certain cultural backgrounds. One common example cited in the scholarly literature is the use of
the Socratic method in classrooms with studentsfrom areas immersed in the Confucian tradition
of learning, such as China. Whereas the Socratic method privileges questioning and self-gen-
erated knowledge, the Confucian tradition emphasizes acquiring essential information from
respected authority figures.^14 Though some Western instructors believe Chinese students take a
passive or shallow approach to learning–merely repeating through rote memorization the
authoritative dictates of their teachers–from the Chinese perspective, memorization allows for
deeper processing of ideas, as each new repetition brings greater clarification.^15 Moreover, the
point of Confucian learning is not to absorb uncritically whatever one’s teacher or textbook says,
but rather to become steeped in existing knowledge before daring to make one’sowncontri-
butions. From a Confucian perspective,“the fervor with which Western students are exhorted
to question and to challenge, especially early on in the learning about a topic, is foolish.”^16
Confucian learning also takes a more pragmatic orientation to learning. One does not learn
for the sake of learning, but to develop the virtues and skills needed to fulfill one’s role in society
and in the civil service. Hence, one scholar asks,
What are we trying to accomplish by exposing students from Japan and other non-Western
cultures to Socratic notions of education, which differ significantly from their expectations of
teaching and learning and from the expectations they will return to when they go home?^17In sum, the Socratic method can be seen as culturally imperialistic in that it presupposes the
superiority of a particular set of normative values generally identified as distinctly“Western”:
the priority of the individual over the collective, the equality of teacher and student as mutual
learners rather than a more hierarchical teacher–student relationship, and the importance of
truth-seeking above the need for a more practical education designed to safeguard social
harmony.
Not only does the Socratic method operate within a particular normative framework that
privileges certain cultural values over others, but in using the Socratic method teachers may also
unwittingly penalize students unaccustomed to or unaccepting of these values. Numerous studies
show that students from non-Western cultures often struggle with participating in Socratic dis-
cussions or even understanding the purpose of such discussions.^18 Unlike their Western peers,
who are often taught at a young age the value of critical thinking and of classroom participation,
students from a Confucian learning background tend to exhibit reluctance toward stating their
own opinions in class or challenging the ideas of their teacher or other classmates. Again, this is
because their native cultural framework of education emphasizes hearing what the teacher has to
say, not singling oneself out in class, and engaging in cooperative rather than more individualized
learning. Teachers who use the Socratic method inclassrooms with students from diverse cultural
backgrounds need to be aware of this when calling on students or assigning grades based on
classroom participation. As Gorry puts it,“The student sins by failing to follow the rules of the
game, but what if the student is failed because s/he cannot comprehend that the rules are different
to those that s/he are used to?”^19 Another study reports that“using the Socratic method beyond
the United States can yield similar pedagogical benefits but requires modifications to honor
differentculturalnorms.”^20 In this case, the teachers–all professors or lecturers of legal studies–
took the traditional law school model of subjecting individual students to rigorous questioning
about the case at hand and made important alterations to fit the Chinese context, such as
beginning with small group discussions to help students gain greater comfort and confidence in
their own reasoning rather than finding themselves thrown into the humiliating experience of
being“on the spot”in front of the entire class. Without these modifications, the students would
have felt intimidated–a critique of the Socratic method that echoes concerns about its potential to
marginalize female and minority students.^21
130 Rebecca LeMoine