Teaching is touching lives: 10/25/19; Week 6: Response to “Personal Space Differences”

Today I am going to talk about personal space differences. We all have an invisible and protective bubble around us, as if it were an extension of our body. Each person has his own personal territory, which includes the area that exists around his/ her possession.

This personal space is partially culturally determined and can expand or contrast depending on the local circumstances. How far the space extends depends mainly how crowded the conditions were. That’s why some cultures, such as the Japanese, who are accustomed to crowding, have smaller personal spaces. Countries from Latin America or Southern Europe usually have smaller personal spaces as well. Other cultures prefer the ‘wide open spaces’ and like you to keep your distance. If you watch a Japanese and an American talking, the two will slowly begin to move around the room; the American moving backwards from the Japanese and the Japanese moving forward. Because of these cultural differences, they can look at each other with suspicion in a business meeting for example. We can see how personal space is important to Americans when we look for this issue on the internet. We will find lots of articles, children’s books, classroom activities, etc. If we look for it in Brazilian Portuguese, we will find little material since it is not a big question for us, Brazilians. In his class in BYU-Idaho, professor Ivers tells us that personal space is sacred for Germans. This can be clearly shown in the image below with Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany.

Source: https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/03/30/youre-in-my-space-how-preferred-interpersonal-distance-varies-across-the-world/

In a cross-cultural classroom, it is extremely important to be aware of these personal space differences. This lack of awareness between cultures can easily lead to misconceptions and inaccurate assumptions about one culture by another. We can be invited or rejected, depending on the respect that we have for others’ personal space. The more teachers and students are aware of these differences, the more they will be able to respect and be respected. The video below is a wonderful example for teaching about personal space in the American society. It is based on the children’s book Personal Space Camp by Julia Cook and I found it very useful if you want to teach your students about personal space in the U.S.