Schools sometimes develop their own culture, referred to as "school culture." School culture refers to the interactions that occur behind the scenes of the school, such as friendships formed, conversations and informal roles that members of the school community take on. These behaviors arise from the values, norms and beliefs of the school. The school culture influences how members solve problems, work together and integrate new ideas into the classroom. Those within the school system often change their beliefs after being a part of the school for a while.
Some school cultures have a more bureaucratic nature, with the administrator controlling the students and faculty and standardization driving how people behave. More collegial styles of education place emphasis on experimentation and trust. The worst kind of culture, the toxic school culture, has hostility toward the students and views change with distrust or outright disapproval.
Certain cultures have behaviors carried into the classroom. For example, high-context cultures expect that people pay attention to the nonverbal cues of others for clues on how to act, while low-context cultures openly discuss rules and expectations. Students from a low-context culture might not pick up on subtle cues, possibly offending those in a high-context culture. In addition, those who have cultural attitudes and behaviors divergent from the dominant culture will struggle to assimilate into that culture. So, when a student doesn't follow cultural norms, that student's peers may exclude him.
Students from different cultures sometimes do not take part in class discussions because they believe their ideas will not be valued. These students will often smile and nod politely while not asking questions, even though they do not understand what they are hearing. Teachers need to reassure these students that their ideas have value.
Those from different cultures tend to struggle academically when in a new culture. According to the University of Washington, genetic deficit theorists once believed that some groups were intellectually inferior to other groups, and that the inferior groups should be moved to vocational classes. They believed that certain cultures had depraved cultural, social and economic environments, which caused children to lack preparedness for academic success. Later researchers pointed out that research results were influenced by bias and that the ways the students were tested favored students from the dominant culture. Research has also shown that teachers and students have cultural blindspots that influence student learning. This has led to teachers modifying teaching methods to accommodate students from other cultures.
Families from different cultures place varying degrees of emphasis on education. For example, Japanese-American parents usually view education as the most significant indicator of success and their children thus spend more time studying and on extracurricular academic activities than other students, while spending less time on sports.