Cultural Differences Of Math Performance Linguistic...

Cross Cultural Differences in Math Performance: Linguistic Influence on Development in Eastern and Western Children Christina Jeon 999910967 PSY440H1 Introduction Various surveys and cross cultural studies examining children s mathematical achievement around the world have shown, fairly consistently, that Asian students continue to perform better than Western students in mathematics (Mark Dowker, 2015; Paik, Gelderen, Gonzales, Jong, Hayes, 2011). Studies have also indicated that this distinct gap in performance begins to show even before children have had any kind of formal schooling (Mark Dowker, 2015). This has only served to further reinforce the stereotype that Asian people are naturally good at math; there†¦show more content†¦Despite this line of thinking, which has been suggested for at least one to two hundred years, there is new evidence to indicate that mathematical development in children is more complicated than first thought (Mark Dowker, 2015; Dowker Roberts, 2015). It also suggests that language plays a slightly different role in the arithmetic learning than was previously hypothesized (Mark Dowker, 2015; Dowker Roberts, 2015; Paik et al., 2011). Linguistic Influence on Mathematics A wide range of cross cultural studies have been done to examine the degree of influence that language has on the development of mathematical skills, with varying results (Mark Dowker, 2015; Dowker Roberts, 2015; Paik et al., 2011). Recent cross cultural research has painted a very different picture of the extent that language truly influences the development of mathematical skills in children as they enter school (Mark Dowker, 2015; Dowker Roberts, 2015, Paik et al., 2011). LT has been found to have more specific influences on learning mathematics than the broad pervasive effect it was previously thought to have (Mark Dowker, 2015; Dowker Roberts, 2015). Studies comparing children of different ethnic backgrounds, have shown that East Asian children tend to outperform American children or children from other Western countries (Mark Dowker, 2015; Paik et al., 2011). In a study comparing British children with Chinese children from Hong Kong, i t was