To date, cross-cultural studies on Theory of Mind (ToM) have predominantly focused on preschoolers. This study focuses on middle childhood, comparing two samples of mainland Chinese (n = 126) and Australian (n = 83) children aged between 5.5 and 12 years. Strange Stories, the most commonly used measure of ToM, was employed. The study aimed to…

Some schools and teachers in Korea and Japan have begun practicing classroom-based reform according to similar visions of a learning community. The purpose of this study was to investigate reform efforts made by teachers in Korea and Japan toward turning classrooms into learning communities. Two elementary schools, School K in Korea and School T…

Two studies compared the development of beliefs about the stability and origins of physical and psychological traits in Japan and the United States in three age groups: 5-6-year-olds, 8-10-year-olds, and college students. The youngest children in both cultures were the most optimistic about negative traits changing in a positive direction over…

The present study compared indigenous South African versus African-American schoolchildren's beliefs about aggression. Eighty 7-9 year olds (40 from each country) participated in interviews in which they were asked to make inferences about the stability, malleability, and causal origins of aggressive behaviour. Although a minority of participants…

Body dissatisfaction and disordered eating were compared across groups of college women from China (n = 109), South Korea (n = 137), and the United States (n = 102). Based on cultural differences in the amount of exposure to Western appearance standards, particularly the thin-body ideal, sociocultural theory (Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, &…

A comparison involving individuals in urban areas of India and the United States reveals both individual and relational concepts of self in each sample. However, cultural differences arose in specific ways in which individual and relational concepts are constructed. (Contains 7 tables and 2 figures.)

English-language Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventories (MMPI's) were administered to 40 bilingual Mexican-American and 109 Anglo-American psychiatric patients in a community mental health center. With K corrections, Mexican-American subjects scored higher on the L and K scales, but no significant differences were found on clinical scales…

Research has characterized Turkish culture as very authoritarian in terms of family attitudes. To determine if any of the cultural differences in authoritarian personality scores are due to differences in language or measuring instruments rather than cultural differences in personaltiy traits, university students from the United States and Turkey…

Compared exploratory, symbolic, and social play and interaction of Argentine and U.S. 20-month olds and their mothers. Found patterns of cultural similarity in sex differences and differences in the use of exploratory and symbolic play. Overall, Argentine and U.S. dyads used different modes of exploration, representation, and interaction,…

The objective of this study was to empirically validate West Germans' classifications of 11 attributions according to dimensions of locus, stability, controllability, predictability, and globality. The West German sample was then compared to an American sample. It is believed that West Germans and Americans develop different beliefs about the…

This paper was intended to promote a deeper understanding of a statistical method called balancing developed by National Assessment of Educational Progress. Problems in estimating main effects when populations are disproportionate, balancing solutions to these problems, methods equivalent to balancing, interpretation of balanced results, and some…

Intelligence tests are really only systems of classification of individuals with reference to others. Thus with such classification systems it is impossible to interpret a deficiency reflected by test scores in other than a socio-cultural frame of reference. Some 150 Black and White seventh grade children between the ages of 12 and 14 were…

Compares English-as-a-Foreign-Language students beliefs about language learning, using responses to the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) to identify similarities and differences across cultural groups. Examination of individual BALLI responses did not yield clear-cut cultural differences in beliefs. (Author/VWL)

This paper examines the importance of culturally-specific learning styles within the context of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990. The Act posits that all students can learn, that students learn differently, and that students learn better when they are taught utilizing their preferred learning modalities. A review of the literature…