A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TEACHER/STUDENT ROLE RELATIONSHIPS IN CHINA AND SWEDEN

LIAN GUO

Department of Education，Lund University

Abstract：This study investigates people's conceptions of an unequal role relationship in two different types of society：People's Republic of China and Sweden，the former，classified，according to Hofstede's（1980），as a typical collectivist society characterized by large power distance，strong uncertainty avoidance，and masculinity，and the latter，an individualist society characterized by small power distance，weak uncertainty avoidance，and strongly feminine within the frames of masculine dominance.The study focuses on the role relationship between teacher and student.30 Chinese graduate students studying presently in a Swedish university and 9 Swedish students who have once visited China for academic studies were asked to complete the questionnaire（with space for written comments at the end）that was designed to probe their conceptions of degrees of Hofstede's 4-D model of cultural differences and Hall's（1976）high and low context communication theory in this role relationship.Some of the Chinese students were interviewed afterwards by phone on some supplementary questions related to the questionnaire.Both emic and etic approaches were adopted when the cultural dimensions were discussed.The statistical results from the questionnaire and the written comments supported the hypotheses generated in the literature review and verified the feasibility and validity of Hofstede's and Hall's theories on cultural dimensions in this limited context.The reason for the low feedback of the questionnaire has been tentatively explored in terms of cultural context.