As a
Europe-born professor teaching in a Latin American country I am always at risk
of being a twenty-first century cultural imperialist, i.e. forcing my culture
onto another. After all, a professor is there to teach, to affect a change in
the abilities and behaviour of the students. That is what learning is. The
learning itself is desirable of course, but the content of the learning is the
crux of the issue. Professors come from specific cultures and have their own
blind spots and biases. It is a real risk; one can easily assume that what one
is familiar with is the correct way of doing things.
In fact, many
psychologists are acutely aware that adaptions need to be made for teaching in
different cultures. As a particular example, forms of psychopathology vary
across cultures. Simply teaching about DSM disorders in Ecuador, without examining
local manifestations of mental illness would be inappropriate. DSM is really
only a classification of mental disorders based on signs and symptoms commonly seen
in the USA. Much of that will transfer across cultures, but some will not.
However,
here I argue that adaption of teaching to different cultures is not necessarily
the big issue that some psychologists make it. I am talking here from the
perspective of a British psychologist teaching in Ecuador. I teach more or less
the same ideas and concepts whatever country I am in. This is not out of
laziness; it is out of belief. In this blog post I explain why I believe in a
general, global education for psychologists, rather than parochial, local-style
psychology, which may appear more culturally appropriate, but ultimately does
not serve the students well. These are my reasons:
1. Good psychology
is science. Science does not change from culture to culture. The way to advance
psychology is to produce and interpret data logically. That’s basically what
science is: Sensible, intelligent interpretation of data. It’s a clear way of
thinking, not a topic. That way of thinking is the same in Ecuador as it is in
my home country (England), or in Kazakhstan, or anywhere. It is my job as an
educator to encourage the scientific way of thinking. It is true that there are
inter-cultural differences in the matter of psychology, i.e. the mind. For
example, there are cognitive processing differences between people in
individualist and collectivist cultures. We know this because quantitative,
scientific psychologists have done research on it. Good psychology teaching is
about teaching good science.
2. Psychology
is international. Psychologists move around the world, particularly those from
countries such as Ecuador, where postgraduate study opportunities are limited.
To continue one’s studies one often has to move to a different country. That’s
good. However, if the students only study a version of psychology considered
suitable for the Ecuadorian context, then they will be at a disadvantage when
they go abroad, and that’s not fair. Good psychology education prepares people
to use their training globally. This is particularly important in regards to
information literacy and research methodology. Such skills are currently not
emphasised in Ecuadorian psychology training. Nevertheless, they are essential
for one to succeed in one’s studies in many other countries.
There is
admittedly a bias for psychology literature, particularly journal articles, to
come from a small number of English-speaking countries. And journal articles
are the number one source of information for good psychologists. The way to
address that imbalance is for psychologists in countries such as Ecuador to
gain the skills to be able to publish their own research. That will ultimately
serve Ecuadorian psychology better than making unnecessary distinctions between
the local psychology and gringo psychology. Again, this will be achieved by
international-standard research skills being emphasized in Ecuador, as they are
in the countries publishing most of the research.
3. Universities
are special. Whereas most people in their working lives are focused on producing
profits for somebody, good professors are in the business of truth (the
ultimate goal of research) and forming better people (the ultimate goal of
education). That’s the same around the world. I think of universities
as being like embassies, they are both insulated to a large extent from the
environments that they are physically located in. There are ways of doing
things, in universities or in embassies, which are the same wherever you are,
in Quito, Washington or Moscow. In academia at least, these are generally
virtuous ways of doing things. For example, attitudes to cheating may vary
between cultures, but there is a common belief amongst university-people that
one should not present as one’s own, work that was produced by another, i.e.
plagiarism. Students may have to learn that, but that is part of their
education in how to be academic. That special, high-minded feature of
universities globally is something that should be celebrated. Adapting academic
ways to local cultures risks that specialness of higher education.
4. Much of the
‘Ecuadorian psychology’ that I come across is nothing that needs to be
preserved anyway. In fact, it shouldn’t even be taught at universities. If
there was a rich cultural tradition of thinking about the mind espoused by
modern Ecuadorian psychologists, derived from their history, perhaps of
Amerindian origin, then I would be all for teaching that, alongside
internationally-accepted psychology material. But the psychologists who resist
my teaching of psychology, and suggest that I’m imposing my academic cultural
background, are generally involved with highly dubious fields anyway. These
include hypnotherapy, dream analysis, graphology, tarot cards, Bach flower
remedies, etc. These are all European, nineteenth and twentieth-century pseudosciences.
Think about it. The damaging cultural imperialism has already been done. I’m in
fact one of the people fighting against it. It is the responsibility of good
psychology professors, from whatever background, to train psychologists who can
tell the difference between pseudoscience and psychology. That means not only
teaching up-to-date and accepted knowledge, but even more importantly, the scientific
skills and the information literacy needed to recognize and reject
pseudoscience.
Finally, if
students are trained well in the core of globally recognised psychology, and
have the information literacy and research skills they will become good
psychologists. From those foundations they can develop a psychology for
Ecuador.
