Coping with Isolation: The role of culture in adult distance learners' use of surrogates

Coping with Isolation: The role of culture in adult distance learners' use of surrogates

• Venter, Katharine Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester, UK

Open Learning, 18(3), 271-287, 2003

Routledge

2003

• Q Philosophy of Education, Educational System & School At Different Levels
  • QG Adult, Lifelong & Continuing Education
• P Social Context of Education
  • PB Comparative Education
• A Human Growth & Development
  • AE Socioeconomic & Cultural Differences, Class & Family Background

Masters Degrees Graduate Students Andragogy Coping Cultural Pluralism Models Social Isolation Role Culture Distance Education Foreign Countries Cultural Differences Cognitive Style Malaysia Europe Hong Kong Singapore

• Hong Kong
• Singapore
• Malaysia

• 1997.7 onwards

• Adult Education

Conceptions of learning and preferred learning approaches have been suggested to vary cross-culturally. The extent to which learning is 'student-centred' or 'teacher-centred' also appears subject to cultural variation. This has led some to conclude that particular cultures exhibit learning preferences more suited to distance learning than do other cultures. This article examines the strategies that students from varying cultural backgrounds use to manage the experience of the isolation of distance learning. Two distinct isolation experiences emerge that reflect differences in the perceptions of the student-teacher relationship. These, it is argued, can be classified as a 'surrogate teacher' model in the Asian cultures of Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia and a 'student identity' model in Europe.
[Copyright of Open Learning is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0268051032000131035]

• English

Journal Articles

• 02680513

• 10.1080/0268051032000131035

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/b5451525

2010-09-08