The Cultural Basis of Student Achievement in Japan
The Cultural Basis of Student Achievement in Japan
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日本学生成绩的文化基础
DOI：
10.1080/0305006860220104
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发表时间：
1986
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
N. Shimahara
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
N. Shimahara
美国人和欧洲人最近对日本教育表现出了更大的兴趣。毫无疑问，他们的兴趣在很大程度上与他们对日本在20世纪70年代和80年代形成的国际市场中的重要经济作用的看法有关。例如，美国企业在调查日本工业实力的来源时，把注意力集中在日本人培养人力资源的方式上。事实上，日本教育似乎是一个很有希望的探索方向。日本学生在国际教育成就评价协会（IEA）举办的国际考试中一直取得很高的分数。例如，在1983年的IEA测试中，日本7年级和12年级的学生在所有算术和数学类别中的表现都超过了参与国的学生。一位对日本高中进行了广泛观察的美国人类学家甚至认为，“日本的高中文凭相当于美国普通的学士学位”（Rohlen，1984：160）。毫无疑问，IEA分数和竞争性产业本身不足以定义日本教育实践的本质特征。在本文中，我打算讨论学生成绩的文化基础。虽然这种文化基础对日本人来说似乎是司空见惯的，但对西方观察家来说却非常独特。我将考虑这种文化基础的三个相互关联的方面;我将对它们进行分析性的区分，并重点讨论文化模式化的做法和支持它们的前提。
Americans and Europeans have lately shown a heightened interest in Japanese education. Their interest is undoubtedly related, in large part, to their perception of Japan's significant economic role in the international market shaped in the 1970s and 1980s. American corporations, for example, investigating the source of Japanese industrial strength, have concentrated on the way the Japanese train their human resources. Indeed, Japanese education seems to be a promising vein to explore. Japanese students have consistently achieved very high scores in the international tests administered by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). In the 1983 IEA tests, for example, Japanese 7th and 12th graders out-performed students from participating nations in all categories of arithmetic and mathematics. An American anthropologist who has extensively observed Japanese high schools even suggests that "a Japanese high school diploma is the equivalent of an average American bachelor's degree" (Rohlen, 1984: 160). It goes without saying that IEA scores and competitive industry by themselves are insufficient to define the essential character of Japanese educational practice. In this paper I intend to discuss the cultural basis of student achievement. Although that cultural basis seems commonplace to the Japanese, it is strikingly distinctive to a Western observer. I will consider three interrelated aspects of that cultural basis; I will differentiate them analytically and focus on culturally patterned practices and the premises that support them.