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ABSTRACTHigh discipline/high joy.
Chinese classrooms present an intriguing paradox to the claim of self-determination theory that autonomy facilitates learning. Chinese teachers appear to be controlling, but Chinese students do not have poor academic performance in international comparisons. The present study addressed this paradox by examining the cultural differences in students' interpretation of teacher controlling behaviors. Affective meanings of teacher controlling behaviors were solicited from 158 Chinese 5th graders and 115 American 5th graders. It was found that the same controlling behaviors of teachers had different affective meanings for different cultural groups (Chinese vs. American) and for groups with different levels of social-emotional relatedness with teachers (high vs. low). Chinese children perceived the behaviors as less controlling than American children and, in turn, reported that they were more motivated in their teachers' class than American children. Regardless of culture, children with high social-emotional relatedness with teachers perceived the behaviors as less controlling than children with low social-emotional relatedness with teachers. It was also found that internalization mediated the relation between social-emotional relatedness and children's learning motivation in both cultures. The findings revealed cultural differences as well as similarities in the psychological process of internalization.
The Chinese Classroom Paradox: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Teacher Controlling Behaviors
Zhou, Ning 1; Lam, Shui-Fong 1; Chan, Kam Chi 2
Journal of Educational Psychology
Publish Ahead of Print, 19 March 2012
The secret of success.
The Jesuits figured it out 400 years ago.
US public schools forgot it back in the 1960s, I think. The 60s, or maybe not 'til 1985.
update 9/11/2012:
Doug Lemov on warm/strict
all Teach Like a Champion posts
5 comments:
Doesn't the article say that Chinese kids and white (?) American kids respond differently to the "same teacher controlling behaviors"? This suggests that what works in China may not work in the U.S.
I started to write a comment and it turned into such a rant that I wrote a blog post instead:
High joy? High discipline?
Doesn't the article say that Chinese kids and white (?) American kids respond differently to the "same teacher controlling behaviors"?
The article defines a subset of students in both cultures who react positively to the teacher controlling behaviors. Regardless of culture, children with high social-emotional relatedness with teachers perceived the behaviors as less controlling than children with low social-emotional relatedness with teachers. It was also found that internalization mediated the relation between social-emotional relatedness and children's learning motivation in both cultures. The findings revealed cultural differences as well as similarities in the psychological process of internalization.
Of related interest is
David Geary's article "Computational and reasoning abilities in arithmetic: Cross-generational change in China and the United States" published in 1997.
From the abstract:
A Chinese advantage over Americans was found for economically relevant computational and rea-soning abilities in arithmetic for groups of 6th- and 12th-grade students matched or equated on general intelligence. No cross-national difference for computational or reasoning abilities was found for sam-ples of older (60- to 80-year-old) Chinese and American adults equated on general intelligence. The pattern of change in arithmetical competencies across cohorts suggests that the Chinese advantage in 6th and 12th grade is due to a cross-generational decline in competencies in the United States and a cross-generational improvement in China.
From the article:
For computational arithmetic, individuals who started elemen-tary school in the 1920s and 1930s outperform--once age-related changes in processing speed are taken into account—individuals who began their primary education just after World War II (i.e., 1945), who, in turn, outperform individuals who began elementary school in the mid-1960s or later (Schaie, 1996).
I just skimmed the article, but my take-away is Barry's: if the relationship is warm, kids don't perceive the teacher as "controlling."
That's pretty much the essence of authoritative parenting as Laurence Steinberg describes it. Authoritative parents are warm AND strict.
We have decades of research showing that the children of warm/strict parents fare better in school & friendship.
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