ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses more on the learner. It explores something about the self managing learner. The chapter discusses issues of difference and diversity among people, specifically as they affect learning issues. Strategic approaches show the need to address issues of the contexts of a development programme. Self managing learners may go to lectures but they will do so with clear objectives or from a serendipitous perspective. Writers on cross-cultural issues base their work on the assumption of large, possibly unbridgeable, differences between national cultures. In SML we expect to be able to address factors of difference and diversity in a positive way. The design of programmes helps, but there is also a premium on learning assistants, such as set advisers, in recognizing and dealing with problems. The chapter focuses on at length, referring to different cultures and their response to strategic learning and SML, but that would be tedious.
