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Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement (2002)

Chapter: 5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research

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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Part II
Culture and Context

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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5
Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research

Janine Bempechat, Norma V. Jimenez, and Beth A. Boulay*

CULTURAL-COGNITIVE ISSUES IN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT: TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF CROSS-NATIONAL DIFFERENCES

The past quarter century has seen a burgeoning interest in cross-national comparisons of student achievement. The fascination with achievement in different nations has been fueled by rapid technological advances that have changed the face of the global economy. Increasingly, nation states are expressing concern with their ability to compete in a world that is becoming ever smaller. Major cross-national investigations of academic achievement have been undertaken systematically by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) of which the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and TIMSS-Repeat (TIMSS-R) are the most recent (Beaton et al., 1996; Husen, 1967; McKnight et al., 1987).

In addition to these IEA investigations, a large body of research has compared the achievement outcomes of American students with their peers in other nations. The research programs of Stevenson and Hess are particularly notable in this regard (Hess & Azuma, 1991; Hess, Chih-Miei, & McDevitt, 1987; Stevenson, Chen, & Lee, 1993; Stevenson & Stigler,

*  

The authors are from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They wish to acknowledge the generous feedback of Kurt Fischer, Susan Holloway, Julian (Joe) Elliott, and Neil Hufton on earlier drafts of this chapter.

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

1992). The interpretations brought to the results of this body of research have tended to conclude that American students perform poorly in all aspects of mathematics and science, relative to their peers in other industrialized nations. What can we do with this knowledge? And, having an established database of computational achievement across many nations, what are the next steps that researchers can take to expand our current understanding?

The purpose of this chapter is to take a constructively critical view of what we know about the achievement of children and youth across nations, and to suggest fruitful directions for the next steps in cross-national research. We have organized this chapter around two core themes—culture and methodology—through which we will examine two central domains of study:

  • Social cognitive factors in learning. In addition to observing and documenting the range of cognitive goals that cultures have for members of their group, it is critical to understand the social and cultural beliefs about learning that give rise to these values. Beliefs and attitudes about learning and achievement form the core of achievement motivation research today. There is a very important benefit to studying how students are motivated. Motivation research has established that achievement beliefs (e.g., implicit beliefs about effort and ability) are critical to school success (Nicholls, 1989). Indeed, in many cases, achievement beliefs appear to be better predictors of school performance than are IQ or achievement tests (see Dweck & Bempechat, 1983). By anchoring our review in achievement motivation theory, we will show the ways in which this body of knowledge can help fill gaps apparent in current cross-national research on achievement.

  • Cognitive psychology. The assessment focus in cross-national investigations has been on computational skills. However, cognitive psychologists and mathematics educators have been arguing that in order for students to become technologically competent, they need to engage in learning that fosters a deep conceptual understanding of mathematics and science. This argument raises important questions for cross-national investigations—questions that we will explore in this chapter. We will examine the extent to which the available cross-national data shed light on how students come to a deep conceptual understanding of mathematics and science. We will ask: Does this understanding mean the same thing in different countries? Indeed, there may be different pathways to deep conceptual understanding within and between countries. Having considered these issues, we will propose directions that cross-national studies can take to investigate these questions.

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×
Why Study Academic Achievement Across Cultures?

The accumulated work on cross-national achievement generally has been praised for bringing attention to the state of underachievement in the United States, especially as it relates to technical knowledge (Bempechat & Drago-Severson, 1999). The existing research has led educators to take a closer look at factors that may be contributing to the underachievement of American students, such as pedagogical practices (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999), students’ and parents’ beliefs about learning (Bempechat, 1998), and school structure (Beaton et al., 1996). This kind of comparative self-examination gives us a clearer picture of our own approaches to education. Indeed, examining how other cultures educate their children challenges us to look at our own system with a more critical eye. There is a way in which our own familiar pedagogical beliefs and practices become unfamiliar when set beside those of other nations (Spiro, 1993).

Cross-national research on mathematics and science also has the potential to reveal the rich and varied ways in which students, teachers, and parents conceptualize the meaning and value of learning. In this way, it can help us to understand the cognitive goals that each culture has for its students. Seen in this light, cross-national research on achievement can reveal much more than a simple rank ordering of nations according to technological competence. Comparative studies of achievement provide us with a window through which we can view culture in action. Inasmuch as culture serves as a guide for the socialization of children, cross-national research allows us to see how culture guides the socialization of achievement.

In addition, cross-national studies of achievement give us some insight into how the logic of individuals’ beliefs influences their behavior. For example, Stigler and Perry (1988) note that teachers in Asian cultures (Japan and Taiwan) routinely ask students to display their answers to mathematics problems with which they are experiencing difficulty. In contrast, mistakes and difficulty more often are experienced privately in American classrooms. Indeed, many American teachers and parents would view this Japanese practice as humiliating and cruel. Stigler and Perry (1988) attribute this differential view of a particular pedagogical practice to a cultural difference in beliefs about the nature of mathematics intelligence. On average, Japanese mothers and teachers are less likely than their American counterparts to believe that mathematics ability is innate. Therefore, with the appropriate amount of effort, all children can solve a problem. In this context, mistakes are not something to be ashamed of, but something to work through. The general European-American view of mathematics ability as innate contributes to the notion that mathemat-

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

ics errors are the consequence of low ability, over which students have no control. To send students to the board, then, is to ask them to admit publicly that they have low ability. In the U.S. context, this practice might foster concerns about the potential to erode students’ self-esteem.

Theoretical Tensions

One can readily see that each strategy for dealing with struggle may be appropriate, given the social and cultural context in which it has arisen. Herein lies the key to expanding our knowledge and understanding of cross-national differences in achievement—in realizing that we, as a research community, can move forward only if we situate culture and context at the center of our investigations. At the same time, however, we need to remain cautious about making assumptions about entire nations without considering the variation in beliefs and practices that exist in all cultures. For example, there may very well be a great many students in Japan who do experience the public display of their mistakes as humiliating. Similarly, there may be many U.S. students who would experience such a practice as educational and helpful. Yet many of us who study cultural influences in social cognition tend to rely on cultural models that speak of nations as if they were monolithic, when, in fact, there is a great deal of variation in a given society’s cultural models.

Shore (1996) has discussed the tension between cultural anthropology and cultural psychology, noting that both disciplines view the construction of meaning as an ongoing, active process that is influenced by culture. He has encouraged scholars to view culture not as one “cultural narrative,” but rather as a collection of cultural models which present competing views and interpretations about a society. Shore has argued for the integration of cultural psychology and cognition through his notion of an “ethnographic conception of mind,” in which cultural knowledge would be viewed as rich and diverse and shared through various cultural models.

While cultural psychologists do indeed endorse this view, much of the work we discuss in this chapter tends to characterize nations as being at one or the other end of a dichotomy. In this regard, Japan and the United States have come to epitomize the comparisons that are made between “Eastern” and “Western” societies. Japan has been characterized as a culture that fosters interdependence, while U.S. culture fosters independence (White, 1987). Japanese people are said to be oriented around collectivist concerns, in which group loyalty and harmony lead individuals to subjugate their individual needs to those of the group, for the sake of the group’s well-being (Mouer & Sugimoto, 1990). In contrast, Ameri-

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

cans are characterized as individualistic and concerned with fostering personal goals (Greenfield, 1994).

We view this tension between the disciplines as representing different layers of inquiry. A line of research may reasonably begin with a large-scale survey, through which one might uncover interesting, general differences between groups of individuals. These differences might then be examined in increasingly detailed fashion, through multiple methods, including experiments, targeted questionnaires, indepth interviews, and ethnography. It is thus that research becomes more nuanced and reveals the varied and complex ways in which cultural beliefs are contested in a society.

Social-Cognitive Factors in Learning

As Bruner (1990) argues in Acts of Meaning, it is no longer sufficient to explain what children do. It has become imperative to study what children “think they are doing and what their reasons are for doing it” (p. 49). Studying children’s achievement beliefs has opened a window into why students engage in behaviors that either promote or inhibit their academic achievement. Any study that measures achievement without concurrently examining the context in which this achievement occurs will yield results that may be limited in their use. The integration of achievement motivation theory with social cognition has resulted in a much deeper understanding of the motivational factors that underlie academic achievement. We have gone from viewing academic achievement as originating from an innate need or drive to the realization that achievement cognitions, such as attitudes, expectancies, and beliefs about ability, mediate the relationship between achievement behavior and achievement outcomes (Bempechat, 1998; Dweck, 1999; Eccles, 1993; Nicholls, Cobb, Wood, Yackel, & Patachnick, 1990; Weiner, Russell, & Lerman, 1979). For example, research has established that students who believe their intelligence is relatively stable (entity theorists) tend to avoid challenging tasks, and have been shown to sacrifice opportunities to learn new material in order to show that they are “smart” (Dweck & Bempechat, 1983). These students tend to succumb to learned helplessness when faced with a difficult task. In contrast, students who believe that intelligence is a malleable quality (incremental theorists) prefer challenging over nonchallenging tasks and tend to display mastery-oriented behavior in the face of difficulty or challenge.

Achievement beliefs include students’ attributions for success and failure, their beliefs about the malleability of intelligence, their confidence, expectations and standards for performance, and affect in the face of

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

difficulty or challenge (Ames & Archer, 1987; Bempechat, Graham, & Jimenez, 1999; Eccles, 1993; Marsh & Shavelson, 1985; Nicholls, Cheung, Lauer, & Patachnick, 1989). These motivational factors have been shown to be critical elements in students’ achievement-related behavior. For example, Weiner and his colleagues have carefully documented that children and young adults tend to attribute success and failure to three basic categories of attribution—effort, ability, and external factors, such as luck or task ease/difficulty. Individuals interpret these attributions along three primary causal dimensions—locus (internal/external), stability, and controllability. Weiner has painstakingly shown that each attribution is linked to an emotion (e.g., lack of effort is linked to feelings of embarrassment), and it is the emotion that predicts future achievement behavior (Weiner et al., 1979). In other words, through a process of implicit self-evaluation, a student may decide that he failed a mathematics test because he is not smart (lack of ability). According to Weiner’s theory, ability is perceived by the vast majority of students as internal, stable, and uncontrollable. Given that there is little remedy for lack of ability, the student would probably feel ashamed, and this feeling would likely predict maladaptive achievement behavior, such as little or no preparation for the next test.

Weiner’s theory views ability as a stable entity that does not change. However, Nicholls (1978, 1989) and Dweck (Bempechat, London, & Dweck, 1991) have demonstrated that under certain circumstances, children can be influenced to perceive intelligence as a malleable quality that changes as a result of disciplined effort. For example, classrooms that are oriented around cooperative learning rather than competition tend to minimize students’ concerns about their abilities and foster a greater tendency to take academic risks (Nicholls, 1989). This view of ability as mastery through effort focuses children’s attentions on the process of learning. However, as Covington has shown, the view of ability as capacity fosters the conundrum of effort as the “double-edged sword” (Covington & Omelich, 1979). Many students come to believe that if they have to try hard, they must be “dumb.” In short, effort becomes an implicit condemnation of ability (Nicholls, 1978).

The Origins of Achievement Beliefs

Students’ beliefs about learning do not develop in a vacuum. They are very much influenced by the achievement beliefs of their parents, peers, and teachers, as well as the social and cultural environment in which they are growing (Ames & Archer, 1987; Ogbu, 1986; Peak, 1991). In the context of cross-national comparisons of academic achievement, the issue becomes one of integrating the sociocultural contexts of education with social-cognitive aspects of learning. Although the majority of the research

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

on beliefs about learning has been done at the individual level, these beliefs are indeed culturally and socially constructed, and therefore contribute to a nation’s mindset about education (Bruner, 1990; Schurmans & Dasen, 1992). How, then, can we compare the academic achievement of students from different cultures when those cultures differ in their pedagogical goals? The fact that culture guides socialization implies that important influences in academic achievement, such as parent attitudes about learning, teacher expectations, and cultural construals of schooling, will differentially dictate how students understand their educational experiences.

Cross-National Studies of Achievement

Indeed, international studies of achievement are measuring much more than what students have learned (Holloway & Minami, 1996; LeVine, 1977; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Munroe & Munroe, 1997). In a sense, they are measuring a nation’s pedagogical goals. The early IEA cross-national investigations (Husen, 1967; McKnight et al., 1987) were focused primarily on performance and provided us with rank orderings of achievement outcomes in the various domains of mathematics and science. Explanations for these differential outcomes tended to focus on aspects of curriculum, teacher preparation, and system structure, such as the number of days in each nation’s school year. Although these factors clearly play a role in student outcomes, these studies left the research community with a gap in our understanding of the extent to which social-cognitive factors may have influenced the academic outcomes that were documented.

The latest investigation, TIMSS (Beaton et al., 1996), represents a major advance in how we study and interpret academic achievement across nations. Through case studies and classroom observations, rich portraits were painted of school systems within countries (Germany, Japan, and the United States). For example, students were asked in individual interviews to speak about the relationship between effort and ability in academic achievement, giving us deeper insights into how they conceptualize achievement within the context of their own cultures. However, less attention was paid to variation within culture. The result is that we know little about how these students’ beliefs may differentially influence their achievement.

Achievement Beliefs and Culture

To consider culture in education means that we have to study education in the cultural context in which it takes place (Bruner, 1996). As

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

Bruner and others have argued, all of us, including teachers, have implicit theories, or “folk theories,” of how children’s minds work. These folk theories are embedded in cultural construals of what it means to be an educated person; how one understands the role of innate ability, effort, or luck in learning; and the like. Therefore, we need to have a very strong understanding of what these folk theories are as we continue to conduct large-scale cross-cultural comparisons of academic achievement.

Following Bruner, we believe we need to examine what nations think they are doing and what their reasons are for doing it. In other words, folk pedagogies drive educational policy and practice, and we need to understand these if we are to be able to draw reasonable and pragmatic conclusions from cross-national comparisons of academic achievement. Indeed, a culture’s socialization goals shape its pedagogy. What a culture defines and requires of its citizens shapes what they are taught and the ways in which they are taught (Cole & Scribner, 1973; Spiro, 1993).

Indeed, Bruner (1990) has eloquently argued that we must place culture in a central role in the study of human development. Because each of us develops in a culture, we cannot hope to understand the human psychology at the individual level. Each of us is an active participant in our culture, through which our understandings evolve. In addition, meaning making is negotiated in culture—“By virtue of participation in culture, meaning is rendered public and shared” (p. 12). Finally, a folk theory of mind is a very powerful influence on individual and collective meaning making.

In Japan, for example, some parents identify the ability to endure hardship as a quality they wish to foster in their children as they grow (Lee, 1987). The ability to endure hardship is discussed in the national school policy in the following way: “[I]t is desirable that, in the lower grades, one should learn to bear hardship, and in the middle grades, to persist to the end with patience, and in the upper grades, to be steadfast and accomplish goals undaunted by obstacles or failures” (White, 1987, p. 17). This concern with the development of resiliency is ongoing. For example, college entrance requirements in Japan are grueling and arduous. Yet those who succeed are not said to be the “smartest”; they are believed to have the strongest will and character.

According to White and LeVine (1987), a major goal of child rearing in Japan is to encourage children to be “committed to and positively engaged in disciplined effort” (p. 59). The child-rearing beliefs of many Japanese parents illustrate a commitment to fostering strengths of character that are essential for school success. For example, Japanese parents believe that character is molded by ki—the will to live; tamashi—the determination to overcome obstacles; and seishin—the mental attitude that helps a person to embark on a task. Parents also believe that character is

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

shaped by experiences of hardship, endurance, effort, and sustained struggle.

In contrast, the United States is a nation committed to the individual’s right to pursue happiness, as stated in the Constitution. Many parents and educators have become concerned with ensuring that children have high self-esteem (Elkind, 1988). Generally speaking, our “ego-ideal” is of a child who is intelligent, athletic, social, musical, and creative—in short, we value the child who is “well-rounded” (Elkind, 1994; Kagan, 1989). The response of many educators and psychologists to the societal and economic upheavals that marked the past three decades has been to place children’s salvation in high self-esteem. Rich or poor, the new thinking is that if we can get youngsters to feel better about themselves, we can chip away at the problems that threaten their development into healthy and productive citizens. Many parents want their children to develop their skills in many domains, including those outside of school (Bempechat, 2000).

These are but two examples of contrasting cultural models that are by no means characteristic of all parents in Japan and the United States. Indeed, these notions of enduring hardship and fostering self-esteem are contested within each society. Further, we cannot know the extent to which these models play any role in the achievement differences observed between Japanese and American students. At the same time, however, these different models illustrate how culture can guide pedagogical beliefs and goals.

The Differential Meanings of Achievement Beliefs

As mentioned earlier, cultural psychologists and psychological anthropologists agree that culture guides socialization practices, including those related to education (Roopnarine & Carter, 1992; Serpell & Hatano, 1997). An enduring concern for cross-cultural researchers is the differential meaning that students, parents, and teachers bring to the same or similar educational concepts. For example, much has been made of Japanese students’ adherence to effort as a means to ensure school success, and American students’ beliefs in innate ability as the driving force behind achievement (Stevenson et al., 1993). We do not know, however, what these concepts mean to the Japanese and U.S. students who have been studied. Nor do we know how these students, within their own cultural group, may vary in the meanings they bring to achievement cognitions such as effort and ability. We have argued elsewhere that this lack of attention to meaning making between and within cultures has led some researchers to draw generalizations about nations’ performances in cross-national assessments (Bempechat & Drago-Severson, 1999).

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

Therefore, the cross-cultural study of academic achievement must begin to integrate both individual meaning making and the social and cultural contexts in which this meaning making takes place. As Sternberg (1990, p. 144) has stated, “To understand perceptions of competence, then, we need to understand the implicit theories that underlie them, where these theories come from, and how they interface with explicit theories of intelligence, intellectual style, and motivation.” The implication for cross-national comparisons of achievement is that we need to expand the parameters of the understandings that we bring to the interpretation of cross-national achievement data. In the following section, we discuss models of development in social and cultural contexts.

Sociocultural Models of Development

Kitayama (Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, & Noraskkunkit, 1997) has argued that the development of cultural beliefs and practices that are commonly shared and understood takes place at two levels. The first is historical, in the sense that some situations develop over time and are sustained through general consensus. These become retained as part of cultural consciousness. The second level is immediate, in the sense that individuals react on a spontaneous basis to these cultural conventions.

For example, in studying how the behavior of parents is shaped by the culture in which they live, Harkness and Super (1992) have proposed the notion of the “developmental niche, a theoretical framework for understanding the cultural regulation of the child’s micro-environment,” which they define as the child’s physical and social settings, customs of child rearing and child care that are governed by culture, and the psychology of children’s caregivers. According to Harkness and Super, these three components operate or function together as a system to mediate children’s individual experiences in the larger culture. They believe that developmental trends in day-to-day sociocultural activities are reflective of parents’ developmental goals, and that child-care customs are representative of parental ethnotheories (Harkness & Super, 1992). Harkness and Super stress the importance of minimizing the tendency to generalize. They caution that findings should not be assumed to apply to children (or communities) other than those who were the subject of investigation.

The Construction of the Self

More recently, Markus, Kitayama, and their colleagues have attempted to situate the differential psychosocial tendencies of Japanese and American students in cultural context (Kitayama, 2000; Kitayama et

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

al., 1997; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Markus, Mullally, & Kitayama, 1997). They have proposed a collective constructionist theory of the self, in which psychological tendencies that have to do with the self are constructed collectively in society. For example, these researchers suggest that the tendency towards self-enhancement is common to the United States, while the tendency towards self-criticism is common in Japan. They then argue that these different tendencies enable individuals to function in and adapt to their cultural contexts.

This line of inquiry research has examined the tendency toward self-enhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan. In placing the origins of these tendencies in independence and collectivism, respectively, these researchers have proposed that self-enhancement is adaptive in a culture that socializes its members to focus on individual development. In contrast, self-criticism is adaptive in a culture that emphasizes the importance of belonging to a social group and maintaining positive relationships. In other words, self-criticism would not be seen as potentially harmful to self-esteem. In the Japanese cultural context, it would serve to provide feedback for self-improvement, which ultimately reinforces the sense of belonging to the group.

To test this notion, the authors designed experimental situations relevant to self-evaluation. They asked Japanese and American college students to generate situations that they believed would both enhance and decrease their self-esteem (jison-shin, or self-respect, in Japanese). A total of 400 scenarios were generated, and the students were asked to indicate whether each one could affect their self-esteem, negatively or positively, and to what extent, on a four-point scale. Results supported the collective constructivist theory of self, in that strong evidence was found for self-enhancement tendencies in the United States and self-critical tendencies in Japan. Specifically, American students reported that their self-esteem would increase more in success situations than it would decrease in failure situations, suggesting that social situations are interpreted in favor of self-enhancement. In contrast, the Japanese students identified more failure than success situations as being important to their self-esteem, and as having an influence on their self-esteem, indicating a bias toward self-criticism.

The researchers argue that, for Japanese students, self-criticism is part and parcel of a cultural context in which interdependence fosters the importance of self-improvement as a way to fit into one’s important social units (i.e., family, classroom, workplace). This is captured in the word hansei, which means reflection. In Japanese culture, it is considered very important to reflect on one’s behavior in order to improve it. Seen in this light, positive self-esteem may not be as important to Japanese individuals, whose engagement in self-criticism is an adaptive means to maintain-

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

ing self-regard (jison-shin). In other words, self-esteem may be more important to sustaining the self in some cultures than others.

Taking this theory further, Markus, Mullally, and Kitayama have proposed that selfways, which are typical ways of being and behaving in one’s cultural context, are “culturally constructed patterns” (Markus et al., 1997, p. 16). Selfways include critical cultural notions and beliefs, including a shared understanding of what it means to be a good or moral person in the culture in question. The process of selving is qualitatively different in different cultures. Selfways are similar to what Kagan (1989) has called the “ego-ideal” of a culture, and socialization operates in every culture to foster beliefs and attitudes that are conducive to adaptation in that culture—adaptation to events and situations that are common and occur on a regular basis (Kitayama, 2000; Kitayama et al., 1997). In the European-American context, such a person is an independent individual who can see herself in a positive way as having unique qualities or attributes, separate from others. As we have noted, this tendency toward self-enhancement can be seen as adaptive in a culture that socializes its members to focus on individual development (Kitayama, 2000; Kitayama et al., 1997).

In Japan, in contrast, a good person is one who establishes, maintains, and repairs interdependent relationships with others. In this cultural context, socialization operates to foster mutual relations with others and a sense of belonging. To grow and evolve in this society means that individuals will “develop a characteristic set of psychological tendencies—a sense of their connectedness, need to fit in, and tendency to harmonize with others” (Markus et al., 1997, p. 21). Markus and her colleagues argue that the shared nature of understanding characterized by selfways leads to certain cultural universals in members of the same society (Markus et al., 1997).

In its entirety, this work underscores the centrality of culture in self-concept. This, of course, has implications for methods of inquiry. Markus et al. (1997) note that, in cross-cultural research, it has been very common to administer the Twenty Statements Test (TST), in which one is asked to describe oneself by answering the question “Who am I?” This method, designed from a Western perspective where the notion of the self as stable is paramount, is uniquely suited to study the self-conceptions of individuals from Western cultures. In a different cultural context, where self-concepts are perceived as malleable, a method such as the TST is inappropriate because participation in a different culture requires qualitatively different ways of being.

Furthermore, the individualist/collectivist dichotomy does not represent the range of cultural selfways. For example, selfways in the African context can be characterized as neither one or the other. Rather, they are

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
×

culturally defined in terms of the relationship of the self to others, both living and dead—there is no self without others (Markus et al., 1997). A “good” person must fulfill social obligations not only to those in their group, but especially to elders and ancestors. This is believed to keep one connected to the past. Indeed, an adult is not a “person” without having become a parent. The arrival of children bestows personhood on adults because children represent an important way of becoming connected to the future. In addition, African selfways are distinguished by a belief in the permeability of mind and body. Individuals will not have their pictures taken, or step on another’s shadow, because these actions are perceived to threaten or diminish the life of another (Markus et al., 1997).

Again, we recognize that these cultural models are very general, and do not address the ways in which they may vary or be differentially interpreted by members of a society. Fruitful avenues for future research should include the study of how these “selfways” differ as a function of ethnicity or social class. Tudge’s recent work addresses the need for cross-cultural studies to consider the heterogeneity that exists within a culture (Tudge, Hogan, Snezhkova, Kulakova, & Etz, 2000). He and his colleagues surveyed the parenting beliefs of middle and working class mothers and fathers in Russia and the United States. Mirroring previous research in this area, they found that middle class parents in both cultures shared the view that parents should foster self-direction and that children should experience a relative amount of freedom at home. In contrast, working class parents in both societies were more focused on ensuring that their children adhered to rules.

Tudge’s work dovetails nicely with Markus and Kitayama’s, in that it highlights the extent to which pathways of development differ, not only between, but within cultures. The overarching message is that, regardless of one’s theoretical approach, researchers should not assume universality in beliefs or behaviors. Such an assumption has proved somewhat problematic for a series of cross-national studies on achievement and motivation, which we discuss below.

Applying European-American Concepts to Other Cultures: An Illustration

Much of the literature on student achievement across nations has been devoid of the cultural contexts in which learning takes place. Many researchers have employed methods and constructs drawn from the American research context in order to understand why American students underachieve relative to their peers in other nations. Three problems attach to this approach. The first relates to the assumption of universality, which we have raised. Words, concepts, and phrases commonly

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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used in European-American context have been “exported to study students’ conceptions of learning in other cultures.” These include concepts such as intelligence, and words such as effort, ability, and luck. We cannot assume that European-American conceptions of learning will be understood in the same or similar ways by students educated in other cultures. The second problem is that, in most studies of achievement motivation, these words and phrases have not been articulated by students themselves, but rather have been imposed from the outside by educational researchers. This approach, which is etic in nature, has failed to consider the ways in which students might speak differentially about and understand the meanings of learning, achievement, and motivation in the context of their own educational experiences, an issue we will raise.

Third, this approach assumes that the constructs that American researchers have focused on are the only constructs that are relevant, and fails to leave room for others that are common and important in different cultures. These would be constructs that American researchers would not think to measure, because they have no meaning in European-American culture. For example, Li (in press) has noted that the expression “achievement motivation” has no parallel translation in the Chinese language. Instead, Chinese college students speak about the importance of having “the heart and mind for wanting to learn,” and the reality that learning is a lifelong process, regardless of whether one is engaged in formal learning. This research highlights the degree to which any interpretations brought to findings are bound to be inherently flawed, and lead educators to conclusions that may not be well founded.

An example of this problem is found in the cross-national investigations undertaken by Stevenson and his colleagues, the results of which emerged in the early 1980s (Stevenson et al., 1993; Stevenson & Lee, 1990; Stevenson, Lee, & Stigler, 1986; Stevenson & Stigler, 1992; Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). In collaboration with Japanese and Taiwanese colleagues, Stevenson found compelling evidence that by the fifth grade, American children lagged well behind their Asian peers (Stevenson et al., 1986). For example, he showed that American, Japanese, and Taiwanese first graders did not differ in their mathematics proficiency. At the fifth-grade level, however, Stevenson found that the achievement gap had grown, to where there was virtually no overlap between the mathematics achievement of American children and their Asian peers. Foreshadowing findings of two decades of research yet to come, Stevenson documented that the Japanese first graders showed greater mathematics proficiency than the American fifth graders. In later work, the Stevenson team showed that these achievement differences were persistent ten years following the publication of their first investigation (Stevenson et al., 1993; Stevenson & Stigler, 1992).

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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The Stevenson team drew on attribution theory (Weiner, 1984, 1985) in their attempts to understand the reasons underlying the striking achievement differences they were documenting. As we discussed earlier in this chapter, Weiner (1972) has argued that the “spring of action” that motivates students’ achievement behavior is the need to understand the reasons that underlie success and failure.

One can readily see the problems inherent in applying a U.S.-based theory to study motivation in Asian students. In a seminal paper, Holloway (1988) showed that effort is a construct that is socially constructed around the notion of obligation to oneself, one’s family, and one’s community. This is consistent with the notion of selfway raised by Markus, Mullally, and Kitayama, who showed that the process of selving in the Japanese context is closely tied to one’s social relationships (Markus et al., 1997). Holloway has demonstrated that effort does not mean simply “trying hard,” as it does in the American context. Effort is a multilayered construct in which the performance of students is said to reflect on themselves, their parents, their families, and the communities in which they are being raised. In short, effort is socially oriented, whereas in the United States it is perceived as individually driven.

Ability is a construct that is similarly multifaceted. In adhering strictly to Weiner’s theory, Stevenson’s work has adhered to its one definition of ability as an internal, stable, and uncontrollable trait. As we discussed earlier, much evidence has accumulated to show that, even in the U.S. context, many students perceive ability as a malleable quality that can grow as a function of effort (Bempechat et al., 1991; Nicholls et al., 1989). We do not know how Japanese and Chinese students vary in their beliefs about the nature of ability. The literature has largely portrayed their views of ability as malleable and unlimited (Stevenson & Stigler, 1992; White, 1987).

Despite the considerable importance of cultural variation in the meanings of words, the Stevenson team presented a compelling, yet incomplete explanation for the high achievement of Asian as compared to American students (Bempechat & Drago-Severson, 1999). Using rank orderings of attributions and Likert-style rankings, Stevenson found that in some, but not all cases, Japanese and Chinese students demonstrate stronger beliefs in the value of effort over innate ability in school performance (Stevenson et al., 1986). He concluded that Asian students outperform American students because they believe more in the value of effort than do their U.S. counterparts.

This conclusion is problematic for researchers because correlational data have not been offered for scrutiny. Even with such data in hand, it is well understood that correlation does not imply causality. Furthermore,

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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the apparent link between beliefs and academic outcomes arises from surveys and questionnaires. Student interviews were not quoted in Stevenson’s major reports of his cross-cultural investigations. We know nothing, therefore, about the differential meanings that students in these different cultures bring to these achievement-related constructs. The latter have been externally imposed by researchers, with little attention paid to culture and individual meaning making within culture. It behooves us, therefore, to make a concerted effort to understand the meanings that students, parents, and teachers bring to their educational experiences. In other words, we need to develop a deeper understanding of what it means in different nations to be an educated person. A more complete theory of cognitive development should include the broad range of cognitive goals valued across cultures.

Meaning Making in Culture and Context: The Importance of Emic Research

In our more recent work, we have argued that research practices in the field of achievement motivation need to become more integrated with those in psychological anthropology (Bempechat & Drago-Severson, 1999; Quihuis, Bempechat, Jimenez, & Boulay, in press). It is striking that so much research on the motivational underpinnings of academic achievement has taken place without being fully informed by how major players in education think about the enterprise and their experiences within schools. In other words, surveys and experimental procedures abound, but few researchers have taken the time to actually speak to students, parents, or teachers. What would we learn if we began to spend more time seeking the views of those who learn and those who educate? In other words, how can qualitative research advance our understanding of academic achievement across cultures?

To begin, qualitative methods that seek emic perspectives—idiosyncratic and contextualized beliefs—are bound to reveal conceptions of learning, achievement, and motivation that are authentic. Instead of identifying categories that we, as researchers, may believe are important in individuals’ academic experiences, we allow individuals themselves to set the parameters about which they choose to speak (see Schurmans & Dasen, 1992).

Where cross-national research is concerned, the search for emic perspectives maximizes our chances of uncovering sociocultural beliefs that are unique to a particular culture’s common views of being (Markus et al., 1997)—beliefs that we would not have been able to anticipate, because they would hold no meaning for us. In addition, an emic focus allows the variation in beliefs to emerge, thus revealing multiple cultural models of

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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learning and achievement (Shore, 1996). It also minimizes the possibility that we would inappropriately misinterpret educational mores and practices or confer particular cultural beliefs where none exist. Furthermore, the rich and varied understandings that comprise emic beliefs provide us with a context within which we can better understand survey and questionnaire findings. Importantly, insights gleaned from qualitative research have the potential to inform the design of future surveys (see Miller, 1996).

Nicholls et al. (1990) argue that our understanding of children’s motivation for learning would be better served if we examined the meanings that students see in their work. For example, he stated that the common research tendency to ask children to rate their ability obscured more telling information that could be gleaned from asking them what is ability (Nicholls & Hazzard, 1993).

This example resonates with Shweder’s (1990) assertion that:

[T]he mind . . . is content-driven, domain-specific, and constructively stimulus-bound; and it cannot be extracted from the historically variable and cross-culturally diverse intentional worlds in which it plays a co-constituting part.... It is the aim of cultural psychology to understand the organization and evocative power of all that stuff, to study the major varieties of it, and to seek mind where it is mindful [italics added], indissociably embedded in the meaning and resources that are its product, yet also make it up. (p. 13)

We do not advocate that quantitative methods of inquiry should be abandoned altogether. On the contrary, the judicious integration of both methodologies is essential to our continuing efforts to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the social, psychological, and cultural factors that influence approaches to teaching and learning. In this regard, indepth qualitative studies and ethnographies can provide the rich and contextualized information that we need in order to understand the meanings of particular educational beliefs and attitudes in cultural context, defined by criteria from within the culture in question (Schurmans & Dasen, 1992).

To advance our knowledge, qualitative studies need to be (1) derived from existing theory and research, and (2) designed to build grounded theory. As to the first, interview protocols can be developed around those motivational and cultural constructs that make sense in each nation. For example, in the U.S. context, previous research has demonstrated that classroom structure has a profound influence on the extent to which students become focused on the process as opposed to the products of learning (Nicholls, 1989). When compared to students in cooperative classrooms, those in competitively oriented classrooms tend to be far more preoccu-

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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pied about their intellectual ability, worried about making mistakes, and concerned about their performance relative to their peers (Ames, Ames, & Felker, 1977). It makes sense, then, to design an in-depth interview that would probe students’ beliefs about ability as being stable, malleable, or some combination of those beliefs. Such an interview would reveal variations in students’ understanding of what it takes to do well in their classroom.

In comparison, theory and research on Japanese schooling has highlighted the central role that mutual interdependence plays in the socialization of academic achievement (White & LeVine, 1987). Doing well in school is but one way that children can uphold their family’s honor (White, 1987). In this context, we would want to know how students perceive the role that obligation to parents plays in their achievement behavior. Again, in-depth interviews would put us in a position to glean variations in children’s understanding of what obligation means to them.

Elliott, Hufton, and their colleagues found a number of paradoxes emerging from their use of quantitative methods in cross-national studies of achievement motivation in England, Russia, and the United States (Elliott, Hufton, Illushin, & Willis, 2001; Elliott, Hufton, Hildreth, & Illushin, 1999) . For example, although U.S. students appeared to emphasize effort over ability in explaining achievement, their actual levels of engagement appeared far less than that of Russian students, who tended to emphasize ability. Additionally, it has proven difficult to document a relationship within a particular society between an effort orientation and achievement. In Japan, for example, mothers and their children tend to place more emphasis than do their American counterparts on effort as a cause of low achievement in mathematics, but their relative weighting of effort appears unrelated to the studentsí grades in school (Holloway, Kashiwagi, Hess, & Azuma, 1986). Elliott and Hufton found that understanding the complexities behind these and several other such puzzles could best be achieved by means of a combination of classroom observations, in-depth interviews and an analysis of the broader sociocultural context (Elliott et al., 2001; Elliott et al., 1999; Hufton, Elliott, & Illushin, in press; Hufton & Elliott, 2000).

As educational researchers we need to examine our own beliefs about achievement and situate them in our own definitions about effort, ability, and intelligence. Notions about intelligence and “intelligent” behavior vary from one cultural context to another, and it is important to explore such notions to better understand different beliefs about intelligence and achievement. Tobin and his colleagues’ comparative study of Japanese, Chinese, and U.S. preschools illustrates important cultural differences related to definitions and attitudes toward intelligence (Tobin, Wu, & Davidson, 1989). Among the Japanese, for example, intelligence is not

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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simply a mastery of the content knowledge, but is tied in with notions of character and behavior (Tobin et al., 1989). Unlike Americans’ notions of intelligence, the Japanese stress that children’s behaviors, such as helping out in the classroom, which in the U.S. context might never be associated with ability, indeed would be associated with being smart. Japanese teachers, like American teachers, do acknowledge that different children may exhibit different abilities upon entering formal schooling. However, effort and character shape Japanese teachers’ definitions of intelligence more than inborn ability, which is in contrast to notions of intelligence among Americans, who see intelligence as a value-free trait (White & LeVine, 1987).

Similarly, Latino parents have expressed a parallel belief regarding notions of intelligence (Reese, Balzano, Gallimore, & Goldenberg, 1995). The concept of being bien educado, which directly translates to being well educated, carries very different meanings in the U.S. and Latino contexts. Like the Japanese, a person who is bien educado is seen first and foremost as behaving morally and acting appropriately in social situations. Innate ability is of less concern. Furthermore, it is possible that a child is bien educado in that she is courteous, respectful, and acomedido (helps out without being asked), and displays effort without necessarily displaying innate ability. For Japanese and Latino teachers and parents, respectively, the purpose of formal schooling, then, is not simply to highlight unequal abilities and mastery of content material, but to socialize children toward morality and appropriate social behavior that would have a positive influence on the development of their character.

Unlike Americans, the Japanese reluctance to elevate innate ability to high status is tied to the culture’s beliefs about equality (Tobin et al., 1989). Japanese teachers believe that acknowledging different abilities or children with more innate ability might lead to a disproportionate allocation of resources, opportunities, and effort. Teachers are then charged with the responsibility of “leveling out the playing field,” or evening out children with different abilities so that a classroom is more homogeneous than heterogeneous with respect to intelligence. In this regard, Japanese pedagogy places an emphasis on working amicably and productively in large and small mixed-ability classrooms so that children do not necessarily highlight their individual skills above others. Unlike American cultural notions that emphasize individual effort and reward individuals for displaying unique characteristics, the Japanese socialize children toward a collective society where members will be sensitive to each others’ needs and where they will gain “a sense of security that comes from being a member of a seemingly homogeneous group” (Tobin et al., 1989, p. 26).

It is important to note, however, that research on the motivational underpinnings of achievement in Japan tends to view its curricula, teach-

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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ers, and pedagogical practices in particularly positive terms. In fact, the conflict and tension around educational policy in Japan is given little attention in much of the cross-national work (Mouer & Sugimoto, 1986). Mouer and Sugimoto (1986) argue that viewing Japanese society as monolithic, through what they term a “holistic” cultural model (“nihonjinron”) (see also Holloway, 2000), clouds existing educational conflicts, such as those between the Ministry of Education and the Japanese Teachers Union. For example, the latter has been pushing for more child-directed learning, while the former continues to support teacher-led instruction. A more complete and realistic understanding of Japanese education needs to consider those aspects of learning which are contested within the society.

Building Grounded Theory

Building a grounded theory implies that students’, parents’, and teachers’ own meanings—their emic concepts—emerge in interviews and provide insights that have not been described in research that is based on theory and previous findings. The challenge for researchers is to approach interviewees with no preconceived notions of what might constitute their understanding of their educational experiences. According to Shweder (1997), the rich knowledge that results from qualitative research cannot be attained without the “process of discovery” that is inherent in ethnographic research. In building grounded theory, the primary question becomes how do individuals construct meaning about learning and achievement in different cultures and contexts, and how do these meanings vary within culture and context. The use of an unstructured questionnaire to examine this question can be particularly useful in revealing the nuances that exist in any individual’s personal construction of meaning. At the same time, unexpected findings can emerge that serve to challenge current theory.

For example, in a mixed-methods study, Quihuis and her colleagues (in press) asked high school students to complete a questionnaire about their theories of intelligence, and then interviewed a subset of students about their beliefs. According to Dweck’s theory, students who endorsed an “entity” theory of intelligence were expected to speak about their abilities as being limited, and to express low confidence. Instead, while acknowledging that they had difficulty in some subjects, they spoke with optimism about the ways in which they could improve their performance. In other words, they articulated mastery-oriented beliefs ordinarily associated with “incremental” theorists, who believe that intelligence is unlimited. Both “types” of theorists highlighted notions of effort, importance, and finding the right help. It could well be that the maladaptive motiva-

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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tional tendencies of entity theorists, such as learned helplessness, may not manifest themselves in the classroom when students are confronted with real assignments that must be completed. It also could be that they do manifest themselves, but in different ways for different students. These are possibilities we are currently studying.

Cross-National Achievement: What Would Cognitive Psychologists Want to Know?

All psychological functions begin, and to a larger extent remain, culturally, historically, and institutionally situated and context specific. (Cole, 1996, p. 252)

For researchers to attempt to understand development without considering everyday activities and skills in the context of cultural goals would be like attempting to learn a language without trying to understand the meaning it expresses. (Rogoff, 1990, p. 114)

If cognitive psychologists were setting out to study the mathematical knowledge of students in various countries and cultures, they would likely design a series of investigations that would bear little resemblance to TIMSS. This is because cognitive psychologists, heavily influenced by theorists Piaget and Vygotsky, have placed cultures and contexts at the center of their investigations on cognition. The eminent researchers of our day, including Rogoff, Lave, Haste, Cole, and Scribner, are perhaps best described as comparative cognitive researchers, working in the domains of cultural psychology or cognitive anthropology.

Vygotsky’s assertion that knowledge is co-constructed with culture played a major part in his theory of cognitive development (Cole & Wertsch, 1996). According to Vygotsky, we all have a need to mediate our actions through tools, or “artifacts,” that are culturally based, including language, symbols, works of art, writings, and the like (Vygotsky, 1978). He argued that the relationship between individuals and their social environment was dynamic and malleable. Such artifacts, seen in their entirety as having been accumulated and having evolved over generations, form the basis of culture. In short, culture is the medium through which human beings develop (Cole, 1996). Furthermore, in order to gain a meaningful understanding of human behavior, one must examine the daily activities in which individuals take part. This emphasis on practical, everyday behavior is a central tenet of cultural psychology.

Rogoff has added that a culture’s institutions, such as its schools, serve not only to shape thinking, but to communicate shared values for thinking (Rogoff, 1990). According to Rogoff, development is a process in which our social and environmental contexts guide cognition. Therefore, they are integral in the development of meaning making. In her interpre-

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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tation of Vygotsky’s theory, Haste (1994) proposed that meaning making takes place at three levels: “(1) the intrapersonal, which is the personal cognitive process of constructing, reflecting, and consolidating; (2) the interpersonal, which is an area where the individual participates in social interaction and negotiates meaning; and (3) the social-historical or cultural, where the individual encounters cultural norms and culturally defined expectations, which have a long social history” (Bempechat & Abrahams, 1999, p. 845). Meaning is negotiated and mutually influenced at all levels.

Vygotsky’s influential notion of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) arises from the mutual and dynamic relationship between children and adults. The ZPD represents a skill that is just beyond the reach of what a child can complete on her own. Over time, in mutual interactions with an adult, the child gradually learns to complete the task on her own. In other words, knowledge is transferred from expert to novice through the scaffolding of information (Rogoff, 1990).

Investigating Situated Learning

If contemporary cognitive psychologists were asked to contribute to the next international study of mathematics and science, what would they choose to study and how would they go about designing their research? Although there would be variation in areas of focus, all would examine cognition in context, or what has come to be called “mind in action” (Scribner, 1983/1992), “situated learning” (Lave, 1988; Rogoff, 1990), or “distributed cognition” (Cole, 1988; Cole & Wertsch, 1996). Lave’s wellknown work on Liberian tailors is illustrative of situated learning (Lave, 1977). She studied the influence of apprenticeship training and formal (Western) schooling on the mathematical skills of tailors. After spending time observing their work in shops, Lave devised several tasks that ranged from the familiar (problems derived from their daily work) to the unfamiliar (problems derived from school tasks). She found that years of tailoring experience were more influential to the solution of familiar problems, while formal schooling was more helpful in the solution of school-related problems.

How can this work be applied to cross-national studies in mathematics learning? One goal of large cross-national studies should be to broaden our understanding of cognitive development in cultural context, and to document the varied cognitive outcomes and teaching methods valued in different cultures. Comparative cognitive psychologists would consider studying the tasks that children do on a daily basis—tasks that require mathematical/spatial thinking. By definition, however, these would have to be culturally bound and context specific. They would have to represent

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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goals of development that are valued in different cultures, as well as the varied means used to attain them. For example, it is a common occurrence in some, but not all, cultures for children to accompany an adult to a grocery store, assist in the selection of items from a list, and help put purchases away in cupboards. Such a task emphasizes sorting and categorizing skills and reveals how adults teach children to do an essential household task. It would be inappropriate, however, to conduct this kind of ethnographic study in different nations, given that sorting and categorizing skills may not be scaffolded universally via a grocery shopping trip.

While it is the case that cultural models of learning and achievement are affected by the global adoption of certain structures, such as mass education (Meyer, Ramirez, & Soysal, 1992), implicit in Rogoff’s argument is that a culture would not promote a cognitive outcome that had no use in that culture. Just as “necessity is the mother of invention,” we train our youth toward the cognitive skills they will need to survive in their culture. Thus, if we continue to focus on only a small portion of the range of cognitive goals for which people around the world strive, we will have an incomplete theory of human cognitive development. Therefore, cognitive psychologists are quite interested in observing both the goals of development and the strategies we use to help children reach those goals. Only then will we have a more complete sense of the cognitive skills we are capable of, and the myriad of ways for attaining proficiency in those skills.

Relatedly, cultural psychologists would want to know how students transfer knowledge of mathematics acquired formally through schooling to contexts in which they have to apply their knowledge. They would also want to understand the extent to which students can be flexible in their application of mathematical principles. In a certain way, this echoes the concern of mathematics educators, who have been distressed over the enduring tendency of many students to view mathematics as a domain that requires no creativity and in which success can be gained through rote memorization (see Cobb et al., 1991). The result is that many students are uncomfortable with mathematics problems when they diverge even slightly from problems they have previously encountered. Researchers in the field have argued that students need to be able to develop a “deep conceptual understanding” of mathematics in order to become comfortably numerate (Lampert, 1990). One way to do this is to teach in ways that foster a more constructive view of the domain (Pirie & Kieren, 1992).

In sum, comparative cognitive psychologists would seek a greater understanding of learning in culture and context than is currently available in cross-national studies, such as TIMSS. We realize this involves conducting a series of smaller ethnographic studies of situated learning in many nations, a task that is formidable indeed. Yet we need to bear in

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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mind that the overall goal in this work is to gain a deeper understanding of thought in action. It is important, therefore, to complement large-scale surveys of mathematics achievement with smaller case-based studies of the practical applications of knowledge in everyday life. This may concern survey researchers, who are accustomed to generating large enough samples for statistical generalizability. Yet, as Robin Alexander, the noted scholar of comparative pedagogy has argued, there is an important distinction between statistical and “cultural” generalizability.

Statistical Versus Cultural Generalizability

Alexander (2000) recently argued that it is possible to derive valid and reliable “cultural” generalizations about national educational thought, practice, and outcomes from qualitative field studies centered in a small number of sites of educational practice. Alexander has contrasted “statistical” and “cultural” generalization, and views the claim for “cultural generalizability” as resting on two conditions. First, he argues that researchers need to accept the “proposition that the culture in which the schools in a country, state or region are located, and which teachers and pupils share, is as powerful a determinant of the character of school and classroom life as are the unique institutional “dynamics, local circumstances and interpersonal chemistries which make one school, or classroom different from another.” Alexander adds, “the research methods used [must be] sufficiently searching and sensitive to probe beyond the observable moves and counter-moves of pedagogy to the values and meanings which these embody.” (Alexander, 2000, p. 266, italics added).

Cross-national research can indeed yield cultural generalizations by adhering to guidelines Alexander has posited. First, investigators can operate under the working assumption that the beliefs, commitments, and practices of those we are researching are influenced by extra-personal systems of belief, commitment, and action with which they are acquainted. Second, mixed methods of inquiry can allow researchers to become familiar with the potentially influential wider systems of beliefs, commitment, and normative practices with which our participants may be familiar. Third, fine-grained qualitative field work can be used to uncover the beliefs, norms, and commitments and understand the rationale of practices amongst the participants. Fourth, researchers can consider relations between potentially influential wider systems of beliefs and commitment and normative practices and any system found in the beliefs, commitments and rationales of practice amongst those they are researching.

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Learning More from the Current Cross-National Data

One of the misuses of cross-national comparisons that has emerged since large-scale cross-national comparisons were first conducted in the early 1960s has been the rank ordering of countries. The value of cross-national comparisons lies not in the ranking of nations to see which educational systems are superior to others, but rather to investigate why some countries differ in their achievement levels. The IEA, established in 1959, strongly emphasized that “horse race” analyses that rank ordered countries were just first and necessary steps toward understanding cross-national differences (Keeves, 1995).

The move from educational tourism (pre-1960), where visitors from one country formally observed the educational systems of foreign countries and offered rich descriptions of teaching practices, students’ behavior and learning opportunities, and school structures, to large-scale international comparisons (post-1960) was only feasible because sophisticated methods of inquiry were developed. Prior to the 1960s, educational researchers did not have the tools to make such cross-national comparisons, but improved methods in survey design and statistical analyses such as inference statistics and sampling, coupled with technological advances in the use of computers for data analyses, opened the door for cross-national comparative research. Interestingly enough, cross-national data, in one form or another, moved from detailed ethnographic accounts across countries and the use of qualitative inquiry to a somewhat sole reliance on quantitative methods, given the introduction of internationally valid standards of such inquiry by the IEA. Although quantitative methods allowed cross-national data to be compared on equivalent measures, such large-scale inquiry must be coupled with qualitative methods, as Husen (1967) has argued, in order to give us a rich portrait of the factors associated with educational achievements. Cross-national comparisons offer an awareness to nations that they “cannot borrow wholesale from each other [but rather] by looking at the other systems one can get a perspective that provides insights into how one could go about improving one’s own system” (Keeves, 1995, p. 169).

The purpose of cross-national data should not solely be to list factors that are related to educational achievement. Such research also should be focused on the processes, in addition to the products, involved in educational systems in order to develop a greater understanding of how educational systems work. For example, how do teachers, students, parents, administrators, and others in the educational system make meaning of their experiences, and how does this influence issues of learning and teaching? The goal of cross-national research should not only be to construct models of teaching and learning processes in school, but it should

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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also include the testing of these models against observed data in order to confirm or reject model structures.

Furthermore, we, like others (Husen, 1967; Keeves, 1995), firmly believe that the time is long overdue for an integration of more sophisticated statistical methods, such as multilevel analyses along with qualitative methods for in-depth inquiry and analyses of how individuals make meaning of their experiences within educational systems. In all likelihood, there is probably more variation within nations than between nations. When we focus exclusively on between-nation differences, we fail to detect the rich variation that exists within a nation of learners. Although it is interesting to look cross-nationally at achievement, it is difficult to simply look at the average achievement of a nation. Comparing averages can begin to give us a sense of the variation in achievement between nations, but it will not reveal whether there is substantial variation within a nation. This question can be easily addressed using current data collected by such cross-national examinations as TIMSS. The data gathered by TIMSS can be conceptualized as hierarchical in nature—students were sampled within countries. The question then becomes, given that there is variation in test scores overall, how much of this variation is attributable to differences between countries (Level 2) and how much is attributable to differences in students (Level 1). Intraclass correlations (calculated by fitting a multilevel model with no predictors) would help address this question. Although it is interesting to know that Country X has higher test scores, and that students in Country X spend more time in class, it also would be interesting to show that there is a correlation between these variables across countries. Although neither correlation nor regression can establish causal relationships (e.g., more time in class causes higher test scores), they would at least allow us to begin to determine if and where these variables covary. IEA has begun to conduct such multilevel analyses of cross-national data (Keeves, 1995) due to the expansion of statistical methods that allow for hierarchical linear modeling, for example, and there is a call for more of the same in future cross-national comparisons.

The Future of Cross-National Research

I have no objection in principle to creating better measuring instruments in order to find out how well our students are doing in science, in mathematics, in literature, in reading.... Of course we need standards and resources to make our schools work well in solving the myriad tasks they face. But resources and standards alone will not work. We need a surer sense of what to teach to whom and how to go about teaching it in such a way that it will make those taught more effective, less alienated,

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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and better human beings.... What we need is a school reform movement with a better sense of where we are going, with deeper convictions about what kind of people we want to be. (Bruner, 1996, pp. 117-118)

As Bruner points out, we need to go beyond cataloging the different ways in which education is delivered and move toward a deeper sense of the purposes of education. We believe that the current data on cross-national achievement and school systems are insufficient for us to make informed recommendations about how to improve our own educational system. We, and others, have argued that we cannot simply adopt the educational methods of those nations whose students are performing well. We need to understand how education is viewed, valued, and understood by the citizens of the culture whose outcomes we admire. If we are to adopt some of their methods, we must do so in a culturally sensitive way. Without information about the meaning of education, we cannot begin to translate any of the methods used by other nations in a culturally sensitive way—the exercise would be akin to translating a text without knowing the language in which it has been written.

Integrating Survey and Qualitative Methods of Inquiry

Cross-national survey research can lead us to pertinent qualitative research questions. Qualitative inquiries, in turn, can shape the questions we attend to in future large-scale quantitative surveys. We believe that it is time for qualitative methods of inquiry to once again be present in cross-national data, as they were in the pre-1960s era. When integrated with surveys, the more sophisticated methods of qualitative inquiry that are now at our disposal can better serve our purposes of taking an indepth look at other countries’ educational systems so that we may gain insights about improving our own system.

A promising approach is found in Li’s (2000) comparison of Chinese and U.S. conceptions of learning using prototype research methods. In general, prototype research methods require that the researcher interview individuals to elicit words and phrases that are used to describe the domain in question. This elegant method uses emic concepts, yet employs sophisticated quantitative analyses to understand the data. In this case, Li obtained a cultural prototype of “intelligence through a five-step process in which she asked increasingly larger groups of American and Chinese students to relate any words or phrases related to learning. This culminated in a hierarchical cluster analysis of groups of ideas that represented the students’ conceptions of learning.

Li found little conceptual overlap between Chinese and American conceptions of learning. American conceptions of learning did not include any words or phrases related to actual achievement. For the U.S.

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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students, the major focus is on thinking, which can be considered a hypercognized domain, one that is well developed in U.S. society (Levy, 1973). In contrast, Chinese students used words and phrases that related achievement as representing breadth and depth of knowledge, extraordinary ability, and the unity of moral development and knowledge. In short, American students appear to be hypercognized for the process of learning while the Chinese students appear to be hypercognized about attitudes for learning.

Li’s contribution to our sociocultural understanding of achievement and motivation is significant, because she rises to the call for combined methods (e.g., Shweder, 1997). Yet Li goes one step further, in the sense that her sophisticated analyses of data were derived entirely from emic or qualitative understandings of learning in each culture.

A second positive approach is found in Stigler and Hiebert’s (1999) use of qualitative methods to analyze the TIMSS video study, which included data on classroom learning and teaching. One of the most interesting findings that emerged from this analysis is that teaching, and not teachers, is a critical factor in the teaching and learning of mathematics when comparing Japan and the United States. American mathematics teaching tends to focus on procedural skills rather than conceptual understandings.

A second finding is that among U.S. and Japanese schooling processes, there are large differences in teaching between cultures, but not within cultures. That is, in comparison to the within-culture variation in teaching, there are much larger gaps between different countries in terms of teaching processes. Along this vein, Stigler and Hiebert took advantage of qualitative data to observe and document that teaching is very much a cultural activity that has embedded in it notions of learning that stem from cultural beliefs and practices. In their analyses, they state that teaching is very difficult to change given the cultural underpinnings. Such insights would have been very difficult, nearly impossible, to arrive at if qualitative methods were not used for such inquiry.

Conclusion

We believe that researchers conducting cross-national investigations need to be aware of their own culture and context and the extent to which it influences both their investigations and their interpretations of their findings. As Sir Michael Sadler stated in a now famous lecture delivered in Guildford:

In studying foreign systems of education, we should not forget that the things outside the schools matter even more than the things inside the

Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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schools, and govern and interpret the things inside. We cannot wander at pleasure among the educational systems of the world, like a child strolling through a garden, and pick off a flower from one bush and some leaves from another, and then expect that if we stick what we have gathered into the soil at home, we shall have a living plant. (Sadler, 1979, p. 49)

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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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Suggested Citation:"5. Cultural-Cognitive Issues in Academic Achievement: New Directions for Cross-National Research." National Research Council. 2002. Methodological Advances in Cross-National Surveys of Educational Achievement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10322.
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In November 2000, the Board on International Comparative Studies in Education (BICSE) held a symposium to draw on the wealth of experience gathered over a four--decade period, to evaluate improvement in the quality of the methodologies used in international studies, and to identify the most pressing methodological issues that remain to be solved. Since 1960, the United States has participated in 15 large--scale cross--national education surveys. The most assessed subjects have been science and mathematics through reading comprehension, geography, nonverbal reasoning, literature, French, English as a foreign language, civic education, history, computers in education, primary education, and second--language acquisition. The papers prepared for this symposium and discussions of those papers make up the volume, representing the most up--to--date and comprehensive assessment of methodological strengths and weaknesses of international comparative studies of student achievement. These papers answer the following questions: (1) What is the methodological quality of the most recent international surveys of student achievement? How authoritative are the results? (2) Has the methodological quality of international achievement studies improved over the past 40 years? and (3) What are promising opportunities for future improvement?

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