Math and Culture
While there are overarching similarities concerning the acquisition of math skills, researchers have shown that children’s mathematical abilities differ across countries. In Canada, students score substantially lower in math problem-solving and operations than students in Korea and Singapore. Researchers have conducted thorough comparisons between countries, and have determined that in countries such as Taiwan and Japan, parents place more emphasis on effort rather than one’s innate intellectual ability in school success. Moreover, parents in these countries tend to set higher expectations and standards for their children. In turn, students spend more time on homework and value homework more than American children. (Stevenson & Lee, 1990).
Read more about this topic: Mathematical Anxiety
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)