Cultural and Social Frameworks of Instructional Design
Katsuaki Suzuki
ksuzuki@kumamoto-u.ac.jp
Professor and Chair
Graduate School of Instructional Systems, Kumamoto University
Japan

Junko Nemoto
nemoto@kumamoto-u.ac.jp
Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Instructional Systems, Kumamoto University
Japan

ABSTRACTThis paper reports a review of cultural and social frameworks of instructional design. Due to theinternationalization of online learning, consideration of cultural and social differences among
students and between providers and recipients has become a greater issue for the program to be
successful. As a part of results in a two-year study under Grants-in-Aid for scientific research(22650206) of MEXT, Japan, this paper will report on current trends in instructional design todeal with the cultural and social issues. The paper includes such frameworks as Cultural
Dimension of Learning Framework (CDLF) and IAMC (Inclusion, Attitude, Meaning,
Competence) Model. It also includes results of several studies of internationally active
instructional designers, of a university with predominantly international students, and oftechnology assisted culturally responsive teaching. Issues to be considered in designing multicultural provision of education are discussed.
Keyword: instructional design, framework, cultural and social adaption, design principles

INTRODUCTION
This paper reports a review of cultural and social frameworks of instructional design (ID). Due to theinternationalization of online learning, consideration of cultural and social differences among students
and between providers and recipients has become a greater issue for the program to be successful. For the
students, the same is true; with greater opportunities for accessing educational provisions, which was notpossible unless you went abroad to study. There are more occasions to encounter culturally and sociallydiverse ways of instruction, in the form of Open Educational Resources, online learning programs, as wellas wider strategies that were made available by technological advancement and were advocated by new
perspectives in designing learning environment. Even within a country of traditionally homogeneous
people, there has been advocated the generation gaps (e.g., digital immigrants vs. digital natives, Prensky,2006), due to rapid change in technology environment, which may affect having two different subcultures between those who provide education and those who receive it. Trends in ID to put emphasis inlearner centric ways to accommodate learners’ diversity has been another reason why we need to know
more about the differences, to plan for accommodation and selection of proper strategies in instruction.
Thus the purpose of this paper was to describe current trends in ID to deal with the cultural andsocial issues. It was conducted as a part of a two-year study under Grants-in-Aid for scientific research(22650206) of MEXT, Japan, to try to find out how we go about designing and delivering instruction with
cultural and social awareness.

METHODS
To try to locate trends of cultural and social consideration in ID, online searches were conductedwith related words, including culture, diversity, multi-culture, learner differences, within the fields of ID
and technology and distance education. Once a relevant article was located, references were examined tosee if there was anything worth tracking down. While this searching process is still underway, major
findings are to be reported in this paper, with an emphasis on frameworks or models, rather than
individual empirical studies.

RESULTS
There were many papers searched on the Web in relation to the theme. For example, a search indescriptors on ERIC (http://www.eric.ed.gov/) with a keyword "culture" found 1959 results. Searching
EdITLib by AACE (http://www.editlib.org/), with a keyword "culture," found 251 papers matched within
AACE journals, and 2739 papers matched within AACE conference papers. As an interim report for thispaper, the following findings are introduced and discussed.

Cultural Dimension of Learning Framework (CDLF)
Cultural Dimension of Learning Framework (CDLF) proposed by Parrish & Linder-VanBerschot(2010) is a set of eight cultural parameters regarding social relationships, epistemological beliefs, andtemporal perceptions that are most likely to impact instructional situations (See, Table 1). They argue
that as willingness to teach and learn across cultures grows, due to simpler and cheaper
telecommunications, “instructional providers, including instructors and instructional designers, especiallythose working in online environments and struggling to maintain sufficient presence and student
engagement, should develop skills to deliver culturally sensitive and culturally adaptive instruction(Parrish & Linder-VanBerschot, 2010, paragraph 4).”

Table 1. Cultural Dimension of Learning Framework (CDLF)
Key Questions
Cultural Dimension
Equality andHow equity handled? How is status demonstrated and respect
authority
given? What interactions are appropriate for those of unequal
status?
Individualism andWhich prevails, the interests of the individual or the interest ofcollectivism
the group? To what degree are interpersonal relationshipvalued?
Nurture andWhich is the more important set of goals, cooperation andchallenge
security, or recognition and advancement? Which achieves
better learning outcomes, supportive acts or challenging acts?
EpistemolStability seeking
How is uncertainty dealt with? IS it avoided or accepted? Isogicaland uncertainty
structure assumed more important than flexibility? What is theBeliefs
acceptancestatus of knowledge-established or in a process of development?
Logic
How are arguments developed? Which is more important,argumentation andlogical consistency or practical outcomes? How is disagreement
being reasonable
managed?
Causality &complex How is causality assigned typically? Is it assigned to a single,
systems /Analysis & most likely source, or is it assigned to the broader context?
holismTemporalClock time andDo people conform to an external measure of time, or do they
Perceptions event timeallow the event at hand to unfold on its own time? Which are
more important, deadlines or relationships?
Linear time andDo people see time as a path and see goals as necessary
cyclical time
destinations, or do they see time as a pattern of interlocking
cycles into which they step in and out over the course of a life?
Note: A partial list taken from Table 1 of Parrish & Linder-VanBerschot (2010).
Area
SocialRelationship

The eight cultural dimensions are not to be treated as dichotomous, but as a continuum from one end
to the other. However, the original table in Parrish & Linder-VanBerschot (2010) shows how differently
each end of a dimension can appear in instructional settings. For example, along the first dimension ofequality and authority, teachers are treated as unchallenged authority at one end, whereas they are treatedas equals to be engaged and even challenged on the other end. Teachers are the primary communicatorand solely responsible for what happened in instruction at one end, while at the other end, dialogue anddiscussion are considered to be critical, and students also take responsibility for learning activities.
It is noteworthy that they point out that the provider should be aware of their own cultural bias, by
examining their assumptions against the eight cultural dimensions in the CDLF model. It is not only tomake their instruction more receptive by wider audience, but not to kill the recipients’ culture by
imposing “right” way of thinking and behaving. On the other hand, since education is inherently social
process and one of the roles of educators is to teach culture, educational providers can no longer take aneutral position in developing their courses and materials. They argue that one of the challenges of multicultural education providers is to not only “become aware of one’s own cultural preferences for what they
are and not assuming they represent the ‘right’ way to think,” but also to “accept the dual responsibility ofeducators to acculturate and respect individual student cultural backgrounds (both from paragraph 22).”

IAMC Model
Ginsberg & Wlodkowski (2009) have proposed the IAMC (Inclusion, Attitude, Meaning,
Competence) Model to accommodate diverse student populations in colleges and universities in US. For
classrooms with many ethnicities and linguistic groups, first-generation college students, recent
immigrants, and working adult learners, culturally responsive teaching is needed. The IAMC Model has
been created “that (1) respects diversity, (2) engages the motivation of a broad range of students, (3)creates a safe, inclusive and respectful learning environment, (4) derives teaching practices from acrossdisciplines and cultures, and (5) promotes equitable learning (Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009, p. ix).”
It seems to be one of the representatives of the direction, apart from ideology that “everybody should
become an American,” where the melting pot notion applies, by saying “If you live in US, you are
expected to behave like an American.” Now, it is aimed that the classroom should respect diversity
among students, and accommodates the differences by adopting instructional strategies applicable towider diversities of the students. To start thinking unspoken norms that has been dominated in the US
classrooms, Ginsberg & Wlodkowski (2009) argued that we must realize prevailing norms being inoperation in rhetorical, cultural, and political aspects, as shown in Table 2.
In addition to the prevailing norms, they listed at least one alternative view to each and every norm
listed, which may be reflected as the diversity within the classroom. For example, for the Achievement
and Success norm, an alternative may be that “(p)ersonal generosity is the highest human value;
conspicuous consumption represents greed and self-interest; “rags to riches” is rooted in cultural
mythology that overlooks social, political, and economic forces that favor certain groups over others (p.
14).”
Table 3 shows the IAMC motivational framework for designing culturally responsive teaching. The
book contains many ideas and strategies for each factor that can be used in college teaching; Chapter 2 forestablishing inclusion, Chapter 3 for developing attitude, Chapter 4 for enhancing meaning, and Chapter 5
for engendering competence.

Findings of Other Studies
Rogers, Graham & Mayes (2007) has conducted a study to interview 12 internationally experienced
ID professionals to examine what they encountered in adapting and delivering Western-origin materials inother cultures. They found that the 12 interviewees had been aware of cultural differences in general fourareas: (1) general cultural and social expectations, regarding roles and relationships of genders, rules,
legality, time, and humor, (2) teaching and learning expectations, including teacher-student relationships,
issue of saving-losing faces, types of learning activities, assessment styles, and writing styles, (3)differences in the use of language and symbols, which may be interpreted differently across cultures,

Table 2. Prevailing Rhetorical, Cultural, and Political Norms in US Classrooms
Norms
Description
Achievement andPeople emphasize rags to riches in stories.
Success
Activities andPeople see this country as a land of busy people who stress disciplined,Work
productive activities as a worthy end in itself.
Humanitarian
People spontaneously come to the aid of others and hold traditional sympathy
Mores
for the underdog.
Moral orientation
People judge life events and situations in terms of right and wrong.
Efficiency and
People emphasize the practical value of getting things done.
practicality
Progress
People hold the optimistic view that things will get better.
Material comfort
People emphasize the good life. Conspicuous consumption is sanctioned.
Freedom
People believe in freedom with an intensity others might reserve for religion.
Individual
People believe that every individual should be independent, responsible, andpersonality
self-respecting: the group should not take precedent over the individual.
Science andPeople have esteem for the sciences as a means of asserting mastery over the
Secular rationality environment.
NationalismPeople believe in a strong sense of loyalty to that which is deemed “American.”patriotism
People believe that every person should have a voice in the political destiny of
Democracy
their country.
People believe that racism represents a value conflict in the culture of the UnitedStates because it emphasizes differential evaluation of racial, religious, andRacism and related
ethnic groups. They argues for a color-blind ideology based on the assumption
group superioritythat social and economic advantage in contemporary life is the consequence of
merit and hard work.
Note: From Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009, p. 14-17 (converted from text).

Table 3. The IAMC Framework (Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009)
Teaching Practice of the first twoMotivational
How does this learning
Factorshour session on Introduction toGoalexperience:
Research course
contribute to developing as aRandomly assigns small groups in
Respect and community of learners who
Establishing
which learners exchange concerns,
Connectedne feel respected by andexperiences, and expectations they
Inclusion
ssconnected to one another andhave about research
to the teacher?
offer meaningful choices andDeveloping
Volition andAsks learners to choose something
promote personal relevance toPositive
Personal
they could immediately researchcontribute to a positive
Relevance
among themselves
Attitudes
attitude?
Assigns research partners who will
Challenge
Enhancingengage students in challenging develop a set of questions to ask
andlearning that has social merit?
volunteers that will make a
MeaningEngagement
prediction about themcreate students’ understanding After predictions have been verified,
Authenticity
Engenderingthat they are becoming moreasks learners to create they own
andeffective in authentic learningstatements about what they learned
Competence
Effectivenessthey value?
regarding research from this process
Note: Adapted from Resource D: motivational framework lesson plan, Ginsberg &Wlodkowski, 2009, p. 386, combined with the description on p. 37.

and (4) technological infrastructure and familiarity, which may become a barrier and an exclusion. The
barriers they found were: (1) Focus on content development, not on learning experience design, with onesize-fits-all method of delivery; (2) Lack of evaluation (both needs assessment and formative evaluation)
in real-world practice, due to the lack of budget and time; (3) Organizational structure and the role of
instructional designers, who may be designing materials without seeing a learner. They argue that wemust separate deeper ID principles from particular application in various settings; otherwise, we may
misinterpret the principles do not apply cross-culturally because ID was born and so grounded in Westernculture.
Barton, Novotny & Sargent (2011) points out the importance of “bicultural efficacy,” in their studyof multicultural staff and a cohort of predominantly international students in an Australian university.
Bicultural efficacy stands for a sociological concept of “an individual ability to develop and maintaininterpersonal relations within two groups without surrendering his or her cultural identity (p. 250).” They
pointed out that international students of Asian origin have been major drivers of demand for international
education globally, who were regarded, in the past, to “come with learning experiences that favor routelearning, teacher-centered and dependent approach, which are now considered inappropriate in westerneducation system and culture (p. 257, under cultural deficiency approach).” It has been argued that“learners from Confucian cultures are not simply passive or rote learners, but are active and strive toachieve a deep understanding of the course content (p. 257, under cultural proficiency approach).”Nonetheless, the learners who study under different cultural orientation need to become high in“bicultural efficacy,” in order to succeed without loosing their own heritages. This may be applicable inany combinations of cultures, not only Western-Asian differences, but also between two Asian cultures,or between generations within a culture (that of teacher and students, for example), or between face-toface classroom culture and that of distance education.
Yang (2011) proposed how to utilize technological solutions to foster culturally responsive teachingin online education. He pointed out four different elements of culture should be taken into consideration,
which were (1) ethnic culture, where Confucian teaching emphasizes learning, respect teachers, being
modest and critical, for example, (2) local culture, which requires examples and cases from the learners’
settings, (3) academic culture, as values, roles, attitudes, and behavioral patterns of teaching and learning,and (4) disciplinary culture, where mathematics and physics can be considered less culture oriented thanhistory and education, for example. With the goal of learner-centered knowledge sharing and building in
mind, he suggested five areas where technology can assist culturally responsive teaching: (1) Involving
all students in the construction of knowledge, by asynchronous communication tools, so that the students
can share resources, interaction and work collaboratively online, (2) building on students’ personal andcultural strengths, by Blogs and concept maps, to express understandings and to have self-reflection, (3)helping students examine the curriculum from multiple perspective, with role-play games, debates, andvirtual field trips, (4) using varied assessment practices that promote learning, with online quiz, survey, eportfolio, Wikispace, and (5) making the culture of the classroom inclusive of all students, with various
technologies for wide range of activities with opportunities and assistance from teacher.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Although the above summary of literature review represents only a very small portion of what havebeen available in the literature of instructional design and technology and distance education, some issues
can be identified. Which of the cultural dimensions are critical for consideration and adaption? How do
we adapt instruction to the cultural differences? What can be done to be more culturally sensitive when
we design instruction and when we select learning modes or methods? From these questions, it is ourhope to eventually derive a set of principles for designing instruction with cultural and social
considerations to deal with diversity of stake holders, especially among students and instructors. Towardthat goal, this paper has concentrated to locate some useful frameworks, which are described above.
While making reference to these frameworks, and tying to locate more, it is our intention to try to comeup with a set of design guideline that can be used when designing and delivering learning opportunities
for diverse learners.

The notion of learner-centered design is not new in the ID field. From the traditional viewpoint,social and cultural differences can be treated within the audience analysis and contextual analysis in thedesign process. It may have been just so many options became available that we, as designers, are now
better able to accommodate the diversity of learner culture. If we don’t have this wide varieties of options
for teaching, we may not need to know “small” differences among the learners, because they may only beconsidered to be environmental elements that are beyond our control. With so many powerful tools andoptions available, we are now capable of meeting the diverse needs of the learners. For this complex
working situation, there is a need of a set of guidelines for the designers of instruction, thus our work
continues toward the goal of providing such a set.
So many options for teaching and accommodating the needs of learners, at the same time, means thatthe learners must be trained to make the best use of what are available. In the past, one person may only
be needed to socialize in one small culture. With those options available, it is needed for wider percentageof people to be trained to be functional in multiple cultures, beyond one’s own, in order to secure more
opportunities for learning and the life in general. The notion of “bicultural efficacy (Barton, Novotny &Sargent, 2011)” may be a new goal of educating next generations so that they may be able to feel
comfortable in different and/or changing society and culture. Our goal would be, then, not only toaccommodate for cultural diversity to make the learning environment comfortable to the diverse students,
but also to provide opportunities for wider students so that they can nurture the understanding, tolerance,
and ability to cope with the diverse cultures that are foreign to them in the beginning. The guideline that
we will propose must take this “dual responsibility of educators (Parrish & Linder-VanBerschot, 2010)”
into consideration.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported by KAKENHI (22650206), Grant-in-Aid for Exploratory Research, 20102012, by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology (MEXT), JAPAN．

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