In the multiethnic South Pacific nation of Fiji--a former British colony--the impact of Western theoretical hegemony on educational discourse is evident. Results of extensive fieldwork show how themes of achievement motivation, differential valuation of education, and cultural deficit theory combine with surviving colonial discourse and…

Discusses challenges teachers face with the growing diversity in student populations, examining how teachers can help facilitate diverse students' cognitive development. Examines: stages of cognitive development, multiculturalism, helping students move from one developmental level to another, cultural socialization, field dependence and…

Discusses how teachers can enhance the experiences of their Asian American students, examining the importance of understanding Asian American parents and families. Suggestions for working with Asian American parents and families include: respect immediate and extended family members, understand diversity within Asian ethnic groups, consider…

Interviewed Romanian and U.S. college students about their life aspirations, taking into account their psychological wellbeing. Results indicated that both groups showed positive correlations with psychological wellbeing when community feeling was considered central to their lives. When financial success was held to be the most central aspiration,…

This article offers educators of students with disabilities guidelines to facilitate better interaction with families of children who are culturally and/or linguistically diverse. It urges self-evaluation and reflection on personal interaction style and necessary modifications to facilitate cross-cultural communication. It suggests ways to…

The authors provide an in-depth examination of the historical background, cultural values, family roles, and community contexts of Korean Americans as an aid to both researchers and clinicians in developing cultural competence with this particular group. First, the concept of cultural competence is defined. A brief history of Korean immigration…

For the last four years the author has been involved with the design, administration and writing up of the results of competency tests which have been conducted for Grades 3 (ages 8-9)and 6 (ages 11-12) in his home province of the Western Cape, South Africa. In the course of this work, he and some of his colleagues working on this project have had…

Using data provided by approximately 100 second graders each from Beijing, Hong Kong, Korea, and the United States, we investigated relations among phonological awareness, morphological structure awareness, vocabulary, and word recognition. Our results indicate that across languages, phonological awareness and morphological structure awareness are…

Twelve Australian and 12 Chinese heritage students from a third-year university computer ethics subject completed a Readiness for Online Learning Questionnaire; and six students from each of these two groups participated in a student-facilitated problem-solving discussion through computer-mediated communication. The questionnaire comparisons…

Japanese (N = 25) and U.S. fifth- to eighth-grade teachers (N = 36) participated in pre- and post-lesson interviews to assess what they thought about when constructing mathematics lessons. To understand the details of this thinking and how it might support classroom instruction, we structured interviews around a specific lesson teachers taught in…

In anti-bias/multicultural workshops and in discussions with early childhood teachers over the past two decades, "What if all the children in my class are white?" has been one of the most frequently asked questions. Almost always posed by white teachers, it echoes the persistent confusion about the purposes of anti-bias/multicultural education for…

The reactions of many parents to being told that their child might have a developmental delay that needs to be addressed through special education range from shock or disbelief to confusion. This is also the case for Hispanic parents, who often to not understand what is happening or may be unfamiliar with the language in which the information is…

Scottish schools have provided performance data for five international surveys of attainment in mathematics since 1990. Performance measured against national targets and progression over time and between age-stages have been monitored nationally, on a regular basis, for 20 years, within the Assessment of Achievement Programme (AAP) (Scotland). The…

This article reveals the intrinsic connection between the constructs normality, identity, meaning, cultural tracking, and school achievement. In particular, it illuminates the indirect connection between cultural tracking and a reduction in the meaningful engagement of school tasks. As documented elsewhere, learning proceeds in a meaningful…

Project-based team activities are commonly used in higher education. Teams comprised of members from different national cultures can be faced with unique challenges during the creative process. Hofstede's (1991) cultural dimension of power distance was used to examine one such design team's intra- and inter-group interactions in a graduate-level…