Cultural variations in family beliefs about children's performance in mathematics: Comparisons among People's Republic of China, Chinese-American, and Caucasian-American families.

Abstract

We examined beliefs about children's performance in mathematics through interviews with mothers and their sixth-grade children in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and in Chinese-American and Caucasian-American groups in the United States. Explanations for relatively high and low performance were indicated by attributions to ability, effort, training at home, training at school, and luck. We also asked mothers about specific instances of unusually high or low achievement. The groups showed different patterns of attributions. Mothers in the PRC viewed lack of effort as the major cause of low performance. The Chinese Americans also viewed lack of effort as important but assigned considerable responsibility to other sources. The Caucasian Americans distributed responsibility more evenly across the options. PRC mothers offered partial reinforcement to children who brought home a good grade; American mothers, both Chinese and Caucasian, were Hkely to offer unqualified praise. National differences in performance may occur in part because of such cultural variations in beliefs.Students from the United States do not perform as well on tests of mathematics and science as do students from Asian countries, particularly Japan, the People's Republic of China,

Culture and egocentric perceptions of fairness in conflict and negotiation.

“…Although there has not been research on cultural influences on self-serving biases in the context of negotiation, there is increasing evidence that self-serving biases are attenuated in Japan in other domains, such as attributions and evaluations of performance (e.g., Al-Zahrani & Kaplowitz, 1993;Hamilton, Blumenfeld, Akoh, & Miura, 1990;Heine, Takata, & Lehman, 2000;Heine et al, 2001;Hess, Chang, & McDevitt, 1987;Fry & Ghosh, 1980;Kashima & Triandis, 1986;Morris & Peng, 1994;Nurmi, 1992;Yan & Gaier, 1994).…”

“…2 Although there has not been research on cultural influences on selfserving biases in the context of negotiation, there is increasing evidence that self-serving biases are attenuated in Japan in other domains, such as attributions and evaluations of performance (e.g., Al-Zahrani & Kaplowitz, 1993;Hamilton, Blumenfeld, Akoh, & Miura, 1990;Heine, Takata, & Lehman, 2000;Heine et al, 2001;Hess, Chang, & McDevitt, 1987;Fry & Ghosh, 1980;Kashima & Triandis, 1986;Morris & Peng, 1994;Nurmi, 1992;Yan & Gaier, 1994). ualistic cultures, we expected that as compared with Japanese disputants, U.S. disputants would be less likely to evaluate the conflict objectively and critically (because of a lack of hansei, or critical self-reflection) and would therefore report that another party would view their own behavior as much more fair than the other disputants' behavior (Hypothesis 2).…”

Chinese students’ participation: the effect of cultural factors

“…Brown et al, 1989;Lave and Wenger, 1991), when students from countries with a Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC) (Rao and Chan, 2009), attend Western tertiary education, they are situated both within their Western classrooms and within their cultural overlay of values and beliefs in relation to learning (Rao and Chan, 2009). Hess et al, (1987) and Chen and Stevenson (1995) suggest that traditional Chinese values are pervasive even among the American-Chinese diaspora and are "evident in Chinese families in societies with very different political structures, such as China, Hong Kong, Singapore or Taiwan, and are also manifest in overseas Chinese families" (Rao and Chan, 2009, pp. 4).…”

Rising from the Ashes: Cognitive Determinants of Venture Growth after Entrepreneurial Failure

“…For example, cultural value 13 in Japan may encourage more external attribution (e.g., "face-saving") and more continuation 14 despite hardship. Attribution patterns must be evaluated in conjunction with social context 15 because cultural values and norms affect the way individuals make attributions (Hess et al, 1987;16 Holloway, 1988). Differences in attribution styles may exist between individualist and collectivist 17 cultures where individuals in collectivist cultures (e.g., Asia, Latin America, Africa) tend to be 18 less susceptible to the fundamental attribution error and to the self-serving bias than those in 19 individualist cultures (e.g., North America, Western Europe) (Li, 2012;Mao, Peng, & Wong, 20 2012).…”