Culture and language: How do these influence arithmetic?

Abstract

International comparisons such as those carried out by TIMSS and PISA (e.g., Mullis et al., 2016a, b; OECD, 2016) tend to show considerably better arithmetical performance by children in some countries than in others. The position of countries can vary over time, but one consistent finding is that children from countries in the Far East, such as Japan, Korea, Singapore, and China, tend to perform better in arithmetic than do children in most parts of Europe and America. Stevenson et al. (1993) looked at performance in different subjects. They found that Japanese and Korean children outperformed American children to a greater extent in mathematics than in reading. This may be in part because of specific difficulties with regard to reading that are posed by East Asian writing systems; but it is also likely that the results reflect a special focus on mathematics in East Asian countries.