“We need to become ‘educational chameleons’”: from unified to multiple norms in a multilingual and international higher education context

4.1 Context of the study

In the Master’s programme, critically reflecting on the experience of being a multilingual learner in a multilingual context is central to the curriculum.^[5] One way to engage in this critical reflection lies in research-led teaching and cooperative inquiry (Heron and Reason 1997; Pearce 2008). Part of a family of participatory approaches that have developed in different disciplines since the 1960 s (Pearce 2008), cooperative inquiry is a way of bringing a group together to explore issues of concern and interest to all, often with a view to using the inquiry to bring about change.

Cooperative inquiry can take several forms, depending on the objectives and timeframe for the process. In our case, we made use of a semester-long introductory course (spring 2019) teaching students how to conduct research interviews as a means of exploring the topic of fairness in assessment and evaluation in the Master’s programme.^[6] This topic was perhaps an unusual choice to discuss in the context of higher education. The goal was not only to obtain feedback about whether or not students felt fairly treated, but also to reflect with the students on the existence of a multiplicity of norms and power hierarchies in the assessment process and to discuss how norms may affect students differently.

The students began by preparing an interview schedule in English with a list of questions and themes to explore ideas about fairness in assessment. They then interviewed their peers (each of the 27 students on the course interviewed a second-year fellow student, or if not available, a first-year student) to find out their views. In the second phase of the project, the students transcribed^[7] and analysed the responses. They also shared their results with the class. A final group discussion enabled them to identify lessons learned from the research. Although no specific instruction was given to conduct the interviews in English, they were nearly all carried out in that language, with just two exceptions (one interview in French and one in German).

4.2 Analytical standpoint

The description above makes it clear that the data was constructed in many complex ways. First, the topic and context of discussion were largely suggested by the professor who also provided a specific critical framework. Second, the students conducted their interviews as a piece of coursework. Both interviewers and interviewees were thus well aware of the intended audience (the professor, programme director and other students in the class). Third, the questions were pre-determined. The interview schedule dictated what topics would be discussed and also, to some extent, set the scope of what could be said about them.

In this context of inquiry, students’ statements cannot therefore be taken as direct reflections of their views on the topic explored. Rather, in line with constructivist and interpretative epistemologies, we understand that the interviews were also the scenes of local identity constructions, performance and stance-taking. They also reflected wider educational and societal ideologies and discourses (De Fina & Georgakopoulou 2012).

To analyse the interviews, we first read them all, identifying sequences with metalinguistic comments about types of evaluation, assessment and norms. We initially worked individually on the material, using a variety of techniques and technologies (MAXQDA, f4analyse and traditional pen-and-paper methods) to identify themes and investigate how speakers positioned themselves with regard to these themes. We also examined the arguments used by interviewees to support their positions, beliefs and stances (Talja 1999).

In what follows, we discuss excerpts relevant to these issues of learning. What we wish to share in this analysis is a reflection on how students relate to their experience of encountering and learning to live with changing norms after transitioning to a new country and university context. We do not claim that the picture presented here is complete, that the processes highlighted are unique to our programme, or that the findings are unproblematic. We offer the analysis, however, as a starting point for further questions and reflections.

5.1 The initial shock

For almost all students, beginning the multilingual Master programme was described throughout the interviews as initially constituting a significant departure from their previous experience. Any transition from one institutional context to another, and from one language environment to another, might involve elements of shock and require complex adaptation. With this programme, moving from environments with one specific language of instruction to a programme requiring some level of working knowledge in three languages undoubtedly represents a particular challenge. But it was not only the language requirements that were different for many students starting this programme; there was also a salient difference in academic culture. As several students, particularly those from Eastern European backgrounds, explained, their past studies were based on a view of learning conceptualised as the repetition of pre-existing design. The students were expected to rehearse and reproduce the form, genre convention or content found in books or presented by the professor. Assessment typically took place through oral exams and classes were professor-led. The goal was not to produce new knowledge in the examined work, as illustrated in excerpt (1) and (2) (our emphasis):

(1) And back in Armenia, I had to, for example, learn a whole theoretical book by heart before I went to the exam. An then I would go and, you know, just throw up (laugh) this knowledge which didn’t really belong to me, but I just learned by heart.

(2) And, also, the professors back in Sofia (...) they expected from us to say and to express exactly the same thing they gave us during the classes. So, we had strict guidelines and we had to read to repeat to remember the things we’ve been discussing in class. And then to, just to reproduce them again during the exams. During the oral exams, we were not allowed to give our own opinions or ideas and thoughts, to share or ask questions.

These excerpts highlight an emphasis on “book learning”, professor behaviour as a model, and the need for students to follow strict guidelines in a reproductive mode. Our aim here is not to comment on or judge any particular teaching style or method of assessment. Rather, it is to acknowledge what kinds of educational cultures students experienced before joining the Master programme. The highlighted elements are important in that they contributed to forming learning routines that were seen in those contexts as leading to educational success, and which students had incorporated into their image of a “model student”.

For students who learned the ropes, the predictability of the system meant that they developed an understanding of what kinds of behaviours or products were expected of them to enable them to become and remain successful in the system. The following example suggests that navigating predictable systems can feel very comfortable, as such systems offer a sense of stability once a student has learned the required tools and techniques and how to navigate them successfully:

(3) But the good thing about it wasyou really knew what they were expecting. Kind of. And in the US, it was so clear what they were expecting. Like, they really gave you a list of things you have to do. And like, if you do this and this, you’re going to get this grade. And if you do that you're going to get this grade or that's going to be, like I don’t know, like minus points if you don’t hand in that homework until this deadline and stuff like that. So that was super clear, super strict, but very easy to meet the, the (..) what is called – the standard

Many students referred to the existence of “a standard” – in the singular – in their past experiences. This standard was to some extent identifiable and those able to meet it would accrue advantages. What is important here is not whether standards in other contexts were indeed singular or monolithic, but rather that students remembered them as such, often in contrast with their experience on this programme.

5.2 Encountering a non-unified culture of assessment

Many students found encountering a system that was quite different from their previous academic experience to be disorientating. Importantly, it was not only language and the use of three languages of instruction that made things challenging for the students on this programme. There was also a variety of teaching staff, some of whom had been educated and worked in different higher education systems where they were exposed to different local norms, experienced different teaching styles and developed their own views on teaching practices. To be clear, this situation is not exclusive to this programme, as teaching staff are becoming increasingly diverse all over the world. However, the variety of approaches, norms and expectations that professors here seemed to have developed was noticeable for students and created an apparent sense of “messiness”, as illustrated below:

(4) A: how can you say how grading works, how teaching works if all your professors (laugh) are from whatever countries exist, which is very cool and I like it and, and, yes but there’s no such a culture behind it. Which is why it can also be kind of messy I guess because you never know what to expect. So yeah, that’s something surprising because it’s so young and it has no (.) specific culture (laugh) (xxx) such a diverse culture that you can’t really grasp it and you don’t really know how to start with it. Yeah there’s really no way to understand it.

This student highlights the fact that there does not seem to be a unified culture of teaching, and that the expectations of teaching staff vary. Interestingly, the student attributes this to the young age of the university, implying that (unified) norms may and probably will emerge and solidify with time, as if this were an unavoidable and necessary product of institutionalisation. And maybe this is the case to a certain extent. For the moment, however, the students perceive a kind of “void” or absence of a single local norm. The current situation is perceived as the coexistence of an incoherent variety of different norms and expectations that is experienced as “messy”.

5.3 Feeling unprepared

While some students found the existence of different norms to be challenging, others felt that the variety of students’ prior trajectories was important to consider. In particular, certain backgrounds and experiences did not always seem to leave students prepared to grapple with new normative practices. A student explained this by describing a friend’s experience on the programme:

(5) K: For example, a friend of mine, she had a different kind of study background. So like, for example, writing article, writing papers and stuff. Either she never did, or she did in a different way. And, so for her, it was really, really hard to meet the standards because she just didn’t know how to do it, because nobody told her.

The excerpt shows that difference in “study background” (meaning here differences in practices of academic literacy, particularly writing) can constitute a challenge for a programme that requires writing a variety of academic and personal essays – a genre unfamiliar to a number of the students. Secondly, the student implies that in any new context, what works best is to have a clear explanation of what is expected (ideally in light of knowledge about students’ previous academic experiences, especially as related to writing practices).

Students also point out that teaching staff might lack an understanding of how students relate to the assignments proposed and hold assumptions that do not reflect the reality experienced by the students:

(6) K. it’s not really explained. Because, yeah, it is assumed that you kind of already know. Which is totally understandable.

I: Right.

K: But for the students. It’s very frustrating and very challenging, because they just don’t know how to. And then they feel like they’re not good enough, because they are not smart enough, or they don’t understand. But they just don’t have the tools how to do it.

In other words, teaching staff may be assuming, for example, that students are familiar with certain kinds of assignments, or that their ways of doing things are known and clear, without understanding the difficulties this can create for students.

7.1 Dealing agentively with tensions

For many students, there was very much a feeling that the confusion about new norms could be addressed. As one student explains,

(12) it took me like the first I would say the first semester it took me really to understand the formal informal structure of the requirements for assignment that are required here at the university. So each teacher, each module, they have different expectations to the assignment.

This student seems to suggest that it is possible to learn the new ropes, as in any other situation of transition. More generally in the program, students gradually seem to discover a multiplicity of norms that are understood to coexist without any single standard prevailing. This is a complex challenge for students, as it requires them to adapt to heterogeneity on different levels. It demands flexibility to cope with the heterogeneity of individual professors’ expectations, the heterogeneity of language use and the heterogeneity of content. These three elements might also exist in other contexts. However, finding a “common language” on this programme, as one student describes it, seems to encompass negotiations around (multilingual) language ability and norms, knowledge and academic content, and genres and styles of writing. As one student states, “in our assignments we have to find a common language with the professor – more than in pure linguistic terms (...) we need to become ‘educational chameleons’”.

Another student similarly felt that the way in which space is made for multiple norms was ultimately positive:

(13) A: afterwards, once I got used to this, what they’re looking for, what they really want, I started going with the flow according to the requirements of the assignment. And it’s, it’s been going off, really, good, yeah.

This quote and the previous one imply that students are taking an active role in working through the “messiness”, being more attentive to particular settings and working to understand the requirements in a given situation. One student explicitly notes that the need to get to grips with the situation pushes students to ask more questions, to take on more agentive roles in the classroom:

(14) The best way is ask questions, questions, questions, questions. Ask the professor what exactly they’re expecting. Become clear what they want and clarify for yourself. Every professor will have a slightly different idea.(...) And of course, It will be a task but you want to know, how can I do it the best way? How can I do it the way the professor wants to ask? And I’ve never had an experience where the professor is not responsive to more questions.

Overall, students have quite varied language skills, disciplinary backgrounds and past trajectories of learning, which means that they do not come to their courses and assignments with the same tools. On top of this, the guidelines are not strict or fixed across the programme. However, many students found that they were eventually able to make sense of things, to “go with the flow”, and to do so as active participants in the classroom. And so, even as most students report feeling bewildered at first by the differences between their Bachelor and Master studies, the heterogeneous demands of their teachers and the linguistic variety, most discover a way to adapt to the situation, the motivations behind it and the rewards associated with it.

7.2 Rethinking one’s position

Another dimension stressed by the students is that the effort of getting to grips with a variety of norms can create a different sense of belonging that is not always possible to build in other contexts more dominated by one set of cultural values:

(15) B: here, everyone’s coming from outside. So it makes a huge difference. ... But “integration” seems more complicated here. I think in Italy it was easier because then I knew the rules, and I knew the culture. And I was just like, “okay here is Italy, and I’m in Italy. So I like these people’s cultural values, or this and that.” And it was like, easier to handle. Here you go around, you meet someone you don’t even know how many times to kiss them on the cheeks. (laugh)

This quote is interesting in two respects: not because of the rather stereotypical and questionable assumption about Italy and its presumably unified culture; rather, what is striking is the student’s experience of the environment in Luxembourg where different sets of norms coexist and need to be worked out in interactions, even simple exchanges like meeting and greeting a new person. This general perception of diversity and a multiplicity of norms is not interesting as an absolute statement, but rather in the way that it frames the student’s overall experience of living and studying in a space described as one in which “everyone is coming from the outside”. Of course, this programme includes students from Luxembourg who were born and grew up in the country. However, the impression that prevails – even for the Luxembourg-born students – is one that students perceive as differing quite fundamentally from their previous experience in that it feels much more heterogeneous than homogeneous. All people sharing the same classroom here are perceived as coming from “the outside”, since the vast majority of the students were indeed not born in Luxembourg and came to the country for study or work, to accompany family members or to try to build a new life and professional career. Despite the presence of some local Luxembourgish students, there is little sense of a shared local norm which would be modelled by dominant ways of speaking and acting. This seems to have some impact on how difference and being different is felt by the students overall:

(16) I: Have you ever felt different in class for cultural or other reasons?

A: (5s) (laugh) that’s a difficult question because... we’re SO DIVERSE ... I think it’s like fifteen nationalities in there. So for cultural reasons, I don’t feel that different, [...] no not really because everyone is different. [...]

I: Do you think it’s helpful that the university is so multicultural and especially this programme, to help make students feel more comfortable and not as isolated for being from a different place?

A: Yes definitely. I mean because in Switzerland, in high school I remember that we had ummm...people coming for exchange years from the U. S., from southern American countries and they were always outsiders. They were included, obviously in some way and they were, it was always very interesting, everyone wanted to know more about them. But at the end of the day they always remained the exchange student. And here even though we had exchange students from Russia, they were just part of the class, there was no difference between them or us, so that was very nice, yeah.

This last quote suggests that when there is a dominant culture that is perceived by the majority as the norm, students with differing trajectories or profiles are singled out by the majority group as different. However, these perceptions of difference seem to disappear when a clearly identifiable local norm is missing, and difference generally tends to be framed differently, at least in certain areas and ways. This seems to be helpful in facilitating the emergence of a collective identity, despite the very individual and idiosyncratic life trajectories, backgrounds and experiences of the students, perhaps all the more so because of the effort required to grapple with each other’s perspectives.

Perhaps more importantly, the students’ views show that they learn to situate themselves in a wider array of perspectives and to relativise their own positions. In the following passage, a student explains how the Master made her aware of her own position in ways she had not previously experienced:

(17) A: (laugh) a lot because discussions usually start with, “so, in Switzerland we usually do it in this and this and this way,” and then someone else, “in China, we do it this way” and it makes sense, right? Everyone has to be aware of that because your personal opinion is not valued as such, but is only valued in its specific context, like where you’re from. If you want to say something you always have to think “why do I say this, or why does this person say this to me, where does she come from, where did she learn, why” (laugh) so I think especially now at the University of Luxembourg in this very, huh, multicultural environment it’s very important that you’re aware of this at all times basically.

This quote points to two interesting issues. By getting to know and learning to appreciate other students’ views, students become more aware of their own cultural values and positions. At the same time, they start to reflect on and hypothesise about the viewpoints expressed by others, situating these views geographically, culturally and socially based on what they know about their peers and trying to find reasons, motivations and grounding in what they know about these other nations (often equating the nation with a homogeneous culture). While in this example the nation or reference to a particular country of origin serves as a basis for (inter-) cultural comparison, nationhood and citizenship are not the only frames of reference:

(18) A: Even though I’m only a citizen of one country, I feel more multicultural and I became aware that I’m actually multilingual

This is when social identities often associated with categories of nation or national languages start to become blurred. That is not to say that feelings and awareness of the nation as a social category are not emphasised by other students on the programme, but what is offered is a dialogue about these categories and what they mean for oneself and for others.

7.3 Opening up to unexpected experiences

The heterogeneity that students experience is not limited to linguistic diversity or the variety of content and expectations. It also has to do with the structure of the programme, which incorporates different strands and interdisciplinary approaches as well as a variety of assessment formats, evaluation practices and pedagogical methods to engage students with learning. In particular, the programme involves a great deal of small-scale empirical project work for the students, which suggests an emphasis on practice:

(19) But the assignments here are more practical. They’re less theoretical. And they don’t build towards one certain thing, it’s more diverse. My previous Master was just going towards the same direction. I had my idea in my mind by the end of the first term, and then it was just focusing on what you want to write and all the assignments were built around the same idea. But it’s nice here because you acquire experience to be creative and things like that.

It seems that this student had formed quite a clear idea of what her previous Master programme was about after one year and that she maintained this idea until the end of the programme. In the new programme, the orientation seems less straightforward, which gave the student an awareness and ability to remain open, to expect change and to feel better prepared to incorporate new ideas. The focus on small-scale project work also pushes the student into a more experiential, experimental, immersive mode of learning.

If we want to consider that as an achievement in education, it seems to be difficult to quantify with grading and numbers. The “messiness of the system” or the multiplicity of content, norms and expectations, including linguistic complexity, seems to be able to transform students’ initial state of “shock” into an ability to receive difference more positively, as a “surprise”, potentially opening up new possibilities or new trajectories:

(20) S: So yeah, I had my expectations and they were not all fulfilled, but then on the other hand, other things came up, which surprised me or which gave me other ideas, or I don’t know, experience

(21) S: I also feel, on the one hand a bit confused, but (...) it’s kind of good as well, because you grow within that Master. And for me, it’s more a life changing thing. It’s also quite nice to have a little bit more freedom, and to find your way within the little chaos maybe and to see what options you have, which opportunities you really want to do [...] I still don’t know what I will do after the end of this programme, but I fully enjoy the process of learning.

What caught our attention in this quote was that the student said the state of confusion made her grow. While this is surely often the case, what is more remarkable is the reflective stance of the student here, the ability to acknowledge confusion – generally felt as a rather unpleasant and destabilising state of emotion – as a source of growth. We do not want to ascribe this as a merit of this programme specifically, but rather as a phenomenon that happened here and in contrast to a previous experience set in another context. The second point which deserves a mention is that this attitude also seems to have led to a different kind of trust: trust in the process and allowing oneself to enjoy the process of learning.