Abstract
Cultures may display paradoxical natures when studied closely. For example, Americans are individualistic, yet are most generous with charity giving or volunteering for community events. This illustrates the challenges associated with stereotyping groups and cultures. Cultures are sometimes treated as homogenous with attendant generalisation. In the educational context, generalisations consequently influence attitudes held towards groups of learners. People from particular cultural backgrounds are often treated as a homogenous group with its attendant stereotypes irrespective of their individual contexts; an example is individuals from a Chinese cultural background who live in the West relative to those living in China.The present study used a questionnaire to measure an important value in Confucian culture (Chinese background) - Filial Piety - and how it relates to affective variables suggested to be important to academic achievement: self-efficacy and motivation. A sample of 9-11 year old children from the UK were compared with a similar sample from an authentic Confucian context - Beijing.The results suggest a review of expectations of what is meant by “authentic confucian” and gives some insight into the potential problems that could arise with stereotyping cultures and groups. As schools reach out to parents and communities, there are implications for the stereotypic approaches adopted.
Highlights
1.1 Filial Piety as an Attribute of Confucian Culture There is a long-standing interest in academic achievement and motivation by researchers in the field of cross-cultural studies, of East Asian culture
The questions were built around these dimensions and kept to a maximum of 10 because of the intended age of the sample. 2.1.1 Development of Questionnaire The questionnaire used in this study was constructed by combining subscales that measured: filial piety (FP), three sources of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986) - experiential self-efficacy (ESE), received self-efficacy (RSE), vicarious self-efficacy (VSE)
The study investigated whether the effects of Asian values on willingness to see a counsellor were mediated by ATT and subjective norms (SN) and the relative strengths of the mediation if present
Summary
1.1 Filial Piety as an Attribute of Confucian Culture There is a long-standing interest in academic achievement and motivation by researchers in the field of cross-cultural studies, of East Asian culture. Hong and Salili (2000) argue that the strong learning motivation of East Asian learners was related to their culture (see Leung, 2014; Stankov, 2010) This is supported by the postulations of Ho (1981), that hard work in academic pursuits was accorded higher status in society than other careers in Chinese culture. Chinese parents’ influence over their children’s school achievement is thought to be connected with the traditional ideals and overarching power of Filial Piety (FP) - a key element of Confucian ideology (Lin & Fu, 1990) This is because in Confucian culture, children are morally obliged to pursue the virtue of respect and honour for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors. Confucianism is able to engender prioritising the wider social good in its members by focusing on known others outside the individual - family and especially parents - the motivation to engage in actions to benefit others becomes focused on real people, and that is a powerful driver. Dong and Xu (2016) defined FP as:
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