelona: Crítica.

UR – reflections on feminism

Link to forum

Link to blog

Hi Edouard,

Your post raises interesting questions that were also asked by several of us (you included, I believe) during the discussion in our last course, when the theme was education and learning for social change.

Some of us suggested that the feminist approach followed in the path of a dichotomous view of the world (Marxism vs. capitalism), and that it would be worthwhile looking outside those boxes and considering more systems-thinking alternatives. I am afraid, but of course this is just a personal opinion that the questions you have raised will keep popping up, as I believe they stem from a linear thinking paradigm based on mutually exclusive perspectives.

I had posted some thoughts on this theme on my e-portfolio webpage at:

https://www.itslearning.com/liu/oscarvallazza/posts/transformation/

If that doesn’t work, try this:

https://worldconnections.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/integral-theory-and-transformation/

I find Marie Carr’s comment posted at the bottom very appropriate and encouraging.

Cheers,

Oscar

 

UR – Reflections on definitions

COURSE: Understanding Research—UR

FORUM: Elaborating the logics of research approaches

TOPICS: Research, ontology, epistemology

Step 2 – Part 1

Keywords: definitions, positivism, interpretivism, post-interpretivism,

Link to blog

Link to forum

REFLECTIONS

As I continue examining the readings, I realize that there is only so much that one can comment on the research papers under discussion without sounding redundant and repetitive.

Instead, I find myself engaged in a process of understanding of the philosophical questions that affect research. I previous posts the discussion branched out into the differences between qualitative and quantitative research, trying to better define the ontological and epistemological issues that lie at the roots of the different research designs.

I noticed that many of the terms used by Bryman are used differently by others. For example, William M.K. Trochim takes a more pragmatic approach, and his website provides a slightly different sequence of definitions. For Trochin the two main epistemological categories are in fact positivism vs. post-positivism (Bryman instead emphasizes positivism vs. interpretivism); furthermore Trochin places constructivism firmly under positivism, but he also allows for room for objectivity under the same epistemological family.

These readings are clearly both the result and the fuel of the academic disputes that have developed among social scientists. I find the debate interesting, but at the end of the day, I find it very time consuming and possibly even unproductive. In his website, Trochim also admits that

Clearly, all of this stuff is not for the faint-of-heart. I’ve seen many a graduate student get lost in the maze of philosophical assumptions that contemporary philosophers of science argue about. And don’t think that I believe this is not important stuff. But, in the end, I tend to turn pragmatist on these matters. Philosophers have been debating these issues for thousands of years and there is every reason to believe that they will continue to debate them for thousands of years more. Those of us who are practicing scientists should check in on this debate from time to time (perhaps every hundred years or so would be about right). We should think about the assumptions we make about the world when we conduct research. But in the meantime, we can’t wait for the philosophers to settle the matter. After all, we do have our own work to do!

Cheers!

WEBLIOGRAPHY:

William M.K. Trochim’s website: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/qual.php