ABSTRACT
The call for increasing use of active learning strategies in American education has broad-based support within the academy. In social studies and social sciences, proponents for active learning have been particularly vocal in the field of global education. This chapter explores the question of whether different teaching strategies can be usefully exported into different cultural settings. It argues that case teaching is one such active learning strategy, the valued outcomes of which are desired in individualistic cultures. In the United States, student and teacher interaction is informal, with students often injecting questions; the classroom, particularly at the lower grades, is an active environment where students are moving around with different tasks to perform, teachers working both individually and in small groups on tasks. In individualistic cultures, norms of equity are most often invoked, based on the notion that each individual deserves rewards based on one’s contribution to the task.
