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Abstract: Multicultural school settings have become a common part of the educational landscape in many countries world-wide. Confrontation with such cultural diversity represents a challenge for teachers and students alike which may lead to impaired communication and interaction problems in the school context. To provide an overview of cultural antecedents and consequences in the classroom, the current paper reviews research with regard to (inter-) cultural patterns in teaching, instruction, and class interaction. To disentangle the differential influence of cultural factors, the first section provides a definition for the terms "culture" and "intercultural competence". In the following, Hofstede's (1980, 1986, 2006) four-dimensional model of culture is introduced. Based on this model, the ways are investigated by which culture affects cognition, emotion and behaviour of teachers and students in different cultural environments. Subsequently, related problems in communication and interaction
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