Pas grand chose à dire sur cette situation, si ce n'est qu'une majorité de Français et d'Américains s'en fichent totalement, et préferent ne pas s'en préocupper.

En revanche, pour ce qui est de la délation, il y a une majorité de réponses de ce type du coté américain. Ceci met encore une fois en évidence l'attachement assez fort des Américains à la notion d'"ordre", de "loi",...

Nous avons étudié le questionnaire sur la cigarette et comme le dit Eric, on retrouve beaucoup plus l'idée de la délation aux Etats-Unis alors qu'elle est très mal perçue en France. En effet, la plupart des français considèrent (pour les petits délits bien sûr) que cela ne les concerne pas et donc qu'ils n'ont aucune raison de prévenir l'autorité compétente. Le fait que vous dénonciez un étudiant qui triche rentre il nous semble dans votre logique de compétition, mais la délation semble acceptée dans d'autres domaines ou la concurrence n'existe pas. Nous voudrions donc connaitre votre opinion vis-à-vis de la délation : considérez-vous cela comme normal, juste ... ?

Vincent G & Yannick C

bonjour ami(e)s du MIT on peut remarquer qu'il y a 3 attitudes face à la triche dans les deux pays: -certains s'en foutent (comprendre s'en moquent)complétement -d'autres trouvent ca amoral mais s'en foutent quand même -d'autres trouvent ca amoral et dénoncent la personne mise en cause.En fait,ils se sentent laisés vis à vis de leur travail.

Dans les differentes réponses il n'y a pas tellement de differences entre les deux pays.

A ciao bonsoir Brice et Olivier

J'ai remarqué qu'à propos de cette situation les réponses françaises et américaines étaient assez semblables: soit la personne laisse faire soit elle dénonce celui qui a triché.

Si un étudiant triche c'est son problème et en tout cas c'est à lui d'assumer et en tout cas c'est pas à nous.

from both french and american responses, the general reaction (with a few exceptions of each side) are fairly similar. The majority of students would say the cheating is morally wrong but on the same note, would probably not take action against it. In general one student cheating does not affect another student personally; in the long run, it is the student who cheated who is affected.

i'm not sure i necesarily agree with Eric's assertion in this case that Americans are strongly attached tot he idea of "order" and "law" but perhaps in other cases where they are more directly affected.

i'm not sure i quite understand the term "delation". It means denouncement with conviction, with spirit of veangance or with personal interest? I don't think "veangance" is partiularly a reason americans react a certain way. rather, it is personal interest. as we have observed in the forum over the past two weeks, americans tend to have quite a stronghold on personal interest/needs/desires/disturbances. Thus, when their personal comfort level feels violated in some way, they feel compelled even righteous in correcting the problem. i think the biggest difference is the way in which american and french people choose to deal with problems. americans would rather indirectly solve the problem through a third party (as in telling a teacher) whereas french students cut to the point (talk to the student)

délation = denouncement

Je pense qu'à un certain niveau d'études le fait qu'un étudiant triche nous concerne car si après l'examen nous sommes classés il passera peut-être devant nous et nous ne serons peut-être pas sélectionnés, ce qui serait carrément injuste. Dans ce cas précis, je serais pour la délation car il n'a pas le droit de bousiller notre travail ainsi.

In reply to Vincent and Yannick:

I agree that the decision to turn someone in is easier when there is completion (for example, competition for places in a school, etc.) In this situation, it is much easier to make the decision to turn someone in.

But it's not just competition that makes people turn someone in. For example, if a family member is involved in some serious crime, you might decide to call the police (after talking to them) before it becomes more serious and possibly implicates yourself. In this case it's not competition, but wanting to help the person that you are turning in and protecting yourself.

A third case, which in my opinion is bad, is turning someone in for personal gain. i.e. the stuff that used to go in in East Germany and the USSR where you would be rewarded for turning in people who were organizing against the government.

And a question:

Some universities in the US have honor codes. Some schools don't even have supervisors for their exams because they are assumed to have enough honor not to cheat. Is this common at INT or are all exams supervised?

Hello to all! I think cheating is tolerated differently around the world. Having studied in three different countries, I have seen cheating as 1/the most natural thing for an unprepared/lazy student to do; 2/the most atrocious deed and 3/something that leads to big troubles. Ultimately, I have understood that beyond any competition cheating is an act of disrespect to the efforts of the honest. It is wrong and denounceable in principle. What would a student who thinks cheating is normal do later in life? I like the jokes of the French students, but I am generally unhappy with some answers like "let him be", "his problem" from both sides.

I know in the US, you often hear things like "don't be a tattle-tale", are there sayings like this in France?

The student who cheats "is only cheating himself", in the long run it will be him who'll be affected by it, so why bother with telling all in the first place?

I think that a big reason why a lot of Americans said that they wouldn't do anything if they saw someone cheating is because in America it has been engrained in our culture not to be a "snitch", or not to turn other people in. Since elementary school, it has never been acceptable to turn someone in, for any reason. Is this the same reason why so many French people said that they wouldn't turn in someone they saw cheating?

Personally, I would stick up for the right of a person to denounce anything that clearly violated the rules and or regulations of the institution they were a member of. This includes society at large, schools, places of businesse, restaurants, etc. However, I would normally not be the first person to denounce an act - I would rather expend energy removing myself from the situation or complaining about it later.

In the case of a student cheating - I would not denounce him/her. I would not denounce someone who was smoking, unless the rules of the place did not permit smoking and someone else decided to remind the smoker of this, and the smoker did not react.

I must disagree with the claims of many who state that the person cheating is ultimately the one to whom the most harm comes. In an ideal world, every act would have measured consequences that would manifest themselves sometime after the act was completed. We do not live in an ideal world though, and often the consequences of an act, like cheating, are not the ones we might wish for. The cheating student would not necessarily have to face up to his/her inadequacies later on in life, as employers and the world at large have become much more accepting of the fact that the workforce is undertrained and underskilled.

Thus, the only thing that might hold a cheating student accountable would be his or her own conscience, and given the values of society today, we cannot necessarily expect that a person's conscience would be developed to the point where it could dole out an appropriate punishment for an act like cheating.

I disagree with Ian's statement that cheating on tests will not bring about problems for the cheater later on. OK, cheating once on a quiz in fourth grade might not make a big difference, but chances are if someone cheats once, they'll do it again. At some point, they're going to either get caught or get themselves into a situation where they won't have the skills they need to succeed and they will fail. So in the end they are probably cheating themselves more than anyone else, in my opinion.

That said, I would never turn in someone who cheated on a test in school. Like Kapil said, nobody wants to be a snitch. I remember this kid who moved to my town in seventh grade, and on his first day in school, he announced to the class that the kid next to him was cheating. Let's just say that that didn't make for an easy transition to a new school.

Geoffrey, the stuff you say was used in East Germany and the USSR actually worked out pretty well. Have you thought about it? If something helps the system maintain its status as a whole, then it sometimes can be acceptable, even if it against the general notion of 'morals'. Of course, there were labor camps then, but still...

So, to go back to what we're discussing here. I personally believe that in the US a student would turn somebody who cheats because of several reasons. Firstly, there is this notion of keeping the system intact I mentioned above. I mean, if everyone cheats, the educational system would have to be changed, so it wouldn't the US anymore. Secondly, don't forget that here it's common practice to grade students not accordingly to how much they know, but in respect with the other students. That is, if you suck in math, but you're the best in your class, you still would get As, right? You know, the grade curve system. That's a definite reason why we'd get 4 answers of the type "I'll tell the teacher" on the American side. Also, don't forget that the answers belong to students from MIT, most of whom always strive for straight As.

One question I'd like to ask is, are grades weighed in this way in France? I mean, does the other students' performance affect your grade?

Kapil, I don't personally think that the only reason an American student wouldn't turn somebody in is because he's afraid of being called a snitch. I am not absoletely sure about this, but isn't it the case in the US that although students wouldn't turn a cheater in in class, they would sometimes send anonymous letters to the teacher which are then considered very seriously? I've never heard of something like that happening in my country, nor do I believe that it's even remotely possible in France. So that's another question to the French students - am I right about that?

I think that the French and American responses were pretty similar. Both found cheating to be morally wrong, but did not want to do anything about it. The stronger American response to smoking is a cultural thing with Americans taking a strong view against smoking. Sometimes it is too ridiculous like getting millions of dollars from cigarette companies for essentially making your own mistakes.

On the other hand, I found it interesting that a couple of French students said they would cheat too. Americans have a strong view aagainst cheating, perhaps because they believe in fair competition. Maybe the French do not value competition that highly. Is that true?

What I found interesting about both american and french students repsonse (not do anything) is that in general it goes against the pattern that we as a class have noticed about the two groups of students. Throughout the dicussions on the forum, Americans have appeared very competitive academically and in general more selfish than the French students. It seems odd that faced with a situation where academics are being compromised, the competitive tendencies which we have conveyed to the french student disapper and we suddenly turn the other cheek. From a completely different angle, thus far, the french students responses have been more idealistic than ours. In this situation, the morally upright response (busting cheaters) is outwieghed by the "le laisse faire" approach. I think that this situation let us respond more truthfully, than the other parts of the forum, and I'm happy to see that our answers are relatively similar.