Educators working with adults will have to come to terms with the culture and social mores of the individuals and groups of individuals with whom they work. In most cases, they will have to come to terms not only with the individuals but also with the society from which each person emerges and to which they return.
It might be true that education changes the relationship that people have with their society. As voter education moves into the realms of civic education and public advocacy, it may even be intended that people should act on and change that society. Such potency on the part of education increases the likelihood that educators will have to consider and manage the impact of culture and society in the planning and execution of their educational programme. Such considerations will include the determination of how the educator will deal with mores and meanings taken for granted in regard to certain groups of people and certain belief structures.
Examples
There may be particular taboos. Women may not speak in the presence of men. Some men may be leaders by birthright and, therefore, are assumed to have greater knowledge and wisdom and must speak first. Such conventions will impact the structuring of educational events, the choice of participants, and the sites at which these events take place.
There may even be gender or clan language differentiation, or particular views on modesty, or what can properly be discussed in public. And there may be views of educators and their role and expected behaviour. In some groups direct eye contact may be considered impolite or may be linked to status considerations. Educators may misinterpret this behaviour as lack of interest or deceit.
These are only a few examples of the variety of life choices made and being made by people as they attempt to come to terms with life as they experience and perceive it. Some of these choices may have become frozen so that they appear to outsiders to be inappropriate. But they may have larger significance to those who adopt them, and they cannot and should not be dismissed. These same outsiders may be responding to cues that are meaningful to them from their own background but that have no bearing on the social interactions that are taking place inside and outside the educational events.
So educators will be attempting to draw up their plans with people who understand the likely impact of the educational intervention. Such people may well choose to fly in the face of local custom, but they are likely to do so with full knowledge of the consequences and the extent to which they can do this without sacrificing the effectiveness of the programme. Educational programmes may challenge these mores or may make a compromise with them, but the balance will be a fine one. Inevitably, there will be those who benefit from existing power relations in the society and may be using cultural explanations to maintain that power.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the uneasy relationship that exists in many societies between traditional leadership and democratic institutions, and in the role of women and the upheaval that accompanies their enfranchisement and subsequent empowerment. Yet the voter educator will be aware of the need to ensure that democracy is integrated into the culture of the country that is establishing electoral democracy, while at the same time understanding that it may be causing a sea change in that same country or society.
