Students’ response

Students’ response to multicultural education, teachers’ attitude, the curriculum, activities and residential life, etc can be seen as evidence of whether the college is doing what it claims to do.

As I observed and learned from the students, there were elements of multiculturalism in the life of UWC every day and everywhere. “Simply sitting between a Swede and a Zambian in a Spanish class with an Argentinean teacher” was one example of a student’s daily multicultural experience; “trying to explain an English word to a Balkan fellow in Bulgarian, due to the similarity with Serbian” was another. Most students I interviewed shared the common perspectives that the college came quite close to the ideals about multicultural understanding, and that the school had created an environment for students to get culturally diverse experience during their two-year-long UWC experience. The teachers appeared to be flexible and aware of cultural differences among students, and they seemed to act accordingly. Generally the teachers were open to different points of view; they let students with various opinions speak up while remaining in the position of listener.

One example shared by a student from Hong Kong regarding teachers’ attitude was:

“This [a multicultural environment] has been raised as a topic of discussion of multiculturalism in the context of international education when we were studying Spanish. One past IB exam paper is criticized to be euro-centric in its depiction of signs that may not be familiar to students of other regions. The teacher is aware of this and willing to help those who find those pictorial representations strange and alien.”

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One student from Denmark believed that the open and critical attitude fostered by the UWC model was very valuable. He shared his experience:

“I was part of holding a discussion night on the future of the UWC. One of the themes was multicultural education. Everyone was lashing out in the college and criticizing different things we are doing wrong here. I was very impressed by that! On a Friday evening, 100 young boys and girls were spending two hours in an open forum discussing the values and ethics of their high school education. Everyone said that it was not good enough and that more needs to be done. And I agreed. We should always do more and do better.”

One student from Estonian believed that the arrangement of cultural events in the college was effective and sufficient. She gave examples: “having roommates from different continents, arranging special weeks and days, cultural sharing evenings, etc.

The final outcome is still completely up to a concrete student - how communicative and enthusiastic is the student.”

Some of the students, however, argued that there were certain teachers or staff members representing or advocating their cultures and views too strongly. Most teachers, if not all, had a liberal view towards ethnical issue. However, these views were predominantly "Western" which created problems for some students who hold the opposite view due to the different information received.

Students agreed that for most occasions, people in the college were treated as equals and with respect. Racism or discrimination in general was often the subject of jokes but any outright practice of it would surely be condemned by all.

There were a few statements from the students that from time to time people tended to highlight differences or peculiarities too much, which became annoying. The perfect example from a student was the imitation of the Italian accent. He felt it was funny at the beginning but annoying soon after. The solution he took wa s just being blunt enough to make it noticed to the people concerned. One girl from Norway also stated:

“The only unequal experience comes when it is regarding money. Just because I am from Norway (white), people expect me to have lots of money and that I am able to pay for everything, but I am

not. This is not a big issue though; the college does its best to treat all equally.”

It was argued by some of the students that, to a certain extent, the college was Eurocentric. One of them stated:

“This is understandable since the college is located in Norway, and Nordic is one of the core pillars.

But still it’s worth giving a second thought to the question that whether the concept of UWC is naturally Eurocentric, it might be interesting to have a look at the UWCs in Asia or somewhere else.”

There was also criticism from a student about infinite freedom giving to all students.

The student argued:

“The infinitive freedom we're given in this school doesn't work too well for everyone. I would dare to say that it can even be harmful to some people. The solution would be a more centralized organization of the school, where we have more strict reference and guidance.”

One student stressed:

“One expectation from an UWC student is to be culturally tolerant, we have actually several examples of students who have conflict on a national level, but who manage to overcome these difficulties and become comparably good friends - for example Chinese and Tibetans, or Russians and Latvians.”

Students believed that RCNUWC was a place of getting to know other cultures, resolving conflict and building peace. Some of the students had a very strong and biased belief towards people coming from certain social or cultural backgrounds before they came to the college, and some of them knew nothing except their own culture. During the one or two years’ experience of living together, their attitude towards people, to some extent, changed. Students believed it was good to break the selective perception or prejudice and admit the facts. Here are some examples shared by the students: People from big cities or polluted areas got to see that it was normal for some people to be barefoot outside and rarely wear shoes; People from different parts of the world use different notations for numbers, people from Croatia with Gypsy origin do interact with the larger society; Not all Muslims cover their whole body up carefully with clothes or are conservative in their acts; Chinese students can be sociable; Thailand is not full of transsexuals, etc.

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