Traditional Conception and Extensive/Instrumental Conception in the Approach of Cultural Understanding

Chapter 1

Introduction 

This paper answers two questions, what is meant by traditional conception and extensive / instrumental conception in the approach of cultural understanding, what are the fundamental differences between the two conceptions; and explain one example of research and theory that supports its association with extensive and instrumental conceptions. 

Chapter 2 

Traditional and Extensive/Instrumental Conception: A Definition

In literature we find many definitions of culture. The provision of cultural definitions is also very diverse depending on the perspective. Cultural approaches can be static and dynamic. It also gives an indication of the breadth of aspects of a culture and the many elements that make up it. In this paper we will try to divide it into two main concepts about culture.

According to (Aneas & Sandin, 2009) in Intercultural and Cross-Communication Research we can view culture through two conception: Traditional conception and Extensive/Instrumental Conception. These conceptions are identified as below (Aneas & Sandin, 2009): 

Traditional conception: 

It is a popular and static approach to culture. Culture as linear and progressive.  The traditional conception sees and identifies the culture of a set of products resulting from a community such as knowledge, skills or everything else it possesses. Culture as an expression that is embodied. Traditional conception is a series of concept which have more quantitative interpretation. Traditional conception views culture as something people possess and view a culture as a static given whose development is seen as linier and progressive, with output can be expressed in term of accumulation. Such conceptualization can lead to a process of stereotyping of cultural traits where the “other” is characterized in terms of the most trivial and superficial elements. From this cumulative and static perspective, a hierarchic conception of the relation between cultures is sometimes deduced.

Extensive and Instrumental Conception: 

This conception understands the term culture as the instrument, by means of which we relate to the world an interpret it. According to this conception or view, culture in not something which we possess, rather cultures form an inherent part of the person, and it is culture which bestows individual and collective identity: a complex identity which is articulated across multiple social belongings. It is, then, a mechanism for understanding and interpreting the world which acquires instrumental, adaptive and regulatory meaning. This conception views the culture as the way of being of community. This the conceptual model in which the world is interpreted and the culture is situated, which incorporates a more dynamic use of term. In instrumental conception, culture shapes people's identities and strengthens social cohesion - and it divides societies, it builds bridges between groups and peoples, it creates peace, and it is a significant economic player (Grätz, 2017)

Refers to extensive and instrumental conception, culture determines how we view ourselves and others, how we behave, and how we perceive the world around us and it also influences our communication habits and preferences: the way we prefer to communicate is deeply influenced by our complicated and unique cultural background; when one person communicates within another, the interaction involves two sets of complicated and unique cultural background and it is little wonder that miscommunication sometimes occurs (Fay & Spinthourakis, 2000)

Table 1. Difference between Traditional and Extensive Conception

Traditional Conception	Extensive/Instrumental Conception
Cumulative, Static, linier and progressive	Dynamic/adaptive, complex
Quantitative Interpretation, its statistical approach	Qualitative Interpretation
Culture as a form of expression, seen and judged from the products produced (knowledge, skills, something owned such as artifacts)	Culture is an instrumental to interpret the world, shapes people’s identities, strengthen social cohesion, and more dynamic use in term.   Culture as the way of being of community. It’s situated.
Culture is judged by what is inherent and possessed.	culture in not something which we possess, rather cultures form an inherent part of the person, and it is culture which bestows individual and collective identity
The conception can lead to a process of stereotyping of cultural traits where the “other” is characterized in terms of the most trivial and superficial elements	The conception can lead to reduce bias over the stereotyping.

Source: Processed and abstracted from (Aneas & Sandin, 2009) Deny Zulkarnain

Chapter 3

The Example of Research

I will take an example of a study entitled Intercultural Experience and Teacher Professional Development written by Qing Gu from the School of Education University of Nottingham, Nottingham UK published by Sage Publication in 2005. This research topic is related to intercultural communication studies which I think in this study intercultural or cultural aspects viewed from the point of view of extensive / instrumental conception.

As described by (Gu, 2005) on the abstract of the paper, “the study examines the effect of intercultural experience on teacher professionalism with the main methods for data collection consist of semi structured and survey questionnaires. The result of the study shows that, analysis of participant’s experience of Department for International Development’s (DFID) English language teaching projects shows that intercultural experience has a significant impact on both Chinese teacher’s and British trainers’ professional development. The Impact on Chinese teachers is to induce a more rational view on teaching and learning practice and a more balanced attitude towards tradition versus innovation. Exposure to different teaching cultures and the intercultural experience itself is found to have led to a stronger awareness of the meaning of culturally sensitive pedagogy in both Chinese and British ELT professionals. The significant implication for teacher education is to take a holistic and cognitive view of educating teacher professionals and assist teacher to build up the capacity to act on their knowledge base in their teaching arenas.”

The results of the study showed some indications that look at culture in the conception of extension and instrumental. I try to identify it in the points below:

Table 3.1 Identification of Study for the Conception 

Extensive/Instrumental Conception Characteristic	What are shown in the study
Dynamic, Adaptive	Intercultural experience experienced by teachers forms a new culture, specifically impacting how they next teach. No longer sticking to old habits or previous cultures, but experiencing adjustments due to adaptive processes that occur.
Qualitative Interpretation	The process of learning each other's cultures through direct experience, through the process of qualitative interpretation that they do as actors. They feel for themselves some of the differences in teaching due to differences in cultural aspects.
The conception can lead to reduce bias over the stereotyping.	The learning process through intercultural experience helps teachers or researchers gain new knowledge and can help straighten out certain stereotyping in pedagogy concepts.
Culture is an instrumental to interpret the world, shapes people’s identities, strengthen social cohesion, and more dynamic use in term.	The intercultural experience of teachers helps them understand the world of teaching from the other side, from different cultures, a way of understanding the world of education globally rather than just fixating on local approaches.   In addition, intercultural experience helps strengthen the social bonds of Chinese language teacher and British teacher educator’s professional development.

Source: Identified from the study conducted by (Gu, 2005) by Deny Zulkarnain

This paper seeks to delineate the impact of intercultural experience on both language teacher’s and teacher educators’ professional development, viewing the questions that arise from a social constructivist perspective (Gu, 2005). The social constructivist approach recognizes teachers as social beings. Social constructivism emphasizes the importance of culture and context in understanding what occurs in society and constructing knowledge based on this understanding ((Derry, 1999); (McMahon, 1997).)

According to (Kim, 2012) social constructivism is based on specific assumptions about reality, knowledge, and learning and to understand and apply models of instruction that are rooted in the perspectives of social constructivists, it is important to know the premises that underlie them, the premise are (Kim, 2012) :

Reality: Social constructivists believe that reality is constructed through human activity. Members of a society together invent the properties of the world (Kukla, 2000). For the social constructivist, reality cannot be discovered: it does not exist prior to its social invention.   

Knowledge: To social constructivists, knowledge is also a human product, and is socially and culturally constructed (Ernest, 1999); (Gredler, 1997); Individuals create meaning through their interactions with each other and with the environment they live in.

Learning: Social constructivists view learning as a social process. It does not take place only within an individual, nor is it a passive development of behaviors that are shaped by external forces (McMahon, 1997). Meaningful learning occurs when individuals are engaged in social activities.

In intercultural experience (which happen in this study) the premises above are fulfilled. They are learning through a social process; they create meaning through their interaction with each other and with the environment they live.

Chapter 4 

Conclusion 

The distinction of conception is how we place how a culture is viewed specifically into useful assumptions in a study. Both approaches complement the understanding of a culture. Extensive / instrumental conception is useful to avoid a narrow understanding of culture that is not infrequently only interpreted a culture as something given, and only a form of expression or expressive culture. More than that, a culture is an instrumental to interpret the world, shapes people’s identities, strengthen social cohesion, and more dynamic use in term. 

References

Aneas, M. A., & Sandin, M. P. (2009). Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Communication Research; Some Reflection about Culture and Qualitative Methods. Forum: Qualitative Social Research (ISSN 1438-5627). Volume 10 No.1.

Derry, S. (1999). A Fish called peer learning: Searching for common themes. In A. M. O'Donnell & A. King. 

Ernest, P. ( 1999). Social Constructivism as a Philoshophy of Mathematics: Radical Constructivism. 

Fay, R., & Spinthourakis, L. (2000). Communicationg in Another Language: The Influence of Culture. Athens and Patras, Metachmio / Hellenic Open University.

Grätz, R. (2017, July). Culture as an Instrument of Social Transformation. the EU-LAC Foundation’s Newsletter . 

Gredler, M. (1997). Learning and Instruction: Theory into practice (3rd ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ:: Prentice-Hall.

Gu, Q. (2005). Intercultural Experience and Teacher Profesional Development. Sage Publication, Sage Publication (London, Thousand Oaks CA and New Delhi). 

Kim, B. (2012). Social Constructivism: from Emerging Perspective on Learning, Teaching and Technology. Research Gate Publication. 

Kukla, A. (2000). Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science. New York: Routledge.

McMahon, M. (1997). Social Constructivism and the World Wide Web - A Paradigm for Learning. the ASCILITE conference. Perth, Australia.