Demographics in the United States are changing. One in four Americans is nonwhite. Unfortunately, much of adult education theory and practice are based on middle-class, white male culture. The challenge for the adult educator is to create an environment that facilitates the learning of diverse students. Two ways to meet this challenge are by taking gender and culture into consideration. Here are some questions, pertaining to the roles that gender and culture play:

What is gender?

• Involves socially defined roles attributed to certain sexes.
• Varies greatly by culture and class.
• Affects the division of labor, available resources, opportunities and benefits.
• Related to gender:
• Sexism refers to behavior, policy, language, or action that expresses the view that women are inferior.

What is culture?

• Shared values, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and language within a social group.
• Affects how we experience and interpret life; it is our “cultural lens” or how we see things.
• In addition:
• An individual has many intersecting cultures depending upon beliefs, upbringing, experiences, geographic location, and multiple external factors.
• Individuals within a culture are heterogeneous with many differences in values, beliefs and styles. This requires that educators not fall into applying stereotypes and generalizations of thinking that one size fits all.
• Ethnocentrism occurs when a person considers his/her own culture or nationality superior to others. A person who exhibits these beliefs and attitudes looks down on others, and this is reflected in how a person instructs and relates to learners.
• Racism is conscious or unconscious actions and attitudes that discriminate among people based on skin color.

Being aware of similarities, differences and tendencies will help you, as you assist in the development of courses, better relate to individual learners' needs. The University of Florida's Marta Hartmann, lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, discusses gender and cultural effects on learning styles. 

According to Hartmann:

• Misperceptions and misunderstandings - Instructors could be misunderstood by learners, but what happens more often is that learners are misperceived and misunderstood by instructors.  
• For example, an instructor might perceive a learner who prefers a more passive manner of learning, as compared to a more active type of learning, as someone who is maybe lazy or maybe as someone who is not as clever as an active learner.   
• Steps for successful teaching:
• The first step, of course, is to be aware of your own learning style because we know that our teaching styles reflect the way that we have learned or our preferred way of learning.  
• Second, to be aware of those cultural differences and learning styles defined by cultural differences. 
• Also, have a multiplicity of teaching approaches so we can be effective with the students who display different learning styles.  

Hartmann on cultural consideration and motivation (2:01) Click here for text-only version

Hartmann on successful teaching (1:01) Click here for text-only version

Now that you've seen the importance of gender and culture in adult learning, let's look at some differences and similarities of adult learners and youth learners.

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