A Little More About the Cultural Dimension of Power Distance

Culture School is in session! In this series, we take an aspect of intercultural theory and apply to daily life. Basically, our goal is to expose those cultural moonwalking bears. And because this blog is about culture and education, we consider each topic in the context of the classroom.

photo by maryatexitzero

You’ve noticed that people in different cultures do things differently (pretty obvious, right?). In some cultures people shake hands when they meet, in others they bow.

And you’ve noticed that people in different cultures interpret things differently. Like arriving “on time” to an 8pm dinner party. People in one culture might interpret “on time” as arriving at 8pm, while for another it might be 10pm.

Have you ever wondered why there are these differences? Why we behave differently in the same context (meeting someone new, choosing when to arrive to a party, in the classroom)? Why we sometimes interpret things so differently?

Culture has a lot to do with it*.

*Of course, culture isn’t the only thing that influences us, and we can’t generalize a cultural dimension to everyone in a particular culture. There will always be contradictions to every cultural pattern because personality, family, and situational context are also important influences.

And by culture, I mean the part of the cultural iceberg that is waaaaaaay below the water line. So deep that we aren’t aware of its influence. Until someone brings our attention to it.

Like now. In this post about the cultural dimension of Power Distance.

Last week I touched briefly on the second cultural dimension that is important when looking at education across cultures: Power Distance. (The first dimension we investigated was Individualism/Collectivism).

Next week we’ll take a look at how Power Distance manifests itself in the classroom. In order to do this, we first need to dive a bit further into a little theory.

You might remember from last week’s post that Geert Hofstede defined Power Distance as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.

If that doesn’t make a lot of sense, watch this very short video of Hofstede explaining the concept of Power Distance.

Basically, Power Distance refers to inequality.

Does a culture find inequality okay and in fact necessary to maintain societal structure (high Power Distance)?  Or does a culture find inequality wrong and strive to reduce inequality (low Power Distance)?

In the 1970’s, Geert Hofstede scored over 40 countries on a scale of 0-100 for this dimension. The higher the score, the more that dimension is exhibited in society. Below you can find Hofstede’s scores for 13 countries along the Power Distance continuum.

104 Slovakia (= high Power Distance)

94 Philippines

90 Romania

81 Mexico

67 Colombia

57 Spain

49 South Africa

45 Jamaica

40 USA

39 Canada

36 Australia

35 Great Britain

18 Denmark (= low Power Distance)

Here are a few very general characteristics of high/low Power Distance cultures.

In high power distance cultures, people are considered as existentially unequal. A person’s status is generally determined at birth (e.g. the family they were born into) and is often more important than merit.

Power is centralized as much as possible in a few hands. For instance, in an organization, the employees who do not have this power, (the subordinates), are expected to be told what to do.

It is likely that subordinates will feel uncomfortable if their input is asked for. Also, they might perceive this as a lack of ability and knowledge on the part of the manager asking for input.

In high power distance cultures, visible signs of status are important, and also expected. They contribute to the authority of bosses, and they are often essential in helping people figure out how to communicate with each other, verbally or non-verbally (how low does one bow, how formal does my language need to be, what salutations do I need to use, what shoes should I wear etc. – all of this can be determined at a glance in presence of visible signs of status).

In low power distance cultures, people are considered as existentially equal. The inequality is just one in roles, and is not existential. Merit, what you do with yourself, is more important than the family that you were born in.

In organizations, subordinates most often expect their managers to ask for their input. Privileges and status symbols tend to be frowned upon.

Of course, Power Distance isn’t quite this black and white.

The usual caveats apply. We can’t generalize a cultural dimension to everyone in a particular culture in every context. There will always be contradictions to every cultural pattern because personality, family, and situational context are also important influences. And even though Hofstede assigns a nice, neat number to several countries to indicate whether it leans more towards high or low Power Distance, it’s obviously not that simple.

Recommendation? Same as when we explored Individualism and Collectivism. Use this information as a guide for self-discovery. Become observant. Be curious about everything around you, even if you’ve seen it a million times.

As you go through your day, look at everything in your school with new eyes. Think about whether you expect students to greet you in a specific way when they enter or exit your classroom. Or whether your principal expects you to call him/her by his/her first name or by a title and last name.

Then ask yourself why you and your principal have these expectations. You don’t need to have a definitive answer, actually, it’s better if you don’t. Just keep asking why. It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question. – Eugene Ionesco

Stay tuned for next week’s post on how Power Distance manifests itself in the classroom…

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