Sawako Suzuki analyzes the perceived effectiveness of the school system in Japan and questions the transferability of Japanese educational methods from their embedded socio-cultural context into American classrooms.

Sawako Suzuki is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley.

Author's note: I thank Susan Holloway for her helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. Please contact the author for a copy of the longer version of this article.

The proliferation of Japanese technology and the rise of Japan's economy in the early 1980s captured worldwide attention. In the United States especially, educators and scholars became curious about the secret behind the success of Japanese corporations and the Japanese educational system.

Since then, cross-national research projects comparing children's academic performances have been increasing in number and in scope, with researchers focusing in particular on math and science education. Such studies have consistently found Asian children's performance in mathematics to be markedly higher than that of students in the West, and since mathematics is fundamental for any scientific discipline, the United States has become seriously concerned about their children's comparatively poor performance. Eager to capture the key ingredients to the successful mathematical teaching methods used in Asian countries, many social scientists have been studying the differences between the educational systems of the East and the West.

Mass media in the U.S. has painted a rather rosy picture of the Japanese educational system - that it is successful in producing serious, diligent and smart students. On the other hand, recent news in Japan has been filled with depressing stories of bullying (ijime), child suicide and outrageous youth crimes. Moreover, two current social problems of the Japanese society are directly related to schools, one of which is gakkyu hokai. Instruction is becoming impossible in an increasing number of classrooms due to uncontrollable behaviors of students. This phenomenon is prevalent across the nation in grades as low as first grade. Another problem is futoko - an increasing number of students are refusing to attend school and are staying home. Indeed, there exists a great discrepancy between American and Japanese perceptions of the effectiveness of the Japanese school system.

In addition to the limited range of information presented in the media, a biased picture has also emerged from educational research in the U.S., which emphasizes only certain aspects of observable educational variables. Social scientists in general have been studying human beings for centuries, seeking universal theories as sound as those of the hard sciences. As a result, disciplines like psychology and sociology have in many ways attempted to utilize the scientific method of the hard sciences. Behaviorism, in the 20^th century, was one of the schools of thought that attempted to align psychology with rigorous sciences. It dealt only with observable behavioral acts that could be described objectively in terms of stimulus and response. From a behavioristic perspective, a certain stimulus given to a "black box" produced a particular response, and all humans were identical "black boxes."

Researchers have come to realize, however, that not all "black boxes" function in an identical manner. Humans are not free from cultural influences, and the lenses through which they observe certain phenomenon are inevitably colored by their cultural backgrounds. People from different cultures may interpret the same phenomena differently or may "attend to different aspects of the same phenomena". In other words, a stimulus observed in one culture may be viewed differently and have different functions in another culture. Therefore, a more accurate assessment requires us to put the "numbers" gathered from research on Japanese classrooms back into their cultural context and view classroom dynamics from a Japanese student's perspective.

This article reevaluates the major comparative studies on Japanese and American classroom instructions conducted by Harold Stevenson and his colleagues during the last two decades - a large-scale research, which had great impact on education, psychology, and public policy. The limited (and occasionally distorted) scope of Japanese classrooms that a behavioristic approach provides us will be contrasted against the breadth of insights that studies of cultural psychology and ethnographies bring to us. Personal anecdotes and opinions of children who experienced learning in a Japanese classroom are also introduced.

Cross-national Studies on Mathematical Achievement

Many cross-national studies focusing on math and science achievement have been conducted since the late 20^th century, and Harold Stevenson's team was one of the pioneers who set the scene. After conducting two sequent studies, Stevenson and Stigler stated recommendations for educational reform in the United States, based on their interpretations of the two studies. The design of the two studies are introduced below, followed by discussions of the significant findings and the recommendations made by Stevenson and Stigler.

The Initial Stevenson Study (Study 1)

Stevenson and his research team began their extensive, longitudinal cross-national study of academic achievement among American, Japanese and Chinese children in the early 1980s. The data for the first study was collected during 1979-1980 and consisted of mathematics and reading tests, parental interviews and classroom observations. This article focuses on the mathematical component of the Stevenson study. Because mathematical development is largely believed to be a direct product of classroom instruction, an assessment of the results may be reflective of the different characteristics of educational practices in the United States and in Japan.

Subjects

Stevenson's study assessed first- and fifth-grade children from Japan, China and the United States. The American participants were from the Minneapolis metropolitan area, and less than 4% were non-Caucasian. All but four of the American participants were born in the United States, and the sample consisted mostly of English-speaking students of Northern European descent. In Japan, the city of Sendai, located 240 km northeast of Tokyo, was chosen since it closely resembled the Minneapolis metropolitan area in terms of size, economic success, predominant base in light industry and cultural status within their respective countries. All but two of the Japanese subjects in Sendai were born in Japan. Taipei was chosen as the Chinese site; however, given the focus of this article, further discussion will be limited to only the Japanese and American populations.

The research group, in collaboration with the local school district, carefully chose ten schools per country to represent the broader population. Among those schools, two first-grade classrooms and two fifth-grade classrooms were randomly chosen from each school. (There was a minor exception in Minneapolis; a total of 13 schools were included due to insufficient number of classrooms.) Of the 40 classrooms in each country, twelve children were randomly selected and asked to participate in the study. Two boys and two girls were chosen from each of the upper, middle and lower thirds of the distribution of reading scores. A total of 240 first-graders and 240 fifth-graders within each culture completed the assigned task administered six months into the school year. The students' ages at the time of testing were identical across the two countries - 6.8 years and 10.9 years for first- and fifth-graders respectively.

Method

Stevenson's team spent considerable time and effort constructing the mathematical test administered to all participants. After looking at all mathematical concepts introduced in one popular Japanese textbook used nationwide and in one American textbook commonly used in the Minneapolis metropolitan area, the team created a comprehensive mathematical test of 70 items including both computational and word problems in each language. The items were identical for all cultures. In addition to children's cognitive testing, the mother of each participating child was interviewed for about an hour at her home. The interview, conducted by trained local natives, generally consisted of objective questions concerning the child's study environment at home and explored the following areas: family background, parental response to child's schoolwork, amount of time child spends on homework and amount of time family member(s) help child with homework.

B. Study 2

One of the major criticisms of the first study was its limited emphasis on computational skills. To remedy this, a second study was conducted during 1985-86, which tested children of the same three nations across various mathematical dimensions. This research project was comprised of the same three components as the first study - children's cognitive testing, parental interviews and classroom observations - but across a larger sample and utilizing a slightly different methodology.

Subjects

As with the original study, subjects were first- and fifth-grade students in Japan, China, and the United States. Ten (10) schools each in Sendai, Japan and Taipei, China and 20 schools within the greater Chicago area of Illinois were chosen.

Method

In addition to the mathematical test of computational skills (with some basic geometry problems included for fifth-graders), children were given 10 more tests on mathematics-related knowledge and skills, including novel word problems, conceptual knowledge, operations, graphing, estimation, measurement, visualization, mental image transformation, mental calculation and memory for numbers.

The class observational method for the follow-up study significantly differed from the original study on two major points: (1) only mathematics instruction was observed, and (2) instead of using a time-sampling technique as in the first study, detailed narratives of the classroom were recorded. The researchers explained that, while the time-sampling technique was useful in collecting a non-biased sampling of certain teacher and student behaviors, the narratives collected in the subsequent study provided rich information of what actually went on inside the math classes. Each participating classroom was visited four separate times by a native observer over a one- or two-week period, resulting in 160 observational notes in Japanese from the Sendai schools and 320 observations recorded in English from the Chicago schools. The observers were asked to write whatever they saw in class, from teacher and student behavior to the details of the materials used.

C. Findings

The results of the initial study showed surprisingly large differences between American and Japanese children's test scores. Japanese students scored significantly higher than their American counterparts in both grades, with a larger gap in the fifth grade. Even the highest achieving American fifth-grade classroom scored lower than the lowest achieving Japanese classroom. In other words, the distribution of scores for the American and Japanese classrooms showed no overlap.

The second study yielded similarly dramatic results and exhibited largely the same pattern. Japanese first- and fifth-graders outscored their American counterparts both in computation skills and word problems. More surprisingly, however, was the fact that the same pattern persisted across mathematical-related skills such as mental image transformation, estimation, and other concepts that are not directly taught in mathematical curricula. Across all tested domains, the Japanese students outperformed American students, with the gap widening in fifth grade.

Stevenson and his colleagues considered several cultural factors in relation to schooling that may have contributed to this striking difference. One of the speculations was that the difference in curriculum was affecting the difference in achievement. However, closer examination of the student's answers and their respective curriculum refutes such a hypothesis. The educational background of the parents and the teachers and the teachers' years of experience were also examined. Surprisingly, the educational background of both parents and teachers were lower in Japan than in America, and teachers from both countries had had identical amounts of teaching experience. The children's general intellectual level was also measured using a set of verbal and nonverbal tests often used to scale intelligence. Again, no significant difference was observed between the two groups. Therefore, the dramatic difference in achievement between students in the United States and Japan could not be attributed to the differences in curriculum, the parents and teachers' educational background, the teachers' years of experience or the children's overall intelligence.

On the other hand, factors relating to classroom instruction did imply a favorable educational environment for the Japanese children. Japanese children spent considerably more time in schools than American students did (5.5 vs. 5 days a week, 240 vs. 178 days a year). Japanese fifth-graders received more time for mathematical instruction than did American fifth-graders (37.3 vs. 30.4 hours a week), though this disparity was not observed in the first-graders. Also, the proportion of time spent for math relative to other subjects greatly differed in the two cultures. Whereas the amount of time spent for language and math was identical across Japanese schools, U.S. schools showed large variability across classrooms, with substantially greater time spent for language development than for math.

Differences in the home environment also appear to benefit Japanese students. According to the mothers' reports, Japanese children spend more time on homework at home when compared to American children (37 vs. 14 minutes a weekday for first-graders, 57 vs. 46 minutes a weekday for fifth-graders). Similarly, while only 12% of American teachers regularly assigned homework during holidays and vacations, as many as 68% of Japanese teachers did so. Finally, classroom observations revealed that 65% of the Japanese students were attentive to the teacher (or whoever was leading the activity), as opposed to 46% of the U.S. students.

"The Learning Gap"

Based on the findings of the two studies, Stevenson and Stigler (1992) proposed recommendations for change in the educational system of the United States. In the policy-oriented book, The Learning Gap, they argue that the pedagogical methods of East Asian public schooling deserve special consideration as sources of inspiration for American educational reform. The authors state that:

Having compared teaching, parenting, learning, and academic achievement in several very different cultures, we found the most exciting revelations not in what we discovered in Asia, but in what was revealed in the United States. ... Many aspects of American education began to seem strange when we viewed them through lenses altered by our Asian experience. We have experienced the thrill - and the distress - of discovering new attributes of our culture.

The recommendations to change the U.S. schools, elucidated in the last chapter of the book, range from changing the school structure (e.g., decreasing teaching load, increasing class size) to reinvigorating traditional American social beliefs (e.g., the value of education, the belief in the success of effort).

Certainly, cross-national studies of such magnitude and with such methodological rigor are unparalleled. However, making accurate interpretations and inferences from the collected data is a separate issue. Stevenson and Stigler extol the benefits of East Asian classroom instruction and prompt policymakers to import the methods without carefully examining the underlying differences in culture. As Kojima (1986c) keenly points out, it is important to investigate the beliefs and values underlying specific practices in relation to child rearing (or in our case, education), "for by revealing them we will be able to elucidate the specific meanings attached to the practices." After all, "practice" does not exist in isolation, and "practice" without "meaning" is unlikely to be embraced. Stevenson and Stigler (1992) apparently do not recognize that viewing through lenses that are biased toward Asian cultures is not going to help children living in the cultural context of the United States. Truly understanding and appreciating certain cultural practices cannot be realized while one is viewing the culture through the lenses of another.

III. Classroom Practices in Cultural Context

In contrast to the approach of Stevenson and Stigler, the following discussion attempts to explore Japanese classroom practices as indigenous minds perceive them. Throughout this section, I draw on the existing literature in the field of cultural psychology, an ethnographic study conducted in Japanese classrooms and personal anecdotes.

A. Learning from Errors

One of the classroom practices in Japan that surprised Stevenson's research team was how teachers disclose and correct particular students' errors in front of the class as an instructional strategy for the whole classroom. Stigler and Perry (1988) relate, with surprise, their experiences observing one Japanese elementary mathematics class. The task of that day was to learn how to draw a three-dimensional cube. The thirty to forty students were working individually in their notebooks, but active discussions across desks were also seen and the noise level was quite high.

Against this background, one child was having trouble. His cube looked crooked, no matter how carefully he tried to copy the lines from the teacher's example. And so the teacher asked this child to go to the blackboard and draw his cube. Standing there, in front of the class, he labored to draw a cube correctly while the rest of the students in the class continued working at their desks. After working for five or ten minutes, he asked the teacher to look at his product. The teacher turned to the class and asked, "No, not really." After some open discussion of where the problem might lie, the child was told to continue working at the blackboard and try again. This scene continued for the duration of the forty-minute class. As the lesson progressed, the group of American observers began to feel more and more uncomfortable and anxious on behalf of the child at the board. We thought that any minute he might burst into tears, and we wondered what he must be feeling. Yet he did not cry and, in fact, did not seem at all disturbed by his plight. At the end of the class he finally drew a passable cube, in response to which the class applauded.

Stevenson and Stigler (1992) report that they observed "praise" as the most frequent form of evaluation among American teachers, while as the above example illustrates, that was hardly the case among Japanese teachers. Further, they note that a display of errors would most likely evoke embarrassment on the sides of American students but would be calmly accepted by their Japanese counterparts. The authors speculate that, because the Japanese subscribe to the "effort model" as opposed to the "ability model," errors are accepted as a natural element of the process of learning. However, the inference made between this classroom practice and the shared emphasis on effort remains to be a mere assumption. (The cultural meanings of ability and effort are discussed in a later section of this article.) In addition, Stevenson (1995) writes critically of the American children who tend to be unrealistically optimistic of their mathematical ability and concludes that, "[s]uch high evaluations of ability and achievement by the American children and their mothers cannot be conducive to a child's diligent study." Would American students' mathematical achievement improve from "error display" instructional methods, then, if American mothers and children believed more strongly in an "effort model"? The following sections of this article argue that it is not that simple.

B. "Practice" with "Meaning"

Hatano and Inagaki (1998) respond to the recommendations made in The Learning Gap by warning that the authors "may have overestimated the feasibility of transplanting these methods [used in classrooms] from one culture to another." The authors provide three hypotheses in an attempt to explain the differences in classroom instruction between Japan and the United States. First, American and Japanese teachers hold different folk pedagogies. Whereas American teachers are behavioristic in approach and nurture individualism, Japanese teachers tend to approach math instruction from a constructivist framework.

The second hypothesis is that American and Japanese teachers hold the same folk pedagogy but have modified it differently to meet the needs of their respective students. The authors contend that the different tendencies of students between the two cultures are particularly important to understand - a point dismissed by Stevenson and Stigler (1992). Expressing one's opinion in a clear and persuasive manner is valued in American culture, while listening to the statements of others carefully and eagerly is encouraged in Japanese schools. According to the authors, it is only within such a classroom atmosphere where whole-class discussion (prevalent in Japanese classrooms) becomes possible.

Moreover, Japanese teachers actively attempt to create caring communities "where all students know and care about one another as people, know how to talk and listen to one another respectfully, and have the safety provided by strong, shared class norms of kindness, helpfulness, and putting our strength together." According to Hatano and Inagaki (1998), such classroom culture is crucial for students to learn from other students' mistakes made in class, and the strategies related to such a culture cannot simply be transplanted to a different cultural soil.

In sum, the two Japanese psychologists warn readers about the danger of hopping on the "Asian education" bandwagon. They are confident that imported instruction strategies will produce no (if not negative) effect on student achievement if people ignored the culturally embedded nature of pedagogical methods. Clearly, "[i]t is necessary to 'translate' these educational technologies and beliefs so that they can be harmonious with indigenous practices."

Other scholars have also acknowledged the importance of understanding the "cultural soil" in which school and classroom practices are rooted, a topic which is the focus of the next section.

C. Community-Building in Schools

Stigler and Stevenson (1992) address issues related to the cross-national differences in the profession of teachers. They praise the "widespread excellence of Asian class lessons, the high level of performance of the average teacher." According to the authors, the belief in the whole-group lesson among Japanese educators allows teachers to polish each lesson to perfection. However, they contend that it is quite unlikely that American teachers will reach the level of high standards they observed in Asian classrooms, even if the same beliefs were held, due to certain major systemic reasons. First, American teachers are overworked, as much of their work time is spent in instruction. Comparisons of non-instructing time revealed that, while American teachers spent only an hour or less outside the classroom each day, Japanese teachers were in charge of classes for about 60 percent of the time they were in school.

Second, Japanese teachers spend much more time at work in the schools than American teachers do. Teachers in Sendai, Japan spent an average of 9.5 hours per day, but American teachers were at school for an average of 7.3 hours. In addition, Stigler and Stevenson highlight the feeling of "isolation" that American teachers face in their profession. They propose that the lack of an established national curriculum or large "teachers rooms" where teachers can convene and exchange ideas and advice are contributing to the physical and emotional isolation.

What is the point of these comparisons, however, if the teaching profession in Japan and the U.S. has different meanings? In fact, the spirit and the content of the teaching job in the two cultures differ in a holistic sense; small windows of analytic comparison cannot fully or accurately capture the qualitative differences underlying them.

In her ethnography of Japanese elementary schools, Sato (1992) situates and makes sense of the analytic comparisons made in The Learning Gap. Basically, she argues that the main focus of an elementary school teacher in Japan is on building a "community" where children can freely explore their talents, rather than on inculcating them with the "basic skills," as they are defined here in the U.S. She says, "Japanese educators see a fundamental contrast between this Asian, phenomenological view of education and western concepts of learning that are rooted in scientism." The Japanese concept of students as ningen (human beings) embraces a holistic conception of children's growth and learning. The Japanese "whole person" education, therefore, requires teachers to guide the children across a broad range of development - aesthetic, physical, mental, moral, social, and so on. The weight of responsibility that the society places on schools is enormous in Japan. For example, if a student is caught shoplifting, then the storeowner is likely to contact the school, sometimes even before parents or the police. In such case, the school staff (often the principal and the classroom teacher) will rush to the store and apologize to the owner for their failure to guide the student morally.

Sato (1992) illustrates the devotedness of Japanese teachers and schools in building a school "community" within the "whole person" educational framework. Although Japanese teachers may spend less time of the day on direct instruction than their American counterparts, they spend much more time in school (20 more hours a week) and devote weekends and vacations to professional development activities. As a daily routine, Japanese teachers spend lunchtime in the classroom with their children, supervising the children's preparation of school meals or holding casual conversations with them. After lunchtime, the classroom teacher and all students spend time cleaning (there are no janitors in Japanese schools). Sato also addresses the frequency of school activities, events, and ceremonies held in schools; both school staff and students spend ample time preparing for these nonacademic activities.

Clearly, the numbers reported by Stevenson's research team are severely limited in their ability to tell the story. When narrow comparisons are made without regard of the context of the bigger picture, they are in danger of being misused or misinterpreted. Classroom practices evolve within the socio-cultural context thereof. We have seen that some instructional methods have motivational properties that function only within a particular cultural framework. Frequency counts of manifested behaviors in a classroom can only capture the "observable" human dynamics but miss the crucial essence of the learning process. When comparing classroom practices rooted in different cultures, one must especially be aware of the cultural context in which the observed method is effective.

D. Motivations to Achieve

Children do not passively consume information as it is presented to them; rather, they are active participants in the role of learning. In other words, children must be motivated to achieve, be it from internal or external sources. Some researchers suggest a cultural difference between the U.S. and Japan in terms of how children are motivated to achieve academically.

Azuma (1986) and others claim that Japanese children internalize cultural values and norms, and therefore, the motivation to follow such principles comes from within: "The feeling of interdependence helps the child assimilate the hopes and values of the parents, thus enhancing the child's educability. In the past, when people were expected to follow rules and traditions rather than to become independent individuals, this was an ingenious way of socialization." White & LeVine (1986) explain that Japanese mothers socialize their children in accordance with the values held by the society while enhancing their individual abilities and performances. Children are socialized in a way that goals of self-fulfillment and the goals of social integration are in accord, because ultimately, all valued qualities defined by seken or the "measuring community" are relevant to one's place in the social nexus.

There are also indications that perhaps American children and Japanese children construct their self-image in a different way. For the Japanese, the force to "gambaru," to overcome whatever challenge one is faced with, is related to the student's positive self-regard^, or self-esteem. Therefore, the focus of Japanese children is on meeting teachers' and parents' expectations by showing how hard they are trying, rather than on the quality of the end result of their work. It may be the case that, Japanese students become motivated to work harder when the teacher and classmates accept their 'gambaru' attitude, as was seen in the earlier example.

Furthermore, Goodnow (1998) asserts that when making cross-cultural speculations with regards to achievement, one must consider how various groups of people differently perceive the importance of achievement in relation to their cultural goals. The way in which education is valued relative to the availability of other culturally accepted opportunities and expectations, and how children perceive achievement and construct their own self-image are both important issues. In other words, the value that the Japanese society posits on education (mathematics, in particular) is likely to be a function of many sociocultural factors such as the limited availability of possibilities or the way in which Japanese children internalize cultural or societal beliefs and values. In reality, the consequences of not achieving in mathematics may be severer for Japanese students than for their American counterparts.

Notwithstanding the foregoing arguments, Stevenson's research team concluded that the gap in mathematics achievement between Japanese and American students derived mainly from different beliefs about "effort" and "ability," without taking into consideration sociocultural differences in achievement motivation. Let us once again return to the findings from the Stevenson studies and review their claims concerning beliefs about effort and ability.

E. Effort vs. Ability

In their second cross-national study of first- and fifth-grade students in Taipei, Sendai, and Chicago, Stevenson and his colleagues explored the students' and mothers' beliefs concerning academic achievement. According to the researchers, a marked difference was found in the way Japanese and American respondents perceived effort and ability.

From these findings, Stevenson and Stigler (1992) conclude that "perhaps the most self-defeating belief that has taken hold in the United States during recent decades concerns the relative contributions of innate ability and effort to achievement." The authors strongly suggest that the old American belief in effort deriving from the Protestant work ethic should be revived. Based on the assumption that higher expectancy leads to higher performance, Stevenson and Stigler regret that the focus on innate ability might lead teachers, parents, and children to give up before children maximize their talents.

The above statement is based on the assumption that effort and ability have the same meanings in Japan and the United States. However, there exist evidence that refutes this postulation. While ability is used to refer to the (supposedly) fixed and innate ability in the context of academic achievement research conducted in the U.S., it is not clear whether the Japanese distinguish "fixed ability" from "achieved competence" as distinctly as Americans do. The direct Japanese translation of "ability" - nouryoku - incorporates meanings of talent, ability, capacity, power, competence, and faculty, and the holistic nature of the term may be reflective of Japanese thought.

The Japanese emphasis on effort does not imply that there is less importance given to natural ability. The Japanese clearly acknowledge individual differences in natural talent. As discussed above, it is considered a virtue in Japan to "gambaru," which is to try one's best within his or her capacity. Also, from personal experience, I repeatedly witnessed Japanese children describing others as "atama ga ii" (smart). This phrase does not necessarily imply that the other is a studious and hard working student; rather, it refers to the student's innate capacity.

Other narratives suggest that the Japanese believe in an expansive nature of ability. As illustrated in the short saying, "The slow bird must start out early," perhaps people in Japan believe that those with less natural talent need to put in more time and effort than others do in reaching the same goal. If this holds true, then people are accepting effort and ability simultaneously, and the distinction between the two concepts becomes blurred. Whether and how the Japanese distinguish between a fixed and expandable ability remains ambiguous; however, in the minds of the Japanese, ability and effort seem to be neither mutually exclusive nor linearly related. Rather, they are likely to coexist in a synergistic sense.

Empirical findings from the field of cultural psychology also suggest that the Japanese provide different answers concerning one's effort and ability, depending on how the question is phrased. Many studies conducted in the U.S. have found that American subjects perceive their internal attributes, such as ability or competence, as very important factors of their successful performance. In contrast, Japanese students show a modesty bias and are often reluctant to attribute their performance to ability, especially in the case of success. However, Japanese subjects attribute "ability" when talking about other people's success.

These research findings shed light on the possibility that the Americans and the Japanese process concepts of ability and effort in a different manner. As Azuma (1998) argues, perhaps the Japanese belief in ability is expressed "in terms of role and relation rather than in terms of personal achievement." The responses that Stevenson and his colleagues obtained from their child and mother respondents might have illustrated a different picture had the question specified whose success or failure they were referring to. These empirical findings prompt us to reconsider some major methodological and interpretive limitations of studies conducted across different cultures.

F. Listening to Students' Voices

The extensive cross-national research on mathematical achievement conducted by Harold Stevenson and his colleagues have certainly made great contributions toward infusing energy into the debate of educational reform. However, as has been discussed above, it is necessary for us to view Japanese classrooms through the eyes of native students, in order to truly understand how and why certain classroom instructions are effective in Japanese schools. How do students perceive school cultures and classroom instructions? What effects do peer relations and teacher-student relations have on a child's school experience?

Speaking for myself as a Japanese individual who spent 3.5 years in an American and 2.5 years in a Japanese elementary school, I feel that the school culture had a stronger effect on my school performance than the quality of teachers' instructional methods did. The greatest motivation for me to be a good student in the American elementary school heavily relied on my relationship with a single authority figure - the classroom teacher. On the other hand, peer relations and societal pressure to adhere to the norm held great motivational properties for me to stick to the culturally defined role of a student in Japan. Clearly, my experiences in an American school cannot be generalized to that of children raised in the United States, for my perceptions are inevitably colored by the Japanese socialization processes prior to schooling. Nonetheless, the voices of children who have schooling experiences in both cultures may provide interesting insights from the child's viewpoint.

A thought-provoking comment made by a 13-year-old Japanese student who had returned to Japan after spending five years in the United States illustrates the insights attention to children's voices can reveal:

I think that the main difference about the schools in the States and Japan are the "freedom". What I mean by "freedom" is in the States you were able to wear anything you wanted to school and there were no stupid rules that got you tied down to your school work. But in Japan there's so much pressure about [juken (entrance exams)] and everything that it's really unbelievable. The Japanese teachers always tells us to act in groups like wear uniforms and I don't think that anyone is really "original" in Japan. . . . And there are too many "STUPID" rules and they care too much about what you do when you're outside school. If I say it in Japanese, I think that Japanese people are too "[kahogo (over protective)]" in many many ways. If we are told to do everything from saying "Hello" or "[hai (yes)]" to what we shouldn't were [sic] outside school, it'll take away our independence and creativeness. I think that a person should have his own way of thinking, and no one should decide things for the person. All I wanted to say that Japanese schools don't give us freedom and many more.

This student's attitude toward her Japanese school experience is not an exception. In fact, among 610 students asked to respond to the question, "Please feel free to write anything that you are feeling about the differences in life styles or schools between Japan and the foreign country you lived in," which was attached to the survey from which the above response came, the vast majority of the responses conveyed a negative impression of Japanese schools. For these Japanese students, the experience in a different culture had forced them to challenge the tacit cultural models held by the Japanese, hence the "normal" school life in Japan became to appear "different" to their eyes.

IV. Conclusion

Stevenson and Stigler suggested that American schools could achieve the same results as their Japanese counterparts if they imported some of the classroom practices and cultural beliefs and values observed in Japan. Their argument assumes a behavioristic "Stimulus-Response" model to the extent that the goal is to elicit a Japanese Response from American children by providing them with a similar Stimulus. However, there are two major flaws in this assumption. First, there exists no evidence of a causal relationship between the Stimulus (i.e., classroom instruction, large classroom size, belief in effort, and so forth) and the Response (i.e., high mathematical performance), even among the Japanese students. Granting if the above causal relationship holds, they still ignore the possibility that a Stimulus in one culture may, in another culture, be a different type of Stimulus or elicit an unexpected Response. It is imperative to keep in mind that superficial cross-cultural comparisons rest upon many underlying assumptions - for example, that the meanings of concepts and the information processes thereof are identical in different cultures - most of which remained unexamined in the Stevenson studies.

Moving beyond a behavioristic approach, this article introduced findings from the cultural psychology literature and ethnographic studies of Japanese schools in an effort to see the reality of Japanese classrooms. Classroom practices and its meaning are inseparable and do not make sense once detached from the cultural context in which they are rooted. Despite the amount of national attention given to the Japanese educational system, however, there exists surprisingly little amount of research done inside Japanese schools. In order to understand the classroom and school dynamics of Japan or the underlying meanings of and reasons for the observed differences in achievement scores, spending ample time with teachers and students in the classrooms would offer the richest type of information. Effective importation of instruction methods will be realized only after behaviors observed in schools are truly understood from the perspective of its people, which is based on their underlying belief and value systems.

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