culturally appropriate education insights from education neuroscience

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MIND, BRAIN, AND EDUCATION

Culturally Appropriate

Education: Insights FromEducational Neuroscience Jiaxian Zhou1 and KurtW. Fischer2

ABSTRACT— Culturally appropriate education focuses oneducational competence needed in a global world and respectfordifferent worldviewsof learners andteachersfrom differentcultural contexts. The relationship between gene, brain, and culture is complex and dynamical. Cultural experience and learning sculpts the anatomy and function of the human brainand shapes human behavior. This neuroplasticity is the basisof educability in human beings. Education reform should reflect cultural diversity and embed teaching practices intothe cultural history of a nation and should promote positiveinclusionof minority and indigenous history so as to maximizesuccessful adoption by teachers and parents. This tenet is atthe core of the concept of ‘‘culturally appropriate education.’’Successful educational reform and pedagogy require that

teachers become culturally and neuroscientifically literate.

With the increase of cultural diversity all over the world and

the impact of globalization in recent decades, the migration

of population and the flow of individuals to different regions

bring new cultural values, practices, and productions to each

specific social cultural environment. This in turn results in

the changing of each culture. As a result, cultural factors

become importantin educational policyand reform. Educators

face the challenge of educating children from multicultural

backgrounds as well as the challenge of addressing whatUNESCO calls ‘‘culturally appropriate education’’ in various

1School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China NormalUniversity2Harvard Graduate School of Education

Address correspondence to Jiaxian Zhou, School of Psychology and Cog-nitive Science, EastChina Normal University, No. 3663North ZhongshanRoad, Shanghai 200062, China; e-mail: [email protected]

documents (Meriam et al., 1928; UNESCO, 1953, 2003; United

Nations, 2008). ‘‘Culturally appropriate education’’ focuses

on educational competence adapted to a global context

and emphasizes the cultural sensitivity of instruction in a

global world, as well as respect for different world views,

epistemologies,culturaltraditions,andthediversityoflearners

and teachers from different cultural contexts (Meriam et al.,

1928; Rose, Rouhani, & Fischer, 2013).

UNESCO plays an important role in spreading the concept

of culturally appropriate education. As early as 1928, the

Meriam Report in the United States stressed the importance

of the cultural background of Native American students

(Meriam et al., 1928). In 1953, UNESCO published The Use

of Vernacular Languages in Education (UNESCO, 1953), attaching

importancetoculturallyappropriateeducation.Morerecently,

UNESCO reiterated the importance of culturally appropriate

education in its position paper Education in a Multilingual World

(UNESCO, 2003). In 2007, culturally appropriate education

aroused further interest among educators after the Declaration

on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations, 2008) was

adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, and 143

countries voted in favor of it. All these documents emphasize

the importance of cultural diversity and the development of

an educational policy of equity focusing on that diversity.

Thus culturally appropriate education was adopted by the

Assembly of Alaska Native Educators (issued as the ‘‘Alaska

Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools’’ as part of the

AlaskaNative KnowledgeNetwork, 1998) in theUnitedStates

and for culture-based language instruction in high schools in

China (Muir, 2007).

In this paper, we (1) explain the complex dynamical

relationship between gene, brain, and culture, (2) describe

neuroplasticity with evidence from cognitive research to

show cultural adaptation and educability of human beings,

(3) demonstrate the dynamics and complexity of cultural

Volume 7—Number 4 © 2013 International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 225


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Culturally Appropriate Education

adaptation and give some suggestions for educational reformbased on brain and cognitive research, and (4) describeculturally appropriate education as affected by globalization.

THECOMPLEXDYNAMICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEENGENE, BRAIN,ANDCULTURE

Culture is a complex dynamical system that continuallyinteracts with participating individuals bidirectionally,including psychological and biological processes (Ray et al.,2010; Vogeley & Roepstorff, 2009) with the features of universality and particularity. The universal characteristicsof culture are shared by all individuals, while the particularones refer to the specific features of certain subgroups as wellas individual and regional variation. At the universal level,culture not only shapes innate and biological mechanismsbut takes place across different time scales. It demonstratesstability in the longer time scale, such as evolution, and

it demonstrates dynamical development in shorter timescales with the interplay among the factors of situationalembeddedness, ontogenesis, and phylogenesis (Li, 2003).As to regional variation, Nisbett and his colleagues putforward a cultural framework that is supported by evidencefrom behavioral research, including eye movements and neuroscientificevidence,addressinghowWesternandEasterncultures and values significantly affect the way people processinformation and understand the world (Nisbett & Masuda,2003; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). East Asianculture has a holistic world view, emphasizing harmonicrelationships among people, social environments, and natural

environments, which are rooted in Chinese philosophicaland religious traditions of Taoism and Confucianism.Easterners tend toward a collectivistic and dialectical wayof thinking, characterized by relatedness, internal attributes,and interdependent self-construals (although of course thereis much variability within each cultural group). On the otherhand, Western culture, which derives from philosophicaltrends of reductionism, individualism, and utilitarianism,treats individuals as separated from nature, and emphasizeslogical reasoning and categorization. Westerners thus tend tothink more analytically. Culture significantly influences notonlycognitive capacities and beliefs, but also cultural practicesand products.

Some research shows that people in Western versus EastAsianculturesdiffernotonlyinhowtheythinkandactbutalsoin neural processing of cultural information. Corresponding tocultural differences, there are two common models of self- and other-construal. People from Western cultural environmentstend to focus on the characteristic of individuality,while people from East Asian cultural environments tend to emphasize interdependent self-construal (Markus &Kitayama, 1991). People may also show similar biases in their

concepts of self in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience.

Concepts of self in East Asia typically include close family

members and distinguish among in-group members and out-

group members. When Chinese individuals think about close

family members, such as their mothers, the magnitude of

activation in medial prefrontal cortex tends to be higher and

thebrainareasthatrepresentotherswhoareclosearesimilarto

the onesrepresenting self(Han & Northoff,2009;Heine,2001;

Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Zhu, Zhang, Fan, & Han, 2007).

This suggests that Eastern cultures include the boundary

betweenself and non-self within‘‘we and otherness.’’ Western

culture, however, seems to represent the self as separate and

individual. Unlike Eastern culture, Western culture treats the

boundary between self and non-self as ‘‘I versus otherness.’’

Consistent with this distinction, neuroscientific researches

find that the medial frontal cortex of Westerners represents

self more strongly than mother (Heine, 2001; Zhu et al., 2007).

The interaction of genes and environment is important

for the development of human beings, including required

input from the environment for proper functioning (Gottlieb,

1997). According to culture-gene coevolution theory, ‘‘cultural

traits are adaptive and emerge due to environmental and

ecological pressures that vary across geography under which

genetic selection occurs’’ (Boyd, Richerson, & Henrich, 2011,

as cited by Chiao & Blizinsky, 2010, p. 529). Important issues

concerning culturally appropriate education include valued

traits in a culture and the extent to which they are adaptive.

According to culture-gene coevolution theory, normative but

not non-normative traits in a culture are adaptive from the

perspective of evolutionary biology. This contrasts with the

theory of natural selection, which may imply that general

traits are adaptive, not just normative ones (Sasaki, 2013).

Culture-gene coevolution theory raises more questions than it

answers concerning the adaptation of culture.

Recently, more and more evidence shows that cultural

orientations in thinking and behavior are not as clear-cut as

described in the cultural framework put forward by Nisbett

and his colleagues. Cultural differences, for example, are

present among regions in a country: Southern states in the

United States are relatively more collectivist, while Mountain

West and Great Plains states are more individualist (Vandello

& Cohen, 1999). Perhaps the historical and community

contexts in these regions have shaped current cultural traits

gradually. Differences in cultural orientation seem to develop

slowly, and the human brain responds to this chronic cultural

experience dynamically, modulated by temporary cultural

contexts.

In conclusion, the reason that Eastern and Western people

think and act differently from each other cannot be attributed

only to physical bases such as genes and brain structures,

nor only to cultural backgrounds, experiences, and education.

Cultural, social, individual, and biological factors interact

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Jiaxian Zhou and Kurt W. Fischer

dynamically to create existing differences (Ray et al., 2010;Rose et al., 2013).

NEUROPLASTICITY, CULTURALADAPTATION, ANDEDUCABILITY

The human brain displays plasticity, with experience and learning sculpting its anatomy and function. For example,London taxi drivers show denser gray matter in theposterior hippocampus with increased driving experience,suggesting that thousands of hours of sustained searchand navigating through space affects development of therelevant brain anatomy (Maguire et al., 2000). Similarly,

3 months of sustained practice with juggling enlarges thebilateral midtemporal area and left posterior intraparietalsulcus (Draganski et al., 2004). Even older adults learningthe same skill demonstrated dynamic change in their brainstructure (Boyke, Driemeyer, Gaser, Buchel, & May, 2008).

Perhaps most striking, just 2 hours of high-intensity trainingincreases the volume of gray matter in the visual cortex formodulating color (Kwok et al., 2011).

Cultural experience likewise hasimpact on theanatomy and function of the brain, shaping its behavior. For example, mostof the time symbol representation and digit representationare separate in the human mind. Although some shapes of letters and numbers are the same (e.g., 0/o, l/1), they areprocessed in different brain areas, which are the result of experience, but not of evolution, because society and cultureassign different categories to letters and numbers arbitrarily.However, Canadian postal workers process letters (symbol

representation) and numbers (digit representation) togetherin their postal codes (e.g., V5A 1S6), and this long-termexperience alters the categorical representation of these twodifferent symbolic systems into a relatively unitary system(Polk & Farah, 1998).

Education (as part of culture) thus sculptsthe human brain.Researchers have found that several frontal areas and the rightsuperior parietal lobule of young Americans are thicker thanAsian youth, who have greater cortical thickness in the leftinferior temporal gyrus (Chee, Zheng, Goh, & Park, 2011;Rose et al., 2013). Those authors suggest that the differentcultural and educational styles may contribute to this braindifference because Western cultures rely more on reasoning,problem solving, and independent thinking, whereas EastAsian cultures focus more on following directions and rotememory. The differences in linguistic properties from the twocultures seem to contribute to differences in the cortex.

The different focus of Western versus Eastern culturesalso influences students’ self-concepts and socializes studentswith individualistic or contrasting collectivistic tendenciesin schools. Students with independent self-construals inWestern cultures have the tendency to draw on the I

identity. They are encouraged to be socially dominant and assertive and use competitive conflict tactics in group worksettings. But students with interdependent self-construals in

Eastern cultures tend to draw on the we identity. They arenurtured to demonstrate social subordination and harmonyand are more likely to avoid conflict and use cooperativetactics (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998). These tendencies areconsistent with a neuroimaging study which shows thatAmerican subjects activate the reward-related brain regionsin the task of dominance, while Japanese participants activatethe same brain regions in the task of subordination (Freeman,Rule, Adams, & Ambady, 2009). The different values of collectivism and individualism not only influence how thestudents understand themselves, but also play a key role inhow they relate to their teachers (Chiao et al., 2009; Liew, Ma,Han, & Aziz-Zadeh, 2011).Individuals generally respond morequickly to their own face than to the faces of others due tothe implicit positive association with the self, which is called the self-face advantage (Keenan, Wheeler, Gallup, & Pascual-

Leone, 2000). However, this difference is reduced by threatsto one’s self-concept (Ma & Han, 2010). Chinese graduatestudents recognize the face of their supervisor much fasterthan their own faces in high or low threat contexts, which isknown as a ‘‘boss effect’’ (Ma & Han, 2009). This ‘‘boss effect’’significantly influences Chinese graduate students to processtheir own face in the presence of their supervisors, who areinfluential social superiors. However, European and Americanstudents still demonstrate the self-face advantage when theyidentify their supervisor’s faces. But their self-face advantagedecreases as they increase their scores rating their boss’ssocial status. These results suggest that one’s social status,

not one’s hierarchical position, modulates self-processing inAmerican students. This shows that culture also modulatesself-processing strongly in school situations, and concepts of social position exert different meanings for students growingup in different cultures (Liew et al., 2011).

To sum up all this evidence, sustained cultural experiencechanges the function of the human brain, influencing the waypeople process information. The plasticity of human brainand cognition continues for all of life, showing a sustained neuroplasticity that forms the basis of educability in humanbeings.

DYNAMICAL CULTURALADAPTATIONANDEDUCATIONALREFORM

With the increase of globalization and migration, manypeopleidentify with two or more cultures, and these trends makebicultural brain research even more complex. For these peopletwo types of bicultural identity emerge: Blended biculturalidentity merges the two original cultures into a differentsingle one, while alternatingbicultural identity switches between

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the two separate original cultures (Hong, Morris, Chiu, &Benet-Mart ı́ nez, 2000; Phinney & Devich-Navarro, 1997).Across cultural contexts such as home or school and acrosscultural symbols such as writing systems, people demonstratewhat is called cross-cultural frame switching (CFS). Forexample, exposing bicultural Chinese participants in HongKong and the United States to their own cultural iconsactivated bothChineseand American self-conceptsdependingon external cultural primes. Thus, the influence of culture isnot unidirectional and unchangeable. Individuals may activelyadapt to cultural differences and develop a bicultural brainwith two neural representations, adjusting their own behavioraccording to different cultural environments (Chiao et al.,2010; Ng, Han, Mao, & Lai, 2010; Sui, Zhu, & Chiu, 2007). Forexample, research on Asian American implicit self-evaluationshows that culture does not affect ventral medial prefrontalrepresentations, which probably relate to the automaticprocessing of self information. Instead, culture influencesthe activation of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, which

may relate to processing during assessment. Thus culturalvalues of collectivism and individualism dynamically affect theneural representation of self-referent information in peoplewith bicultural brains (Harada, Li, & Chiao, 2010). Peoplewho grow up in a multicultural environment are able to usecognition and neural resources properly and respond flexiblytothechangingculturaldemands,switchingbetweendifferentcultural habits in multicultural communities. This process isanalogous to that shown by multilinguals, who switch amongdifferent languages, using them freely in different languagecommunities.

Ina multicultural environment, itcan bedifficultto assignan

individual to either end of the dimension between Eastern and Westerncultures. Therelation of Westernand Easterncultureis notopposition, but instead fits on a unified continuum. Onekind of culture is at a certain point between the two endsof the continuum (Triandis, 1989). Comparisons of Americanwith East Asian participants who came to America recentlyindicated that the greater the affiliation to American culture,the higher the magnitude of the activation in frontal and parietal brain regions for culturally nonpreferred judgments insimple visual and attentional tasks. Culturally nonpreferred tasks showed greater task difficulty (Hedden, Ketay, Aron,Markus, & Gabrieli, 2008). But American subjects who are

nearertoEasterncultureandmoredependentonself-construalin the self/non-self continuum had higher activation of theirmedial frontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex in a self-referential processing task in comparison to activation forthe stimulus pattern of their mother. Possibly they relied more on episodic memory and estimation of others’ minds(theories of mind) in order to incorporate social informationsuch as attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to make judgmentsabout themselves (Ray et al., 2010). Instead of consideringthe self as a stable and enduring concept (Moran, Macrae,

Heatherton, Wyland, & Kelley, 2006), these studies indicated a more dynamic self, prone to influence by different culturalenvironments (Hong et al., 2000; Ng et al., 2010; Sui et al.,2007). It seems that there is growing prevalence of biculturalindividuals who have internalized both interdependent and independent self-concepts.

Educational reform should also take into account thecultural orientation that individuals develop over their longhistory along with the modulation of temporary culturalcontext. Most cultural groups develop a specific educationalmodel for their schooling along with theories, practices, and policies rooted deeply in their cultural-historical background.The cultural orientationof teachers embodies this professionalideal (Rodriguez, 2012), with skills and attitudes that developgradually during their professional training and with theircultural immersion as they make it happen in their socialbehaviors, schools, and families. Innovations in educationaltheory can cause inconsistencies among thoughts, feelings,attitudes, and actions, creating cultural conflicts among the

practitioners. An essential part of educational reformthereforeis to build a culture that promotes effective schooling. Thisinvolves a new educational culture that anticipates chronicchange in the society and social structure, and that conformsto the general nature of evolution of the culture (Fischer,2013;Wan & Wang, 2005).

Since 1990, many governments in Eastern and SouthernAsia have adopted Western educational policies, theories, and practices in order to bring about educational reform. Thesechanges have raised many issues because they have created new challenges for teachers and students in these countries.Sometimes these changes have neglected the cultural heritage

of thecountries andtheirrelevantsocialidentities.Researchontheseimported education programs has produced inconsistentresults, with teachers and parents who support traditionaleducation avoiding the imported theories, practices, and policies (Nguyen, Terlouw, & Pilot, 2006). In China, thenewestnational educational reformstarted fromthe beginningof the 21st century, introducing many Western educationalpolicies, theories, and practices and thus making the wholecountry move quickly toward new approacheswith the goal of taking a huge developmental leap toward modern educationalsystems and becoming more competitive with innovationsaround the world. However, the reform brought not only

new theories and innovative teaching methods, skill, and technology but also cultural conflicts for practitioners. Ampleprofessional training during the reform helped educators tomaster teaching methods, skills, and technology, but therewere difficulties internalizing the mores specific to Westernculture that underlie the innovations.

In this top-down educational reform, some of the teachersbecame ‘‘bicultural,’’ successfully using imported teachingmethods and theories when called upon to show innovationbut slipping back to traditional ways of teaching in their



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daily lives in the classroom. In order to implement educationalreform effectively, some schools have emphasized lively and invigoratingways of teaching, assessing qualityof theteaching

by how much teachers used group learning, multimediacourseware, and inquiry-based instruction in their classes,sometimes even setting explicit time limits for lecturing inclass (Wan & Wang, 2005).

In this way, top-down national educational reform hasaltered methods of teaching and learning, but culturaladaptation by practitioners has been neglected. Berry (2003)suggested four major cultural strategies that a group could adopt, ranging from totally accepting to totally rejectingsuggested changes. He calls these four reactions assimilation,separation, integration, and marginalization (Berry, 2003).For assimilation and integration, individual instructors canintegrate their cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors withthe recommended changes. On the other hand, separationand marginalization produce inconsistent outcomes and arouse stress and anxiety. Accordingly, teachers who practice

separation and marginalization experience cultural conflict,making it difficult for them to understand and master the neweducational culture. As a result, it is easy for them to slip backinto the traditional habitual way of teaching.

Education should raise the awareness of the positive valueof culture (UNESCO, 2003). Curriculum and ways of teachingshould be reformed not only to reflect cultural diversitybut also to embed teaching practices within the culturalhistory of the nation and to promote positive inclusion of minority and indigenous history so as to maximize successfuladoption by teachers and parents. This tenet is at the core of the concept of ‘‘culturally appropriate education.’’ Successful

educationalreformand pedagogy require thatteachers becomeboth culturally and neuroscientifically literate.

CULTURALLY APPROPRIATEEDUCATION INAMULTICULTURALWORLD

Increases in globalization and migration pose complexproblems for the work force of the 21st century. In China,increases in international interaction, the movement of lessskilled laborers into the city, and increased interactionof minority groups with Han citizens increase the paceof multicultural change. It is important to prepare newgenerations for globalization and the multicultural world by providing them with the knowledge they need, as well asthe skills and attitudes that enable them to cope with rapid societal changes.

Furthermore, student populations have become increas-ingly diverse around the world. We must cultivate learnerswho are sensitive to differences between cultures, and whocan communicate effectively and work competently in differ-entcultures, developing theculturalintelligencethat is needed

for the 21st century. Cultural intelligence refers to the ‘‘capa-bility of individuals to function effectively in multiculturalsituations’’ (Earley & Ang, 2003). It is important for stu-dents to learn about cultural differences and to communicateeffectively with diverse groups. In order to understand and develop a culturally intelligent brain to deal with diversity,people not only need to understand how others think and act, but they also need to understand the incredible diversitythat people show in neural processing skills, including differ-ences between effective communicators and ineffective ones.People who acquire cultural experience do not ensure thatthey will have cultural awareness. To thrive in a multiculturalworld, people need to have the competence to work with and coordinate cultural differences and to deal with multiculturalenvironments. People need to cultivate cross-cultural skills of perception and communication.

In order to develop cultural intelligence in the workforcefor the 21st century, the first step is to cultivate culturalawareness, helping learners to understand both their own

culture and the diverse influence of values and cultural issueson their work and behavior. Also helpful is awareness of otherpeople’s expectations about one’s own cultural practices and issues. An important step is to help teachers and studentsto appreciate cultural diversity and to use cross-culturalknowledge reflectively to understand one’s own culturalheritage and appreciate the diversity of knowledge of others,helping them to develop sensitivity to cultural variations intheir home communities (Earley & Ang, 2003).

Acknowledgments—This work was supported by Humanisticand Social Science project, State Education Ministry, China

(10YJAZH139); Shanghai Pujiang Program, China (11PJC047);Large Instruments Open Foundation of East China NormalUniversity, China. We are grateful to the reviewers for theirsuggestive opinions.

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