Cross-Cultural Factors and the Question of Difficulty

Cross-culture differences can often intensify problems with grading systems. For example, many grading systems are criticized for being culturally biased because they tend to the values, norms and knowledge of middle class,White, English-proficient families. As a result, students who are from different socioeconomic or cultural groups may be at a disadvantages for grades. Such students may struggle with the conflicting values of their schooling environment versus their family values. Group work activities can present additional problems. Students from different socioeconomic or cultural backgrounds may experience difficulty participating fully in a group; as a result, they may have less control over the final group product and the resulting grade. Such difficulties may be connected to language differences that impede communication or differences in family conditions that limit out-of-school group work opportunities. Tests and some testing techniques have also been critized as being culturally and socioeconomically biased. For example, oral exams administered in English may not accurately assess a nonnantive English-speaker’s understanding of a concept or a topic. In addition, some test questions may allude to a culturally-specific practice or context, which may have a negative impact on the test scores of students who are unfamiliar with such culture references. Many standardized tests have been especially criticized, since they are often used as important selection criteria for acceptance into colleges and universities. Cultural bias in the grading process can also occur when a teacher observes and evaluates a student’s performance based on her/his cultural experiences. For example, a teacher who grows up valuing a particular communication style may misinterpret certain forms of verbal participations as a sign of student disengagement or disrespect. White middle-class teachers who struggle with Black urban students are just one example of such a cultural mismatch. Similarly, teachers who share a common cultural experience with their students may view their behaviors more favorably. A teacher’s racial, ethnic, gender, economic, and linguistic background can all contribute to communication barriers that may have an impact on their assessment of a students’ performance. Specifically, such communication barriers contribute to misunderstandings about tasks, criteria, and standards. Cultural differences between students and teachers may ultimately lead to situations in which otherwise capable students view satisfactory grades as unattainable. The accumulated negative impact of cultural differences can overwhelm ven the most capable students and leave them with a sense of futility that can cause them to withdraw and disengage from the educational process.