REPORTS ON PROXEMICS IN A MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM IN AUSTRALIA

Running head: PROXEMICS IN A MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM IN AUSTRALIA
PROXEMICS IN A MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM IN AUSTRALIA
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Abstract
Proxemics in a multicultural classroom is the various non-verbal communication methods
and technologies that are employed by students under the influence of the presence of other
people in the same environment. This research has taken a multicultural Australian classroom
into consideration in order to evaluate how the proxemics are displayed by the students in the
classroom, based on how closely in terms of physical space they interact with each other and
the extent to which they use various nonverbal communication strategies. The results display
that the majority of the participants maintain a personal and social level of interaction in the
class with very few instances of intimacy. Furthermore, they also displayed that during cross
cultural communication, the most frequently implemented practice is that of paralanguage
closely followed by kinesics and a few instances of haptics. Even though the sample size and
closed classroom space make it difficult to identify all the aspects of proxemics in display,
the research paves future paths for study in the same field and can be expanded to fit other
public spaces where diverse communities of people gather and interact.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Methods......................................................................................................................................3
Results and Discussion...............................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5

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The application of proxemics in multi-cultural classrooms of Australia for understanding
aspects of diverse population.
Introduction
Proxemics is identified as a predominantly socio-cultural interaction technique. In
linguistics, its inclusion is primarily because of the aspect of communication entailed with it.
Proxemics is defined as the study of the methods and techniques that are used by humans to
facilitate their use of space alongside the effect that the density of population has on personal
communication, behaviour and other related social skills and attributes. It is usually identified
as a subcategory of non - verbal communication and it includes aspects of touch (haptics),
body movement (Kinesics), paralanguage (vocalic modulations) and the structure and
understanding of time (Chronemics) (Hickson, Stacks & Moore, 2010). Proxemics is
significantly reliant on the aspect of personal space. As Tulitatham defines, “these kinds of
spatial relationships involve territory, proximity, and a range of personal space” (2011, p. 2).
According to Hall (1966. Cited in Chin et al., 2017), there are four types of personal space
according to the distance maintained by people during interactions. They are intimate (2 to
17-18 inches), personal (18 inches to 4-5 feet), social (5 to 12 feet) and public (12 to 20 +
feet). In this research, the aspect of proxemics is looked at within a multicultural classroom in
Australia. The research has attempted to develop a thorough understanding of the functioning
of proxemics in a multicultural classroom through unmoderated observation of the classroom,
noting the moments of interaction between the students and attempting to reach an
understanding of how non - verbal communication in a classroom is affected by the
classroom demographic factors.
The demographic factors of a classroom includes the class strength, male – female
ratio and age as the primary factors and the aspects of cultural and ethnic diversity as the

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secondary factors. As stated before, proxemics is the study of human behaviour affected by
population density, therefore the aspect of classroom strength find importance. Similarly the
sex plays a role in the classroom demographic because it is one of the key factors that
determines the facilitation of comfortable conversation between the individuals. Cultural and
ethnic diversity also plays an important role as entailed with cultural diversity is a cross
linguistic barrier that often prevents the individuals from engaging in a conversation. In this
research, these factors are given significant importance while attempting to understand the
functioning of proxemics in the classroom. The current limitations of the study include the
observation of smaller classroom space and a location where most people know each other
already
Methods
For this research, a multicultural classroom setting has been selected. To account for
greater diversity in the multicultural context, the classroom that has been selected is that of a
university graduate freshers’ classroom. The total classroom strength is 49 and the number of
students present on the day of observation was 45. Of the 45 students, 18 were boys and 27
were girls. The age group of the class ranged between 18 and 22 with a mean age of 19.2.
The observation and the collected data will strictly connect to the behavioural approach of the
students and the teachers in respecting the nuances of proxemics perception in the classroom
setting. The observation will also be strictly restricted to the aspects of non – judgemental
non – verbal communication strategies as followed in the classroom.
Design
The data will be primarily collected in the form of observation records. The four types
of personal spaces as mentioned above will be taken into consideration while observing the
classroom. That will be collaborated with the classroom demographic factors as mentioned

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before. The results will be presented based on the frequency of observation of the individuals
in the classroom. At last, the socio – cultural factor will be taken into consideration. The
types of nonverbal communication means as highlighted above will also be concentrated
upon in terms of how frequently and which ones are used in the classroom.
The type of data gathered will be mostly numerical in nature. The numbers will
indicate the frequency of the type of communication as observed in the classroom. The
observed and recorded data will then be discussed with respect to scholarly literature.
Results and Discussion
Among the 45 students observed, if we are to classify according to the types of
personal space, the most frequent type that originated was that of social with almost 29 cases
observed. It was followed by personal where the frequency was 12 and the rest 4 belonged to
the intimate category. No instance of public was observed within the classroom. It must be
remembered that the aspects of non-communication like casual passing by or standing in
different ends of the classroom are not considered in these cases.
When it comes to the aspects of non - verbal communication, the most frequently
observed was that of paralanguage indicating that in the particular classroom, the frequency
of cross linguistic speakers unaware of the native language of the person they are speaking to,
is quite high. In these cases, the primary speech feature that is noticeable is a moderately
louder volume and a more intricate tonal modulation, indicating an attempt at getting the
message across through the rhythms of speech (Lunenberg, 2010). Paralanguage was closely
followed by kinesics where the use of gesture was heavily observed in the classroom
primarily because of the cultural difference extant in the classroom (Mortimer, Perreira &
Moro, 2018). This indicated that people not aware of the cultural nuances, often then to resort
to gestures and body movements like shaking of head and using hands for indicating

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something. In the case of haptics, there were a few cases observed but those were limited to
handshakes or fist bumps, and in some more personalised cases, crossing one’s hands around
shoulders while talking was also observed.
In general, the results displayed a very typical picture of a multicultural classroom
where the students are more in tune with their peers because of which classroom proxemics
are hard to identify. This is where the first limitation of the study lies. Despite the research
being unknown to its participants, the classroom scenario presents a hindrance by limiting the
number of observable participants. Another significant drawback of the research is that it is
undertaken in a scenario where the participants are already aware of their peers are and are on
conversational terms with them (Rios-Martinez et al., 2015 ). Therefore a deeper and more
thorough understanding of the proxemics in the classroom is difficult to be found.
Conclusion
The study of proxemics in a classroom scenario has both benefits and disadvantages.
Firstly, the classroom scenario is a more inclusive one where multicultural demographic is
easily identifiable. Therefore the primary aspects of proxemics that is the elements of
nonverbal communication are easily identified. However, the size and the prior knowledge of
the participants make it difficult for the study to be a complete fruitful one because of
obvious underlying reasons that absolute nonverbal communication cannot be ensured.
Nonetheless, the study posts quite interesting findings and serves as a foundational ground for
future sociological research on proxemics.

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References
Chin, H. B., Mei, C. C. Y., & Taib, F. (2017). Instructional Proxemics and Its Impact on
Classroom Teaching and Learning. International Journal of Modern Languages and
Applied Linguistics, 1(1).
Hickson, M., Stacks, D. W., & Moore, N. J. (2010). Nonverbal communication: Studies and
applications. Roxbury Publications.
Lunenburg, F. C. (2010). Louder than words: The hidden power of nonverbal communication
in the workplace. International Journal of Scholarly Academic Intellectual
Diversity, 12(1), 1-5.
Mortimer, E. F., Pereira, R. R., & Moro, L. (2018). The use of recurrent gestures to give
cohesion to classroom discourse. Video-based Research in Education: Cross-
disciplinary Perspectives, 176.
Rios-Martinez, J., Spalanzani, A., & Laugier, C. (2015). From proxemics theory to socially-
aware navigation: A survey. International Journal of Social Robotics, 7(2), 137-153.
Tulitatham, P. (2011). Personal Space Perception of Employees of Various Nationalities in
International Organizations During Conversations at Work in Thailand. Language
Institute, Thammasat University.