Thoughts on different cultural contexts

I’ve enjoyed reading all the comments on student autonomy and I’m sorry I’m so late contributing. I think you’ve all said it all really!!

My own experience of both student autonomy and teacher autonomy has hugely varied depending on country context. In the three developing countries in which I taught-Fiji, Angola and Tanzania, the lack of resources plus the hard daily grind the students went through outside the class room generally prevented much academic autonomy. Quite often it took a lot of autonomy and enterprise on the part of students to get to the class at all. In Tanzania and Angola my students had no library facilities so things really were very difficult for them. On the other hand, I usually had a lot of autonomy as a teacher-although in both Fiji and Tanzania a horrible and hugely culturally inappropriate exam lay in waiting at the end of the year to catch both myself and students out

In the European countries in which I taught- Italy, Portugal and Hungary students, of course, had more resources. Generally, they were the same as British students-some took responsibility for their learning others didn’t. In Europe though I generally had less autonomy-though on the other hand more support.

I liked Alex’s point about students belonging to their culture but not being ‘culture bound’-everywhere I’ve been there have been people who were independent and unpredictable in the way they learned and have totally surprised me.