CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
Robyn M. Holmes
Chapter 14: Motivation
Chapter 14 Outline
 What is motivation?
 Models of Motivation
 Humanistic Models of Motivation – Self
Actualization
 Learning Theories of Motivation
 Achievement Models of Motivation
Chapter 14 Outline

Expectancy Value Models of Motivation
 Cognitive Models of Motivation – Attribution
Theory
 Social Cognitive Models of Motivation
 Applying Models of Motivation to Real-Life
Settings and Contexts
 Incentives and Culture
Chapter 14 Outline
 School
 Factors Impacting Motivation in
Classrooms
 Motivation and Stereotypical Threat
Chapter 14 Outline
 The Workplace
 Extrinsic Incentives
 Intrinsic Incentives
 Job Satisfaction
Chapter 14 Outline
 Achievement and Culture
 Perceptions of Academic Achievement in the
United States
 The United States - Family Values and
Educational Outcomes
Chapter 14 Outline
 Latino Children

Hawaiian Children

Indigenous Studies on Achievement

Cross Cultural Studies on Achievement

Case Studies in Education and Achievement –
Academic Success
Chapter 14 Learning Goals
 Define the terms motivation, needs, drives, and
incentives
 Explain various models of motivation
 Discuss the application of models of motivation
in different cultural and social contexts
Chapter 14 Learning Goals
 Critique which models of motivation work best
in particular settings
 Describe the connection between achievement
and culture
 Provide examples of how cultural values, norms,
and practices shape achievement
Engaging with Culture
 Hasan and Hynds (2014) studied how cultural values
and practices shaped teacher motivation in Maldives
 Maldives is a remote group of islands located in the
Indian Ocean
 Muslim government is the primary employer
 Schools create most of the available jobs
 On Maldives teacher motivation links to economic,
social, personal, and cultural factors
Hasan and Hynds
 Interview and survey analysis found a strong
connection between teacher motivation, teacher
behavior, and culture.
 Maldivian cultural values and practices emphasize
family connections and respect and care for aging
adults. The motivation for teachers to remain on the
islands rather than look for work in other regions
 Teacher-parent relationships and a sense of
community in the school mirror the sense of belong
and family connections
Hasan and Hynds
 Teachers work long hours and provide support
well beyond traditional school hours
 Being a teacher links to broader social support
 When a powerful or important family speaks
highly about a teacher, this endorsement spreads
throughout the community
 Parental and resident support can lead to a lasting
teacher career on the island
Social status
Teacher salaries
Teacher
Motivation
Cultural
values,
practices,
and
worldviews
Parent
expectations
Few job
opportunities
Connection between culture and teacher motivation in Maldives
What is Motivation?
 Motivation is an internal state that directs and
guides our behavior to attain a goal through
processes shaped by cultural norms, values, and
practices
 Motivation works like a push pull toy. It can pull
or push you and the choice is dependent upon the
situation’s motivating factors
The push to motivate comes from needs
Internal bodily
states
linked to
Reduce tension
The pull to motivate comes from incentives
Incentives
Needs
External factors that motivate us to
act to fulfill our needs and reduce
our drives
Drives
What is Motivation?
 Different types of motivation
 Extrinsic motivation - shapes our behavior
through external forces and rewards that are
pleasant like verbal praise, money, or awards
 Intrinsic motivation - shapes our behavior
through internal forces such as enjoyment,
interest, or personal satisfaction
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation
What is Motivation?
 Needs - states of arousal that arise when
we lack or want something vital to us and
we take action to satisfy our needs.
 Necessary for motivation and can be
biologically, socially, psychologically,
cognitively, or environmentally based
What is Motivation?
 Drives - the tension and uneasiness that
result when we experience a need
 We act to reduce this tension
 Needs and drives motivate us to act
What is Motivation?
 Incentives also play a role in motivation
 Incentives - factors that motivate us to act and
these are person and often culture specific
 Winning the World Cup Soccer tournament,
money, fame, a work promotion, a
scholarship, doing well at school, or receiving
your parents’ approval are all incentives
Humanistic Models of Motivation – Self-Actualization
 Maslow focused upon people’s capacity for personal
growth with an emphasis upon positive regard and
fulfilling one’s potential
 Maslow’s (1943; 1954; 1971) journey to selfactualization is actually a model of human motivation
and a popular one in Western thinking
 Emphasizes needs and drives people strive to lead
a fulfilling life, satisfy basic, physical needs before
tackling social and psychological needs
Transcendence
SelfActualization
Aesthetic Needs Beauty
Knowing and Exploring
Needs
Self-Esteem and Recognition Needs
Belonging, Love, Affiliation Needs
Safety and security Needs
Basic needs: Hunger, Thirst
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Humanistic Models of Motivation – Self-Actualization
 Self-actualization reflects our desire to reach our
maximum potential and find self-fulfillment
 Self-transcendence – experiences beyond personal
growth that connect us to all humans and ultimate
truths
 Biased sample of 18 extremely accomplished,
primarily Western men
 Concentrates on an individual’s needs and connects
to an independent model of the self
Humanistic Models of Motivation – Self-Actualization
 Think of your own experiences
 Have you been able to satisfy social or psychological
needs and reach your potential in these areas before
satisfying your physiological needs?
 Do you think a hierarchy of needs relates to peoples’
lived experiences?
 Do you think a cultural psychologist would support
Maslow’s model of motivation?
 What criticisms do you have of Maslow’s theory?
Learning Theories of Motivation - Radical Behaviorism
 The view that humans learn abilities and skills through
experience
 Consequences shape individual behavior

Reinforcement and punishment
 Positive reinforcement - involves adding pleasant
consequences after a behavior to encourage the
behavior to occur again in the future

Connects to motivation as an incentive
Learning Theories of Motivation - Radical Behaviorism
 How do you think culture shapes the types of
consequences the environment supports?
 Do you think cross-cultural researchers would
select Skinner’s reinforcement theory to study
motivation?
Achievement Models of Motivation
 Focuses upon three types of goals
 Mastery goals or learning goals emphasize learning and
self-improvement like learning a new language or skill
 Performance goals or ego goals emphasize measuring or
demonstrating ability such as doing better than your peers
in the classroom or in a sport
 Social goals that emphasize relationships and social
interactions, individuals strive to either avoid pain or
receive pleasure
 Cultural norms and worldviews influence whether people
pursue mastery or performance goals
Expectancy Value Models of Motivation
 Eccles, Wigfield, and Schiefele (1998) developed the
expectancy value model of motivation to explain
children’s academic achievement and performance
 Connects the achievement-related choices students
make to two sets of perceptual beliefs
 1) The ability self-concept - a person’s expectations
for success and ability to perform a task
 2) Subjective task value - the worth a person
attaches to available strategies to achieve those goals
including enjoyment and interest
Eccles, Wigfield, and Schiefele
 Example: If a little girl enjoys math problems and
believes she can complete them she will be
motivated to study math
 Accounted for how cultural norms and experiences
shape students’ beliefs about achievement-related
activities
 Takes into account how parents, peers, teachers,
social others, and cultural practices and beliefs
shape students’ attitudes and beliefs about
achievement oriented tasks
Cognitive Models of Motivation – Attribution Theory
 Weiner’s (1985; 1986) attribution theory
 Cognitive theories focus upon how beliefs, attitudes,
and emotions relate to achievement motivate people
to behave in particular ways. Explain the reasons and
or causes of peoples’ successes and failures
 These reasons influence our achievements and shape
our future success
 If you explain your success using personal qualities
and attributes achieving success will bolster your
self-esteem
Cognitive Models of Motivation – Attribution Theory
 If you explain your success using external factors,
achieving success makes you appreciative
 If you use internal attributes and qualities to
explain your failure, you will most likely
experience shame
 If you use external factors to explain your failure,
you most likely will experience anger
 Cultural norms, expectations, and values connect to
how we explain our successes and failures.
Cognitive Models of Motivation – Attribution Theory
 Many Western parents believe that their
children’s ability to do well in school is the result
of their natural talents, not effort
 Many Asian parents believe that success is the
result of perseverance and hard work, not ability
 When the independent self does a task well it is
because it has the ability to do so. In these
instances, the self experiences pride
Cognitive Models of Motivation – Attribution Theory
 If the independent self does not perform well,
external factors must have been the cause and
the self experiences anger or frustration
 When the interdependent self does a task well,
the self experiences humility
 When the interdependent self does not perform
well, it is because of a lack of effort that may
lead to the experience of shame or guilt
Social Cognitive Models of Motivation
 Bandura’s social cognitive learning theory
 We learn behavior from observing others in our
social worlds
 Learning is an internal and goal-oriented process
 We observe others because we are motivated to
learn their actions
 Individuals are motivated to behave in these ways
to meet personal goals and become successful
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Learning Theory
 This includes our need to become independent and
self-confident
 Self-efficacy – the confidence a person has in
his or her capabilities to carry out actions to
solve problems and manage situations
 Majority of social cognitive research on motivation
has focused upon participants in Western settings
 Contemporary researchers are now pursuing this
topic in other cultural settings
Applying Models of Motivation to
Real-life Settings and Contexts
 Incentives and Culture
 Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation
 Which is best?
 Evidence to support that intrinsic motivation is
more effective than extrinsic motivation, value,
use, and effectiveness of the different types of
incentives vary across cultures
Incentives and Culture
 Although money is an incentive for American
workers, for many Japanese workers respect is a
more powerful incentive
 For workers in Latin America, respect and having
time for family are important incentives
 School
 Children’s motivation to do well in school also
connects to cultural values and practices that
reinforce those values
Applying Models of Motivation to
Real-life Settings and Contexts
 What works best in classroom settings to
motivate children?
 It depends upon several factors including
children’s cultural backgrounds
 Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are
different paths to achieve similar
outcome
Applying Models of Motivation to
Real-life Settings and Contexts
 Bridging Cultures Project
 longitudinal project that examined whether teacher
attended workshops on cultural ideology would
affect change in the teachers’ classroom behaviors
and practices. Teachers worked in a school system
with a large Latino population
 In one classroom every time individual students
demonstrated they memorized and could recall
multiplication facts, they received a star
Bridging Cultures Project
 The teacher knew the chart had value as an
extrinsic motivator but it did not produce desired
outcomes for her
 She reconsidered how the chart might fit in with
the cultural ideology of collectivism and her
students’ cultural worldview
 This time instead of using the chart to display
individual achievement, she used the chart to
display group achievement. This fit in nicely with
the children’s understanding of achievement
Bridging Cultures Project
 The teacher continued to use cultural ideology to shape
her teaching practices and incorporate collaborative
learning experiences to help the children reach their
maximum potentials
 Highlights the importance of connecting children’s
lived experiences at home with those at school
 Teachers play a critical role in helping all children
achieve academic success
 Preparing teachers to incorporate classroom practices
that respect and reflect children’s cultural heritages is
one way to ensure the success for all children
Factors Impacting Motivation in Classrooms
 Fernald and her colleagues (2012) found that
European American and Latino middle and higher
income caregivers engage their children more in
conversation than lower income caregivers do
 The outcome - children from lower-income families
process language more slowly and have smaller
vocabularies than children from higher income
families do
 Implemented programs and workshops to teach Latino
caregivers culturally sensitive approaches to help
improve their children’s language abilities and
consequently their academic success
Factors Impacting Motivation in Classrooms
 Why do Asian children outperform students from other
countries?
 They are motivated to do well because they do not
want to disappoint their parents who have sacrificed
for their children’s academic success
 Many Asian children feel pressure to do well at
school because their success (or failure) connects to
the honor and integrity they bring to their family
and group
Motivation and Stereotypical Threat
 Majority and minority ethnic groups, prejudice,
and discrimination exist in most if not all nations
 One particular societal attitude that can have
negative consequences for children at school is
stereotypes
 Stereotypes - widely held beliefs, perceptions,
characteristics, and traits that people attribute to
a whole group
Motivation and Stereotypical Threat
 Stereotypical threat occurs when an individual
experiences worry over being judged according
to a negative stereotype associated with one’s
group
 One stereotype that exists is Asian children are
exceptional students and there is evidence to
support this stereotype
 Minority children are particularly vulnerable to
stereotypical threat
Motivation and Stereotypical Threat
 Steele and Aronson (1995)
 Even good students can experience the effects
of stereotypical threat
 Aronson and colleagues (1999) even good
students experience stereotypical threat
 Sherman and his colleagues (2013) have
introduced several strategies to combat
stereotypical threat for Latino students
Sherman and his colleagues (2013)
 Asked European American and Latino middle school
children to complete assignments that asked them to
write about their personal values and things that were
important to them in their lived experiences
 European American children experience little
disconnect between cultural patterns at home and those
at school. They also do not have to confront negative
stereotypes surrounding their intellectual abilities
 Affirming children’s cultural identities and abilities can
have a dramatic effect on children’s motivation to do
well in school
Means from Steele and Aronson’s (1995) study on stereotypical threat
12
10
M
e
a S 8
n o
l
I v 6
t e
e d 4
m
s
2
African
American
European
American
0
Intelligence Test
Problem solving Task
Applying Models of Motivation to
Real-life Settings and Contexts
The Workplace
 Industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists apply
psychological principles to real-life work settings
designed to benefit both the company and employee
 The industrial side addresses areas such as employee
selection and job performance. Help companies and
management personnel find the best candidates for
particular positions.
 The organizational side has an interest in increasing
worker productivity
The Workplace
Extrinsic Incentives
 Employers provide incentives for employees
to do things they want them to do even if they
do not want to do them such as working
longer hours - a higher salary might be a wise
incentive choice
 Research confirms the effectiveness of
extrinsic motivation in the workplace
Extrinsic Incentives in the Workplace
 Extrinsic motivators and incentives work well in
many individualistic countries, are they effective
worldwide?
 Sirota and Greenwood (1971)
 Studied a multinational manufacturing
company that had physical locations in 40
different countries
 Found employees worldwide preferred
recognition
Sirota and Greenwood (1971) - Extrinsic Incentives
 All company employees valued positive changes to
their work environment and work conditions
 Discovered country differences:
 French, Italian, and German employees valued
job security; Scandinavian employees highly
valued freedom to make their own decisions
and act independently, and Japanese employees
valued group cohesion
 Cultural values and norms influence the incentives
that workers value
Intrinsic Incentives
 Intrinsic motivation is an internal process
 Amabile and Khaire (2008) believe we must meet four
important conditions for motivation to arise within us
 Meeting new challenges
 Finding enjoyment
 Mastering a task
 Voluntarily choosing how we do things
Intrinsic Incentives
How does choice connect to intrinsic motivation in communities
that support independent and interdependent models of the self?
 Western conceptions of motivation emphasize the role of
agency and control
 Agency refers to a person’s beliefs about their ability to
control their life’s course
 Control relates to a psychological need to act
independently and make our own choices
 This model may not hold true in other cultural settings
that support different models of the self
How does choice connect to intrinsic motivation in communities
that support interdependent models of the self?
 For the interdependent self that seeks group harmony,
the approval of others, and fulfilling social obligations,
a more important motivating factor may be the choice
your group or an important social other makes for you
 the interdependent self seeks internal control - connects
to behavioral expectations such as self-restraint and
fulfilling one’s obligations
 Self-restraint helps the interdependent self-fulfill group
related goals while circumventing personal goals
Intrinsic Incentives
 Iyengar and Lepper (1999)
 European American and Asian American grade
school children worked on a pile of word
anagram problems that connected to a particular
category. In the first condition, children could
freely choose their anagram category
 In the second condition, the experimenter chose
the category for the child
 In the third condition, the children believed their
mother had selected the category for them
Intrinsic Incentives
 Iyengar and Lepper (1999)
 Under what conditions did children’s intrinsic
motivation increase?
 European American children performed best
when they freely chose their own anagram
category
 Asian American children performed best when
their mother made the category choice for them
Iyengar and Lepper (1999) Means for Performance on
Task and Intrinsic Motivation
9
8
European American
7
Asian American
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Personal
Choice
Experimental
Mom
Performance on Task
Personal
Choice
Experimental
Mom
Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic Incentives - Iyengar and Lepper (1999)
 Why did this happen?
 These outcomes reflect cultural values
 European American children participate in
cultural practices that emphasize the values of
self-expression, autonomy, and freedom of
choice
Intrinsic Incentives - Iyengar and Lepper (1999)
 Why did this happen?
 These outcomes reflect cultural values

Asian American children participate in cultural
practices that emphasize group harmony, respect for
parents and authority figures, loyalty, and fulfilling
social obligations.
 Asian American children’s performance and intrinsic
motivation increased when their mothers chose their
category for them
Intrinsic Incentives
 Job Satisfaction
 Sledge, Miles, and Coppage (2008) explored the
relationship between culture and job satisfaction
 Used the Western Two-Factor Theory of
Motivation - predicts that if managers use practices
or provide work conditions to increase employee
satisfaction they will perform better; similarly
wanted to see if this theory holds true in other
cultures
 They chose the hotel industry in Brazil
Sledge, Miles, and Coppage (2008) - Job Satisfaction
 Found that Herzberg’s (1966) Two-Factory Theory did not
hold true for this Brazilian sample
 Positive motivating factors for these Brazilian employees
included valuing their work and achievement.
Employees focused upon family, pride, formality, and
self-presentation
 Cultural differences, supervision and work relationships
were not a major source of dissatisfaction
 Company loyalty and collaborative work experiences are
important also to Brazilian culture
Achievement and Culture
Perceptions of Academic Achievement in the United States
 In the U.S., there is an academic achievement
gap between European American and children
from Latino and African American ethnic
heritages
Achievement and Culture
Perceptions of Academic Achievement in the United States
 Although recent test scores provide evidence
of improvement, African American and Latino
children still fall behind European American
and Asian American students
 Why is this so and what strategies might erase
this gap?
Boykin and colleagues (2005)
 Studied how culture shapes students’ perceptions of
academic achievement and success
 When teachers integrate children’s cultural values and
heritages into classroom practice, children do better
 Reaffirms the children’s sense of self-worth, children no
longer view their cultural ways as inferior or in
opposition to those at school
 Using students’ lived experiences as a foundation for
learning enhances their academic potential
Boykin and colleagues (2005)
 Address the perception that African American
children do not strive for achievement
 Suggest that African American children do strive
for achievement, what they do not accept are the
mainstream values in schools that promote and
encourage achievement
Boykin and colleagues (2005)
 Found that African American children preferred
students who demonstrated behaviors related to
communalism and verve – cultural themes that are
present in many African American families

African American children rejected strongly
students who acted in individualistic and competitive
ways
 African American children did value achievement
but only when children could reach their goals in
culturally valued ways
Achievement and Culture
 What strategies would you use to achieve a goal?
 What motivates you to complete a task such as
doing well at school?
 Would the type of task you had to complete
influence your achievement strategy or actions?
 How did you learn about the value of
achievement in your family, cultural community?
Achievement and Culture
 Do you think all cultures value achievement in
similar ways?
 What might account for cultural differences in
achievement?
 How might educational systems use the findings
of cultural psychologists to improve students’
academic achievement from all cultural
backgrounds?
The United States – Family Values
and Educational Outcomes – Latino Children
 How does cultural context and family values
influence children’s educational experiences?
 Greenfield and Quiroz (2013) compared personal
achievement values across several different groups in
the United States that included parents and teachers
 Frame their work using these two social relation
patterns
 Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
Greenfield and Quiroz’s Achievement Study
 Gesellschaft connects to urban life, culturally diverse
groups, and industrialized, high technology settings
 Emphasis upon formal schooling, individual needs
are more important than those of the community or
group. Cultural worldviews support an independent
self
 Individualist values connect more to Gesellschaft
setting
Greenfield and Quiroz’s Achievement Study
 Gemeinschaft connects to rural, impoverished,
culturally similar social groups, value close,
interdependent relationships, traditional ways of
knowing, elders are a source of wisdom and provide
guidance, little opportunity for formal schooling
 Cultural worldviews support an interdependent self
 Connects to Familistic values emphasize a commitment
to family or the group that includes loyalty, trust, and
obligation
Greenfield and Quiroz’s Achievement Study
 Latino immigrant parents hold more familistic values than
most European American families do
 What happens when these families migrate to different
living conditions?
 Many Mexican immigrants in the U.S. lived in
Gemeinschaft conditions in Mexico
 European immigrants who came from Gesellschaft
conditions also carried their values with them to the U.S.
- one difference between these two groups is that Latino
immigrant family values conflict with those in
mainstream American society and those promoted in
U.S. schools
Greenfield and Quiroz’s Achievement Study
 Asked Latino and European American parents
to respond to four different achievement
situations in home and school settings
 Translated the scenarios into the native
language and used the culturally sensitive
method choice - interviews
Greenfield and Quiroz’s Achievement Study
 They found in settings where individualistic
values have no direct impact on group family
life, Latino and European American parents
responded in similar ways
 In the school scenarios, Latino and European
parents performed similarly since school values
do not conflict with family values and
functioning
 Home and family life scenarios revealed
differences
Who should receive credit?
Individualistic Collectivistic
1,2
1
Parents
0,8
Children
0,6
Teachers
0,4
0,2
0
School 1
(European
American
sample)
School 2
(Latino
sample)
Greenfield, P., & Quiroz, B. (2013). Who should receive credit?
Greenfield and Quiroz’s Achievement Study
 Interesting similarities among the children
emerged
 European American children held more
familistic values than both their teachers and
parents
 Suggests cooperation precedes competition
and that European American children may
become more individualistic through
socialization practices as they age
Greenfield and Quiroz’s Achievement Study
What does this study teach us about the connection
between culture and achievement?

Parents’ educational experiences and living
conditions shaped their views about achievement
 They can help inform practices and policies as they
relate to immigrant children’s school experiences
 The Bridging Culture intervention program
integrates Latino family values in a way that accords
them respect rather than treating them as inferior or
unimportant
The United States – Family Values and Educational
Outcomes – Hawaiian Children

One negative trend in Hawaiian public school systems is
that children of Hawaiian descent, especially lowincome family children have great difficulty in school
 Compared to other cultural heritages, these children
struggle to achieve academic success - Developing
effective programs that motivate and teach Hawaiian
children how to perform well at school may be a solution
 These programs incorporate cultural patterns and ways of
learning to help Hawaiian children accomplish these
goals
Hawaiian Children and Achievement
 Cathie Jordan and colleagues (1992) developed the
Kamehameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP)
 One problem Hawaiian children face in school is
negative teacher perceptions
 Language problems were not a factor in the children’s
underachievement
 If a language barrier wasn’t’ the problem, why were
Hawaiian children having trouble do well in school?
Hawaiian Children and Achievement
Cathie Jordan and colleagues (1992) and the
Kamehameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP)
 Focus needed to shift to Hawaiian cultural
values, practices, and ways of learning
 Concentrated on how teachers could incorporate
the cultural skills and abilities children learned at
home into the classroom experience
 One area of focus was children’s social
relationships and social roles at home
Hawaiian Children and Achievement
Cathie Jordan and colleagues (1992) and the
Kamehameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP)
 Hawaiian children learn necessary skills through
observation and participation and often
collaboratively in groups
 So why are children who are so engaged in activities
at home, so disinterested in school?
 The disconnect children experience between their
lived realities at home and school
Hawaiian Children and Achievement
Cathie Jordan and colleagues (1992) and the
Kamehameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP
 So why are children who are so engaged in
activities at home, so disinterested in school?
 Jordan identified several major differences
between these two contexts
Hawaiian Children and Achievement
Cathie Jordan and colleagues (1992) and the
Kamehameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP
 Setting Differences
 Home - When mothers and adults need children
to do a chore, it is the child’s responsibility to
organize and complete the task. They allow
children to perform the task as the children see fit
 School - Tasks are teacher directed . For many
Hawaiian children, school is a controlling setting
and at odds with the home life
Hawaiian Children and Achievement
Cathie Jordan and colleagues (1992) and the
Kamehameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP
 Program recommendations
 Have teachers model the way they structured their
classrooms the same way Hawaiian mothers
structure their households
 Teachers should behave more the way mothers do
at home. Teachers relinquish some control to the
children. Supervise children less during the
school day
Indigenous Studies on Achievement
 One stereotype for Asian children is that they are
high achieving students. Why is it that many
Asian children tend to excel in school?
 Kim and Park (2006) take an indigenous
psychology approach to understand Korean
children’s high academic achievement
 Asked students to complete a questionnaire on
their perceptions of success and failure
Indigenous Studies on Achievement
 Kim and Park (2006) found:
 Children were most proud of doing well in
school
 Parents were children’s source of emotional
support
 Students believed their success was due to
their hard work
Indigenous Studies on Achievement
 Kim and Park suggest that Korean cultural values
explain Korean children’s success at school not their
intellectual ability
 Korean cultural values emphasize the
interconnectedness between people begins with
the mother-child bond; Education and behaving
according to social norms are highly valued;
Parents devote themselves to their children
 Children are loyal and dedicated to their parents
for their support and encouragement
Indigenous Studies on Achievement - Kim and Park
 Children learn to please teachers as they do their parents
 Doing well at school is important to these children as it
brings pride and success to them and their families
 Korean parents believe in effort and persistence at a task
 Children learn to self-regulate their behavior because
their parents value this ability
 Guilt is a socially engaging emotion that helps children
behave in ways that strengthens their interdependent
relationships
Indigenous Studies on Achievement
Taiwanese Children
 Why don’t U.S. students perform better on math and
science compared to students from other countries?
 One major difference is the way American and
Taiwanese mothers view ability;
 Many American mothers believe intelligence
and math ability is an inborn ability; Many
Taiwanese mothers place more emphasis upon
effort rather than inborn abilities
Indigenous Studies on Achievement - Taiwanese Children
 Competition for spots in the best schools is fierce and
one culturally prescribed role for mothers is their role
in ensuring their children’s success
 Mothers take firm control of their children’s learning
experiences; Children have little to no say in these
matters
 Many Westerners view Asian parents in general as
over controlling in matters of education
 From a Taiwanese parents’ point of view, math is
central to all learning
Cross Cultural Studies on Achievement

Fang and colleagues (2013) explored how national culture shapes
student achievement and consequently student learning
outcomes. Their findings suggest:

long-term orientation was the greatest predictor of student
achievement in countries that have long-term orientations
(Japan, China, Singapore) which value living and preparing
for the future

In long-term orientation countries, saving, patience, and
effort are important values

The more traditional a society remains, the lower student
achievement scores are
Culture across Disciplines –
Culture, Education, and Motivation
Ginsberg’s Motivational Framework
 Ginsberg notes the positive relationship between
motivation and learning -- motivated students
achieve their academic goals
 Advances the view that cultural awareness can shape
motivation and consequently student achievement
 Making sure all children receive encouragement to
do well in school leads to social justice and equity in
education
Ginsberg’s Motivational Framework for
Culturally Relevant Teaching
 Culture-specific and community based
 Interdisciplinary model
 Focuses upon intrinsically motivating students
 Four principles for classroom practice:
1. Establishing a sense of belonging and respect
2. Developing a positive attitude toward learning
3. Make learning relevant to students’ experiences
4. Focus on how students perceive the value of
learning
Ginsberg’s Motivational Framework for
Culturally Relevant Teaching
 To encourage student motivation
 Teachers should incorporate children’s life experiences
into lessons and give voice to these experiences
 Schools should move away from the conventional
approach of using extrinsic rewards to increase student
achievement - often short-lived and declines once
students no longer receive rewards or incentives
 Some rewards might not be effective for children from
diverse cultural backgrounds