Cultural Support for School: Contrasts Between Japan and the United States
By: Robert D. Hess and Hiroshi Azuma
From: Educational Researcher, December, 1991
J. Geffen
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1.
Although learning is a natural process, schools are not naturally conducive to
learning. Children are compelled to attend; they have little choice in the content of a
curriculum whose value may not be apparent; they must share the teacher’s time and
other resources with peers; classmates differ from one another in ability and
experience, requiring many of them to deal with an instructional tempo not suited to
their interest or preparation; and they are governed by a set of rules about personal
acts such as talking, moving around, and attending to physical needs. In short, schools
are not user-friendly.
2.
Some students are more ready than others to deal with these conditions – a
readiness that comes from the attributes they bring to the classroom. These facilitate
classroom learning by increasing motivation to achieve, promoting on-task behavior,
and simplifying the task of the teacher. These dispositions are not primarily cognitive,
in the usual sense, but a cluster of socio-emotional tendencies. They include, as a
partial list, the following: (a) willingness to master skills and engage in tasks, whether
appealing or not; (b) readiness to accept the curriculum of the school; (c) willingness
to accept the rules of the school and authority of the teacher; (d) ability to concentrate
and to persist in tasks and complete them on time; (e) readiness to monitor one’s own
behavior and performance, giving attention to detail and to quality of work; (f) ability
to work independently outside of school or in the classroom while the teacher is
engaged with other students; and (g) willingness to accept rules of social behavior
necessary for learning in groups.
3.
Teachers can deal with the aversive conditions intrinsic in schooling by
promoting adaptive dispositions or can mitigate their impact by using techniques that
engage the student and make the learning situation more appealing, or both. Some
cultures – in this discussion, Japan – seem to be particularly concerned about
developing adaptive dispositions in students. Other cultures focus more on modifying
the classroom environment. We suggest that international discrepancies in
achievement arise in part from differences in the relative emphasis on these strategies.
4.
The idea that there is an interaction between dispositions and the conditions of
schooling follows Epstein’s (1983) elaboration of the ATI model to apply to
interactions between attributes acquired outside the school and the classroom climate
created by the teacher. We extend this frame to include cultures as sources of
students’ adaptive dispositions.
5.
The evidence we present is intended to be persuasive and illustrative rather than
definitive. It draws primarily from studies of Japanese and American families and
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schools, but the underlying principles apply to other comparisons both within and
between nations. Much of the evidence offered here comes from our longitudinal
study of socialization and education in Japan and the United States (Azumea,
Kashiwagi, & Hess, 1982; Hess, Azuma et al., 1986). The purpose of the study was to
analyze differences between the two countries in the way families prepared children
for schooling. Our data are supplemented by results from opinion surveys, laboratory
studies, and observation of families, included not as a full review of relevant research,
but as evidence that our results are not idiosyncratic.
6.
We worked with mothers and their four-year-old preschool children (58 families
in Japan and 67 in the United States), gathering data when the children were four, five
and six years of age and in a follow-up study when children in Japan were 11 years
old (Grade 5) and when those in the United States were age 12 (Grade 6). In the first
study, mothers were interviewed, children were given a variety of tasks to elicit
school-relevant behavior, and mother-child pairs worked together on three tasks. At
the follow-up period, both mothers and children were interviewed separately on their
beliefs about the reasons why children did well or did not do well in school. Children
were also given tests of mathematics skill and vocabulary. Although the research
groups were samples of convenience, not representative of the two countries in a
statistical sense, they came from comparable socioeconomic (SES) levels and
urban/rural areas of residence in the two countries.
Parents’ Goals in Japan and the United States
7.
The belief of parents in Japan and the United States, although overlapping,
sketch distinctive definitions of the kind of persons they want their children to
become. In our study, data on the behavior that parents desire came from responses to
the developmental Expectations Questionnaire (Hess, Kashiwagi, Azuma, Price, &
Dickson, 1980), an instrument that asked mothers to indicate the age at which they
expected their child to master specific skills. Expecting early mastery was considered
to be an indicator of high priority. The largest divergence between the two groups was
on items concerned with emotional maturity (e.g., “Does not cry easily.”) For a scale
on which 1 = age six years or older, and 3 = younger than four years old, the mean
for Japanese (J).) mothers was 2.49; for American (U.S.) mothers, 2.08, a significantly
older age. The groups also differed significantly on items dealing with compliance:
for example, “Comes or answers when called” (J. = 2.16; U.S. = 1.96). American
mothers expected other types of competence at earlier ages: social skills, for example,
“Takes initiative in playing with others” (J. = 1.86; U.S. = 2.18); and verbal
assertiveness, for example, “Asks for explanations when in doubt” (J. = 1.73; U.S. =
2.18). The smallest differences appeared on items about school-related skills.
8.
These results are congruent with an opinion survey conducted by the Japanese
Office of the Prime Minister (Sorifu, 1982). Five hundred mothers in Japan and 500 in
the United States selected the three most important items out of 13 that described
desirable characteristics of children. Words chosen most frequently by Japanese
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mothers were basic habits (every-day self-care practices, 34.1%), compliance
(37.8%), and patience (31.9%). In contrast, American mothers more often selected
independence (41.7%), basic habits (34.1%), and tolerance of differences of opinion
(31.1%). Compliance was selected by only 9.5% of American mothers, and patience
was selected by only 19.7%. The Japanese mothers stressed diligence; American
mothers were more concerned with independence and acceptance of diversity.
9.
These distinctions are consistent with other studies, summarized by Yamamura
(1986) and White and LeVine (1986), which conclude that in Japan a child is thought
to be good if he or she is “obedient in good grace” (sunao), “mild and gentle”
(otonashii), and “self-controlled” (jiseishin ga aru). In the United States, the “good
child” is more likely to be assertive, independent, courteous, and socially competent
with peers.
10. Thus Japanese mothers favor skills that promote group cooperation and
compliance with authority; American mothers expect children to develop initiative
and verbal assertiveness – skills that promote independence and effective interaction
with peers. Qualities of self-control, patience, harmony, and compliance are more
likely to facilitate a smooth transition to conventional school cultures than are
qualities of verbal assertiveness, independence, and taking initiative.
Preparing Children to be Students
11. Although such cultural goals for children refer to general behavior, it is no
surprise that parents expect children to exhibit such characteristics in their encounters
with teachers. Adults in Japan are particularly eager to prepare the child to be diligent
and to cooperate with the teacher. In the United States, more concern is focused on
acquiring academic (especially verbal) skills, independence, and self-reliance. One
questionnaire study (Tobin, Wu, & Davidson, 1989) of 300 Japanese and 210
American administrators and parents on beliefs about what children should learn in
preschools illustrates these contrasts: perseverance (J. = 16%; U.S. = 5%);
sympathy/empathy/concern for others (J. = 80%; U.S. = 39%); beginning reading and
math skills (J. = 1%; U.S. = 22%); self-reliance/self-confidence (J. = 44%; U.S. =
73%); communication skills (J. = 5%; U.S. = 38%); good health/hygiene/grooming
habits (J. = 49%; U.S. = 7%); and creativity (J. = 30%; U.S. = 37%).
12. Parents also orient children towards their roles as students by instilling beliefs
about the causes of failure and success in school and the degree to which the child is
responsible for performance. Mothers and children in Japan tend to see the causes of
performance as internal; their counterparts in the United States more often include
sources that are beyond the child’s control and thus not the child’s responsibility.
13. Data supporting this contrast came from the follow-up phase of our study.
Mothers and their children, who were then 11-12 years old, responded to questions
about why students succeed or fail in mathematics by assigning 10 points among six
possible causes for level of achievement. On reasons for failure, the responses of
Japanese mothers peaked sharply on “lack of effort”. On a scale from 0-10, Japanese
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mothers had a mean score of 6.17 and a median of 6. The next highest alternative was
“lack of ability”, with a mean of 1.48.
14. American mothers assigned blame more often to sources outside the child or
over which the child had little control. Lack of effort, while a major player, was less
salient than in Japan (U.S. = 3.09 vs. 6.17 for Japan); lack of ability was given more
weight (U.S. = 2.62 vs. 1.48 for Japan), and more blame was also placed on the
schools (U.S. = 2.26 vs. 0.77 for Japan).
15. The two groups of children also showed contrasts, with even more emphasis by
American children on lack of ability (U.S. = 3.38 vs. 1.93 in Japan) and less on lack
of effort (U.S. = 1.98 vs. 3.58 in Japan). American children were also more likely to
blame the school for the child’s lack of success. One consequence of students’
blaming failure on conditions that they cannot control (ability, external factors) is that
they are then less likely to make an effort to improve their performance (Holloway &
Hess, 1984).
16. Although parental behavior is guided by ideas about what they would like their
children to become, these parental concepts are in turn shaped by cultural norms. In
societies with considerable internal consensus, these expectations take on the force of
public definitions of social behavior. In Japan,
the child is trained to conform to the norm governing the role he happens
to be playing. The role is first defined by sex, age, and birth order.
Generally, younger children are more indulged than older children, but
each child is told to behave properly “like” a male child or “like” a female
child. The child may also be instructed to behave “like” the son of a
farmer, a merchant, a doctor, and so forth. Such role discipline increases
when the child reaches school age. He is told that now that he is a
schoolboy he must obey his teacher. The parents go so far as to undermine
their own authority by stressing the schoolteacher’s authority. The child
learns his new role as a pupil in a rather abrupt way, and is motivated to
concentrate his energy on performing the role. (Lebra, 1976, p. 151)
17. In Japan, such role definitions add a powerful external incentive for conformity
because publicly defined roles are enforced by a wide range of adults in the child’s
life, including strangers.
Dispositions Begin in Preschool
18. If student characteristics are indeed culturally based rather than, or as well as,
products of schooling itself, we would expect them to appear during the preschool
years. This seems to be the case. Even casual observations of preschool classes reveal
national differences in children’s behavior. For example, visitors to Japanese nursery
schools from other countries are often puzzled at the sight of more than 30 three-yearold children sitting quietly on the floor of a classroom, listening attentively to the
teacher, who is often a young and inexperienced girl. Frequently, the visitor’s first
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guess is that the exuberance of students is held in check by strict discipline, but closer
examination shows that this is not so (Lewis, 1984).
19. Cultural distinctions appeared in the problem-solving strategies of four-year-old
preschoolers in our study. Japanese children took more time to solve tasks and made
fewer errors than did their American counterparts. These differences were observed in
three activities: the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF), a tactile-visual crossmodal instrument developed for the study; and the Draw-A-Circle-Slowly Task, a
technique designed to assess impulsiveness.
20. The MFF presented the child with several pages of line drawings of familiar
figures (e.g., kite, cat) on one page (the standard), while a facing page showed an
array of five similar drawings, only one of which was exactly like the standard. The
task was to select the figure that exactly corresponded to the model. Performance was
measured by accuracy and delay-time to first choice. American children, as a group,
waited 57.5 seconds across the set of drawings and made 11.4 errors. Japanese
children took much more time, waiting 76.5 seconds, and also made fewer errors
(9.9). Other studies show a similar pattern (Sallkind, Kojima, & Zelniker, 1978; Smith
& Caplan, 1988).
21. In the cross-modal transfer task, children were shown a small box with a door
covered by a cloth. The tester placed (out of view of the child) a small abstract plastic
shape inside the box. The child could feel the object with her or his hand but could not
see it. The child’s task was to explore the object in the box with his or her fingers and
select the correct corresponding figure from an array displayed on a page next to the
box. Again, the Japanese children took longer on this task (80.5 seconds) than did the
children from the U.S. (55.3 seconds). They also made slightly fewer errors (4.8 vs.
4.4). The third task, Draw-A-Circle-Slowly, required the child to draw a circle as
“slowly as you can”. Again, on average, Japanese children took more time to
complete the task: Japan = 16.5 seconds to 11.5 seconds for children in the United
States.
22. The difference in persistence and attention to instructions observed in these
tasks indicate that ideals and values expressed by parents appear in the behavior of
children before they reach the classroom.
Cultivating Adaptive Dispositions
23. In both Japan and the United States, the interaction of parents with their children
is consistent with the dispositions they want their children to acquire. We distinguish
between two distinctive but overlapping cultural modes through which cultural
transmission takes place: osmosis, in which nurturance, interdependence, and close
physical proximity provide exposure to adult values and instil a readiness on the part
of the child to imitate, accept, and internalize such values, and teaching, in which
direct instruction, injunctions, frequent dialogue, and explanations are used. Although
socialization in any culture may use both approaches, the emphasis differs from one
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culture to another. In our view, parents in Japan are more inclined to use osmosis, and
those in the United States are more inclined to use teaching.
24. The osmosis approach is best represented in Kadensho, a book written in the
13th century by a Noh play master, Zeami. Discussing how to rear children of a Noh
family who are to succeed in the family business, he advised that children not be
taught Noh dancing before they are six years old but that they should be allowed to
visit freely the studio where their parents and relatives practice. They will begin to
imitate parts of dancing spontaneously without being told. Parents are to observe them
in these initial efforts but not make any evaluational comment, either positive or
negative. Natural imitation will reveal each child’s strength.
25. Several conditions enhance osmosis: (a) a close physical proximity between the
child and her or his socializing agent for long periods of time, (b) minimizing the
difference between the child and the socializing agent, and (c) encouraging the child
to be empathic to others, particularly the socializing agent. Under these conditions, it
is as if the cognitive “film” that separates the child and the socializing agent becomes
thin and permeable; feelings and behavior patterns of the socializing agent penetrate
even without injunctions and intentional teaching.
26. A number of the differences between Japanese and American parenting reported
in many studies over the past few decades may be understood by recognizing that
Japanese practices are directed toward satisfying these conditions. The tendency of
Japanese mothers to stay physically close to their infants for a long time has often
been described. They also tend to encourage empathy by calling the child’s attention
to feelings and relationships. For example, in a block-sorting task in our study, about
half of the Japanese mothers used a family analogy (e.g., calling the tall blocks
“parents” and the short blocks “little sister”) at least once in the interaction. American
mothers rarely used such images.
27. Empathy is also encouraged in disciplinary encounters. In an interview about
strategies that mothers would use to stop undesirable behavior or encourage desired
responses, far more Japanese mothers appealed to feelings as a basis for gaining
compliance (e.g., the pain the farmer who grew the vegetable would feel if the
vegetable he grew were not eaten). In this interview, we used six hypothetical
situations that would often elicit intervention (e.g., “Imagine that your child is here
and that you found that she had been writing on the wall. What would you say?”).
Other situations were refusing to eat vegetables at dinner, refusing to brush teeth,
running around in a grocery market, and the like (Conroy, Hess, Azuma, &
Kashiwagi, 1980). On these items American mothers relied more often on commands
and status (U.S. = 50%; J. = 18%); the Japanese relied more on appeals to feelings
(U.S. = 7%; J. = 22%) and consequences (U.S. = 23%; J. = 37%). The two groups
were evenly divided on appeals to rules (U.S. = 16%; J. = 15%). Appeals to authority
and rules, with the implicit threats of punishment or rewards, thus accounted for two-
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thirds of mothers’ responses in the United States but for only one-third in Japan,
where feelings and consequences were more favored.
28. In these situations, Japanese mothers tended to avoid explicit confrontation lest
it damage the closeness with their child. In encounters where the child persisted in
resisting the mother’s efforts (e.g., eat vegetables), about 20% of the Japanese
mothers who started with a firm demand for compliance gradually moderated their
demands, often yielding altogether. Except in situations that presented danger, few
mothers attempted to gain compliance by using their authority as a rationale. More
often they used a strategy of damashi – a kind of deception in which the child’s
attention was diverted so that he or she would make the compliant response without
being aware of the underlying dispute with the mother. American mothers were more
willing to take a hard line with the child, following a familiar injunction in childrearing advice to parents to be consistent in their discipline.
29. Although a close relationship between mother and child is conductive to
acquiring the mother’s behavior and values, teaching relationships, which tend to
utilize explanations and instruction, are rooted in status distinctions. The superior
knowledge and position of the teacher form the basis for persuasion.
30. Japanese mothers are much less willing than American mothers to take the role
of teacher. When we asked mothers if they had taught or would teach their child
several school-specific skills, Japanese mothers much less often reported that they
taught or should teach preschool skills – for example, letters (characters), numbers,
and shapes. However, Japanese children acquire such skills before they begin school
and may be more likely to do so than are American children (Muraishi & Amano,
1972). Although some may have been learned from schooling outside the home, it is
also likely that such skills were acquired incidentally from modeling, stimulation, and
opportunities provided by the family.
31. One example of how Japanese mothers guide their children’s problem-solving
activities was observed in a referential communication task (Dickson, Hess, Miyake,
& Azuma, 1979). This technique requires one person to describe to another an object
that the other person cannot see. Dickson used an inverted notebook with pages
presenting four figures, one of which was the target. The mother was asked to
describe this figure to the child, who was then to push a button under the correct
pattern on her or his page.
32. Analysis of the transcripts, in both English and Japanese (Miyake, 1977),
showed that American mothers focused more often on the need to produce a correct
answer while Japanese mothers encouraged their children to be more deliberate. The
task required the mother to do two things: describe the target and instruct the child to
push the button to indicate his or her choice. An American mother might say to her
child, “Can you push the red button under the picture that looks like a triangle?” A
Japanese mother might say, “I see a shape that looks like a crooked triangle. Do you
see something that looks a little bit like a triangle?”
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33. The emphasis by mothers in the United States on the button-push drew the
child’s attention to producing an answer promptly; indeed, sometimes the child
pushed before the mother completed here description. In the Japanese group,
however, the child was more likely to point to the picture before pushing the button,
as if the emphasis were on analyzing the features of the figure rather than on a prompt
physical response.
34. The distinction that Miyake’s analysis makes between “Can you …” and “Do
you …” is not trivial; it casts the task in different terms – one as a test, the other as
more of a game which, to be sure, has a goal but which also puts more emphasis on
the process. The implication of evaluation was reinforced in the United States by the
mother’s response, which was most often a signal of the correctness or incorrectness
of the child’s action: “Right,” “OK,” or “Fine.” In Japan, however, the connotation
was different. Mothers responded with Atari, meaning “hit.” While “Right” or “OK”
refer to correctness, the Japanese term Atari refers to the probabilistic chance of a
correct response – the effectiveness of efforts to reach a goal that one is approaching.
In defining the task as a game, the Japanese mothers subtly showed their tendency to
approve any response at some level.
35. The Japanese method of socializing children typically relies on modeling, while
Western methods predominantly use a hedonistically oriented (i.e., reward-based)
training strategy. The keys for the former are attention to and close identification with
others. The keys for the latter are to set one’s own goal, be clear about what one
wants, and view socializing persons as “others” in a position of authority, able to offer
punishments or rewards contingent on one’s behavior. Their influence depends on
their explicit authority – the ability to deliver rewards or sanctions – not solely on
their place in a social network.
Efficiency versus Reflectiveness in Japanese Education
36. Teachers in both countries facilitate the child’s encounter with the school but in
different ways. In Japan, they exploit and encourage adaptive dispositions that
students bring to the classroom. In the United States, they are more likely to try to
alter the conditions that students confront. These different strategies produce quite
different educational climates in the two countries.
37. The common perception that instruction in Japanese classrooms consists
primarily of drill and repetition deserves a note of historical context. In Japanese
classroom instruction, two major, apparently conflicting, trends seem to coexist, with
roots in an osmosis orientation of socialization. One is the traditional belief that
repetition is a route to understanding – a tendency to mold the learner’s response into
a required form prior to analytical understanding.
38. This ancient tradition, most typically seen in the training of classical performing
artists (Noh plays are an obvious example), continues to influence behavior of
teachers. In Japan, to defend the use of repetition, the teacher may quote old sayings
and proverbs: “Read it one hundred times, and understanding will follow
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spontaneously.” “First master the pattern. Then you can outgrow the pattern.”
“Practice so it becomes automatic, rather than trying to learn intellectually.”
39. This custom of learning traditional knowledge and skills through repetition is
not unique to the Japanese. It is a powerful socializing technique, designed to transmit
adult norms unchanged, used in societies that are relatively closed and resistant to
change. Japan was a closed state until quite recently, about 150 years ago, and much
national tradition was carried forward into modern-school education.
40. Reading in chorus and answering in unison are techniques frequently used in
Japanese classes. When the class answers in unison, even a child who does not quite
understand can act as if he or she knows the right answer. This is a commitment to
producing an accurate response, and it helps the child incorporate standards of quality.
41. When carried to an extreme that neglects the goal of understanding, such preoccupation with procedure may turn into what Hatano (1983) has characterized as
efficiency orientation. Procedural orientation is adaptive to efficiency-driven
situations. When a student is to take an entrance examination and has little time to
prepare, memorizing algorithms is clearly a workable method for coping with
conventional examination questions – a technique consistent with the Japanese belief
in the utility of effort.
42. Efficiency orientation is, perhaps, a form of imitation that degenerated under the
pressure of modernization in Japan and the emergence of “examination hell.”
Traditionally, the use of imitation did not ignore the importance of understanding. On
the contrary – procedural mastery was seen as an essential route to conceptual understanding. However, as Hatano pointed out, this secondary goal can easily be forgotten
when the need for efficiency is urgent, as it was in Japan in the late 19th century.
Convinced of a need to achieve quickly the level of productivity that had been
attained in Western countries across two or more centuries, the Japanese felt that
efficiency was imperative. The product took precedence over the basic process.
“Sticky-Probing versus “Quick and Snappy”
43. The thoroughness that comes from repetition and the emphasis on understanding
in Japan led to a unique teaching process when they interacted with the task-loyal
receptive diligence of Japanese tradition. We call this the sticky-probing approach
(Azuma, 1983). The modus operandi of this approach is to select a seemingly small
problem that most of the children would not otherwise notice, probe into it through
deliberative group discussion and teacher-pupil exchange, and thus spend
considerable time on reflecting, examining, and digesting the problem. It is not
unusual to find a fourth-grade teacher spending two class hours discussing only two
haiku, that is, two short 17-syllable poems. Indeed, the reading textbook in Japan
barely exceeds 100 pages even at the upper grade levels, but 300 classroom hours are
allotted to study these pages – three hours to each page! This kind of “sticky probing”
demands patience and compliance because children must resist feelings of satiation
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and boredom. They are expected to stay with a topic, and to examine an issue from
several perspectives, rather than to push quickly for a solution or “correct” answer.
44. The Japanese strategy differs sharply from a common American style that
emphasizes dividing lessons into small steps or concepts, each of which is quickly
mastered, promptly rewarded, and identified as a correct term, concept, or procedure.
45. Some examples illustrate this contrast. In a study of science education, Azume
and Walberg (1985) compared Japanese and American teaching processes. Fifthgrade teachers, four in each country, were asked to teach their pupils about the
dissolution of substance in water and to ask students to conduct an experiment. The
classroom processes were tape-recorded and video-taped.
46. The topics discussed were usually different in the two countries. All four
American classes discussed what they planned or were going to do, the procedures
that would be followed, and precautions that they should take. The teacher asked
questions that could be answered in short sentences. Clear feedback or
acknowledgment from the teacher immediately followed each child’s response. The
exchange moved at a brisk pace. Convergence of ideas was not a goal. Often the
teacher allowed the discussion to end without a summary statement or conclusion.
The American classes that we observed were clear and snappy, encouraging divergent
fluency. “Anything else? Anything different?” was the stimulus to which children
kept responding. The discussion kept moving on, as if to linger on the same phase or
idea might threaten fluency or lose the students’ attention.
47. All four Japanese classes, however, spent considerable time lingering over a
substantive question, such as how to ascertain the density of a salt solution without
testing it, whether or not some of the weight of the substance would get lost when it
dissolved in water, whether salty taste is evidence of salty substance, and the like. The
teacher probed and focused, seldom gave clear feedback, and kept his own position
vague. At the same time he made sure that the discussion concentrated on the problem
he posed at the beginning. After a lengthy discussion that divided the class into groups
holding different opinions, an experiment was planned and executed as a means of
resolving the conflict. These experiments were carefully designed to persuade
students to adopt a conclusion that the teacher approved.
48. The Japanese classes were generally “sticky.” The core of the sticky impression
was taking time on the same topic, looking at it from varied perspectives and in a
variety of conceptual frameworks. Teachers were successful in making children think,
often to an impressive degree. Success, however, depended heavily upon the cooperation of the children with the teacher. Children accepted the problem set by the
teacher as their problem, concentrated on the topic, and took a long time to discuss
and probe deeply. These observations are consistent with the findings of Stigler and
Perry (1988), who report that teachers of mathematics in Sendai, Japan, dealt with
fewer topics within a given time span than did teachers in Chicago and that in Japan
more time segments included explanations from teachers and students.
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49. Thus molding-through-repetition and the sticky-probe approach, two traditions
of Japanese educational practice that otherwise look quite dissimilar, share one feature
in common. Students must be ready with facilitating response tendencies: Be
compliant rather than self-assertive, work hard without immediate feedback, persist,
tolerate satiation, and the like.
50. In Japan, teachability is an internalized receptive diligence that does not depend
primarily on the attractiveness of the curriculum or the teacher’s presentation. The
term “internalized” is of particular significance: Overt control by the teacher is
minimal, and feedback is scarce. Students perceive the situation, realize what is
expected of them, and concentrate on living up to the teacher’s expectation.
51. Teachers in Japan begin to encourage these adaptive dispositions in the early
grades. Lewis’s (1988) observations of 15 Japanese first-grade classrooms in Tokyo
project an image of Japanese teachers who emphasize several supportive qualities:
social and emotional development, such as praising other students’ performance,
making friends, getting along in a group, including other children, feeling relaxed and
emotionally stable; procedures that make for smooth operation of the class –
arranging desk contents, using the bathroom, walking in the halls, sitting properly,
handwashing; and encouraging responsibility for self and for the class – leading the
class in opening and closing greetings, introducing the class period, announcing the
subject to be studied, following goals and schedules posted on the walls. Establishing
their own authority is not the teachers’ primary goal. One teacher said, in response to
a question about the most important thing to be learned during the first months of
school, “Following rules? I don’t want to create children who obey (just) because I’m
here. I want children who know what to do themselves and who learn to judge things
themselves” (Lewis, 1988, p. 164). Early training at school thus supports and
continues the socialization experiences of the preschool and out-of-school worlds.
Motivation, American Style
52. The two styles – sticky-probing and quick-and-snappy – rely on different
concepts of motivation. The internalized sense of diligence and receptiveness fits
uncomfortably into the more familiar American concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation. In the United States, the teacher often provides specific stimuli or a
stimulus environment that appeals to the children, engages them with encouragement
and feedback, and moves on briskly.
53. One version of what constitutes effective teaching in American classrooms is
described by Brophy and Good (1986) in their chapter in the Handbook of Research
on Teaching. These excerpts illustrate our point:
General Principles. [italics added]
3. The difficulty level of questions and tasks should be easy enough to allow the
lesson to move along at a brisk pace…
Cultural Support for Schooling: Japan and the U.S. / 12
445
450
455
460
465
470
475
480
Programming for Continuous Progress.
3.
Pace. Both progress through the curriculum and pacing within specific
activities should be brisk, producing continuous progress achieved with
relative ease (small steps, high success rate).
4.
Error rate. Expect to get correct answers to about 80% …. Continue
with practice and review until smooth, rapid, correct performance is achieved
…. (p. 328)
54. Although not without critics, this approach represents one of the prevalent views
of teaching in the United States. Children are enticed into working by presenting tasks
in easy steps, by assuring prompt success, and by moving briskly from a completed
problem to a new one. The teacher does not count on internalized diligence; the
stimulus environment is designed to induce interest and create a motivation to work
on the task.
55. The spirit that organized the “new curricula” movement in the United States in
the 1960s encouraged discovery and deeper problem solving. To render a discovery
“meaningful,” the solution of the problem should not be immediately obvious nor the
step size too small. The goal was to utilize intrinsic motivation, tapping an inherent
curiosity and desire for knowledge. The construct of intrinsic motivation expanded the
concept of motivation beyond reward and punishment. Teachers made material more
meaningful, relevant, exciting, briskly paced, and individualized to sustain the
intrinsic motivation of learners. In the ideal case, the atmosphere produced was free,
colorful, and pleasantly noisy.
56. We suggest, however, that when these ideas are applied in classrooms, it
appears that curiosity, exploration, and involvement are usually induced by the
stimulus, not brought to the situation by students. Perceived dissonance stimulates an
inclination to find a solution to reduce the apparent inconsistency. Indeed, new
science classes often start with a demonstration of an unusual, interest-catching
phenomenon on which involvement could be based. Thus “intrinsic motivation” is to
some degree also stimulus regulated. From a more traditional strategy of teaching by
reward and punishment (still often used) to the recent trends, the primary method of
motivating students in the United States has become the managing of the social
context of learning to provide stimulation.
57. This approach acknowledges the individuality, separateness, and independence
of the student. The teacher and curriculum must earn the student’s attention. Students
are less likely to be blamed for inattention if the topic and presentation are not
appealing. However, it also adds to the task of the teacher, who not only attends to the
details and strategies of presenting subject matter but also takes responsibility for
engaging the interest of the class. The success and quality of schools are judged by
their ability to arouse interest in the student.
58. Given this difference between Japanese and American classrooms in
motivational styles, we would expect that students’ dispositions in each country
Cultural Support for Schooling: Japan and the U.S. / 13
485
490
495
500
505
510
515
520
would respond selectively to the nature of specific tasks. Data from our study suggest
that this is indeed the case.
59. Five-year-old children who could work carefully and diligently on a relatively
uninteresting task were more able to profit from Japanese schooling than those who
could not. This disposition did not correlate with success in American schools. The
children in the United States who worked effectively on tasks that aroused curiosity
gained more from schooling than those who did not. This relationship in Japan was
similar but less conspicuous.
60. Behavior of these children on a relatively unstructured task showed congruent
patterns. Ratings of persistence correlated with later achievement for Japanese
children (r = .56), but not for American children (r = .13); ratings of independence/
originality showed significant correlations for the American group (r = .39) but not
for Japanese (r = .11).
Discussion
61. The suggestion that adaptive dispositions are prerequisite to successful
schooling in formal settings raises a question about the role of congruence between
the culture of the home and that of the school. We suggest that home-school
congruence is relevant primarily where it touches the dispositions that formal
schooling requires – a topic that we believe deserves systematic, serious attention,
including more formal analysis of the demands that different kinds of educational
settings present (e.g., lecture, small group, computer-based, open schools).
62. If questions of similarity were paramount, students who are taken from their
own culture and placed in other distinctly dissimilar cultures would usually encounter
difficulty. However, this is not necessarily what happens. Students from Japan adapt
readily to American classrooms; Japanese and some other Asian students find favor
with teachers in the United States (Muro, 1988; Wong, 1980), and Japanese students
achieve very well at all levels in schools in the United States (see Sue & Okazaki,
1990, for a discussion of evidence and alternative explanations). The reverse,
however, seems not to be the case. We know of no studies of American students in
Japanese schools, but the experience of many Japanese children who were educated
for a time outside of Japan is relevant. After a few years abroad, upon returning to
Japan they often experience difficulty with the scripts of school life – how to deal
with peers and teachers (Azuma, Nakazawa, &Yamawaki, 1980; Muro, 1988).
63. The value placed on performance in schools plays a powerful mediating role
and may be the most important of the adaptive dispositions. The qualities of
autonomy and initiative, so prized in American culture, do not in themselves interfere
with learning in group situations. Many reports of computer-based learning indicate
high involvement of students. Also many of the constricting features of schooling are
also present in team sports, where compliance with the authority of coach and referee
and cooperation with peers are required.
Cultural Support for Schooling: Japan and the U.S. / 14
525
530
535
540
64. In sports, however, students value achievement and even within constraints,
qualities of autonomy and initiative contribute to success. Students in the United
States have little difficulty in adapting to the restrictive rules of team sports. Their
difficulty with academic achievement, we suggest, comes in part from the discrepancy
in importance placed by the public on sports and that placed on performance in the
classroom. The importance of achievement overrides values of separateness and
individuality.
65. Where education is valued, as in professional and graduate schools, dispositions
of initiative, independence, and verbal assertiveness in the United States are no barrier
to success. It is at the early grade levels that students’ sense of the importance of
education is dependent on community support. Without such support for achievement,
an emphasis on independence and initiative makes the teacher’s task more difficult.
Engaging students becomes a major goal of instructional strategy, a formidable task
for teachers in classes that encompass extreme diversity of culture and income.
66. Some schools in the United States build effectively on qualities of independence
and initiative. To do so, we suggest, they have created microcultures encompassing
the community and school in which education is given extraordinarily high value.
Creating such educational cultures requires extreme effort; it is not likely to be
achieved solely by administrative reforms or changes in the curriculum.
Cultural Support for Schooling: Japan and the U.S. / 15
Answer in your own words in English, unless otherwise indicated.
1.
What do the first five paragraphs suggest about the connection between the
overall culture in which learning is carried on and educational norms prevailing
in the said culture?
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
2.
Judging by the information provided in paragraphs 7-8 (mainly 8), what do the
Japanese and American mothers expect of their offspring?
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
3.
Explain how the attitudes of the American mothers, as indicated in paragraphs
12-14, are not necessarily consistent with independence and self-reliance.
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
Answer the question below in Hebrew.
4.
How would you – in the terms of this article – account for American acceptance
of diversity on the one hand and Japanese insistence on conformity on the other
hand? (Think in terms of population composition.)
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
5.
Answer the question below in English.
What does the example of the three-year-old nursery school children –
paragraph 18 – suggest?
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
Answer the question below in Hebrew.
6.
What characteristics did the Japanese children on the one hand and the
American children on the other hand – paragraphs 19-22 – display in their
problem solving games?
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
Cultural Support for Schooling: Japan and the U.S. / 16
7.
8.
Answer the question below in English.
Japanese society is commonly perceived as subjecting its children to harsh
discipline and regimentation; in what sense can the behaviour of Japanese
mothers – paragraphs 23-33 – towards their children be said to contradict these
perceptions?
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
Answer the question below in English.
Describe the way Japanese mothers treat their unruly children – paragraphs 2730 – and compare it with that of their American counterparts.
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
Answer the question below in Hebrew.
9.
How could the Japanese insistence on repetition and learning by rote –
paragraphs 36-40 – be attributed to either past or present political or social
circumstances?
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
Answer the question below in Hebrew.
10. What particular circumstances may have led – paragraph 42 – to the educational
system in Japan turning into an “examination hell”?
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
Choose the best answer.
11. The methods of instruction practised in American and Japanese schools –
paragraphs 45-60 – may suggest that the latter are not necessarily conducive to
a. discipline.
b. good manners.
c. social harmony.
d. individual creativity.
Cultural Support for Schooling: Japan and the U.S. / 17
12.
Answer the question below in English.
Which of the two schooling systems - American or Japanese – paragraphs 52 –
57 – is likely to make the teacher’s job both more difficult and more
challenging? (Elaborate)
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
Answer the question below in Hebrew.
13. What qualities – paragraphs 61-66 – are encouraged and enhanced by the
American schooling system?
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
14.
Answer the question below in English.
How could the qualities emphasized in team sports – paragraph 64 –
conceivably conflict with those stressed in the American schools?
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
Summary Question – Answer in Hebrew.
15. What are the qualities fostered in the Japanese schooling system on the one
hand and in the American school system on the other hand?
Answer : ____________________________________________________________
Cultural Support for Schooling: Japan and the U.S. / 18