From Global Classroom to Home: Confronting Cultural Differences

In a world divided by environmental and social conflict, the educational impact of cross-cultural training to navigate these issues is urgent. Now more than ever, planning education must rise to the challenge of training future practitioners to become frontline agents of integration.

In "Navigating Cultural Difference in Planning: How Cross-Border Adaptation Nurtured Cosmopolitan Competence Among U.S.-Taught Chinese Practitioners" (Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol 90., No. 4) Colleen Chiu-Shee and Linda Shi analyzed the experiences of mainland Chinese graduates, known as haigui in planning, who received education in the United States before returning home to work.

Challenging the Status Quo

Chiu-Shee and Shi conducted in-depth interviews with 34 haigui of various educational backgrounds, expertise, genders, ages, career paths, professional ranks, and job locations. They analyzed the interviewees' reflections on their U.S. planning education and post-return practices.

Compared with domestically trained practitioners, haigui were more inclined to challenge the status quo and leverage their overseas knowledge for change-making. They possessed a critical understanding of U.S.-China differences in planning education and values. This often led to frustration as they encountered disparities between their ideals and reality, including reverse culture shock and resistance to U.S. planning perspectives.

Grappling with these differences and developing a global perspective led some interviewees to groundbreaking career explorations. Some sought improvements within the state-led planning system, while others left planning to pursue creative careers in design and development or with corporations seeking innovative minds.

Figure 2: Transnational education and practice can offer a global perspective that breaks free of political and social bias, nurturing reformist, and entrepreneurial paths.

Despite challenges, some haigui have explored and advocated for value-aligned actions in China, including ecological design, climate adaptation, urban renewal, participatory governance, decarbonization, big data analytics, and smart cities. They translated social and environmental values across cultures, enhancing local politicians' and practitioners' exposure to innovative practices abroad.

Most haigui expressed patriotic sentiments while questioning national monoculture and traditional practices. They viewed different planning cultures as opportunities for learning and innovation rather than problems to eliminate. They nurtured pluralist worldviews and cosmopolitan orientations by tolerating intercultural discomfort and negotiating bicultural perspectives.

For some, this intercultural fluency enhanced their confidence, meaning, and sense of belonging. Haigui's intellectual growth demonstrated the potential for transnational learning to foster cultural responsiveness and inform conflict resolution.

Identifying the inputs to success stories, Chiu-Shee and Shi encourage planning educators and practitioners to embrace cosmopolitanism. They argue that relational comparisons in work and school reveal interconnected trajectories of how different cultures and places are implicated in each other's past, present, and future.

Future planning education and practice must forge an appreciation of differences and advocate for diversity, equity, and justice based on an in-depth understanding of local people, culture, language, and history.

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