High and Low Context Cultures

High and low context cultures are the names we give to the different way that people behave in different societies, the high context culture is one in which people are used to each other or have known each other for a long time, the most common type of high context culture is the family, in a family setting people have strong personal ties that have been developed throughout years of interaction, people know who does or does not belong to the family group, all the behaviors and knowledge that are present on a high context culture are subconscious as they are the result of long years of interaction and bonding. The communications that take place on a high context culture are on a very personal level, one on one type of communication.
On the other hand the low context culture is a less personal type of environment, people who have no close ties or relationships with the group can easily incorporate themselves to a low context culture, low context cultures also have defined rules, as a result low context cultures are more accessible than high context cultures, and the type of relationships that are formed are of short duration, one example of low context culture could be a parent meeting where not all the people know each other, but they have a more clear defined objective, to know about their kids progress.
Proxemics is the space that each person has for themselves and the distance they keep from each other, the proxemics of different peoples varies with their cultures, some are more comfortable with people keeping their distance, while other cultures may encourage being close to others, there are different reactions when our personal space or territories are being invaded by somebody else, many times the most common reaction will be that our bodies will take on a different posture or we may get offended if our territory is being violated.
The knowledge of the concepts of high and low context cultures and the concept of Proxemics it’s important for a teacher to know because on the field we are going to experience both, we are going to have students who come from a high context culture (their home) to a low context culture which is the classroom, and we would have to deal with the difficulties they may have to experience while adapting to a low context culture, the concept of Proxemics its extremely important for teachers to know, because we would never want to make sure that students learn to respect their classmates space, especially if they are from a different culture, teachers themselves should know to respect their students space and privacy and the way to achieve this is by having a great knowledge regarding other cultures.