Chinese and American adolescents' perceptions of the purposes of education and beliefs about the world of work

Social Behavior and Personality, 2000 by Lau, Sing, Nicholls, John G, Thorkildsen, Theresa A, Patashnick, Michael

We studied and compared the views of Chinese and American high school students as to what attendance at school should achieve, and what brings success in work. The worlds of school and work were perceived by American students to be related, but not so by Chinese students. American students are more firm in the view that school should teach them to understand science, think critically, be useful to society and consider the family first. In contrast, Chinese students showed greater preference that school should teach them to face challenges, creatively sacrifice, and respect authority, and to prepare them to earn money for respect, and luxuries, and to enter high status colleges and jobs. Significant country by sex interaction effects were found, indicating that generalizations about cultural difFerences which ignore gender are suspect.

The low academic attainment of American students has been of great concern for some time (Skinner, 1984; Spence, 1985). In the search for remedies, the attention of educators in the United States has turned to the schools of Chinese and Japanese societies. A favored explanation for the achievement of Chinese and Japanese students, especially in science and mathematics, has been in terms of cultural differences in socialization and associated differences in the value placed on education (Sue & Okazaki, 1990). In Chinese and Japanese schools, for example, students spend more time in content-oriented learning, and put greater emphasis on homework than do students in American schools (Stevenson, Lee, & Stigler, 1986; Stigler, Lee, & Stevenson, 1987). One should not however, presume a close link between motivation and achievement. Some studies in the US (Pascarella, Walberg, Junker, & Haertel, 1981) and Germany (Helmke, Schneider, & Weinert, 1986), indicate that school environments which produce higher achievement can also produce more negative attitudes to schoolwork. From this we conclude that motivation needs to be considered as being important in its own right and not merely as a potential contributor to achievement.

The hypothesis of cultural difference in motivation, however, has rarely been directly examined. Motivation has many aspects and can be construed in many ways. Here we asked what are the differences in students' views about the goals or functions of education between these different cultures? Also, we asked, are there cultural differences in beliefs about the causes of success in the world of work? The present study sought to answer these questions by comparing the purposes of school as seen by Hong Kong Chinese -and American students.

In traditional Chinese philosophy, the cultivation of morality takes precedence over intellectual excellence (truth for truth's sake) and personal gain (LeVine & White, 1986; Wong, 1984). A communal outlook is stressed, wherein one should consider others first. Authorities, such as parents, are to be respected and honored. Thus an educated person should be virtuous and useful to others and to society Yet, China has a long history of using education to screen out the less able and select the more competent for administrative positions (Ng, 1984; Sweeting, 1990). Extrinsic rewards are also often used to entice students to study hard. The old Chinese saying "There are gold houses iii books; there are beautiful ladies in books" illustrates this emphasis. Nowadays, in Hong Kong, a person's access to the work world and earning power often depends, to a large extent@ on academic qualifications. Thus, on the one hand, Chinese students are reminded of the moral mission of education, and on the other hand, they are made aware of the competitive nature of school and of extrinsic reasons for learning. In the light of this, it is uncertain whether or not the traditional Chinese cultural view of education prevails (Sue & Okazaki, 1990).

Recent studies have suggested that Chinese and Westerners do not differ distinctly on a single and pre-set East-West dimension (e.g., collectivism-individualism, Feather, 1986). Chinese adolescents, like westerners, are found to value personal freedom and achievement (Lau, 1988, 1992; Lau & Wong, 1992), and they do not like submitting to parental domination (Lau & Cheung, 1987; Lau, Lew, Hau, Cheung, & Berndt, 1990). Other evidence shows also that Chinese and Asian American students are not higher on family consideration factors such as the need to make parents proud and not to embarrass one's faily (Dornbusch, Prescott, & Ritter, 1997; Dornbusch, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987; Ritter & Dombusch, 1989). There is also evidence that Chinese might not, more than westerners, de-emphasize self and stress the group in social exchange (Stipek, Weiner, & Li, 1989; Lau, 1992). It is uncertain, therefore, whether or not the common presuppositions about the values of Chinese students may be well-grounded.

Accordingly, we compared Chinese and United States students' views about the purposes which school should serve. The measures of the purposes which students valued were based on those developed by Nicholls, Patashnick, and Nolen (1985), who distinguished the purposes of gaining wealth and status, becoming able to do socially useful work, coming to understand the world, and the following: additional scales potentially relevant to the traditional Chinese emphasis on the family were added - considering one's family first and making one's parents proud. The added scales were especially relevant to testing the hypothesis that Chinese would be high in consideration of the family when thinking about the purposes of education.