Julian Elliott,

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Western influences on the East, Eastern
influences on the West

• Julian Elliott,
• Durham University

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The view from the U.S.

• Sputnik (1957)

• A Nation at Risk (1983)

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.eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that
threatens our future as a Nation and a people
If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to
impose on America the mediocre educational
performance that exists today, we might well
have viewed it as an act of war A Nation at
Risk (1983)
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The perceived challenge from the East heads
South
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Worlds Apart?(1964-1990)Review of
International Surveysinvolving England
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Third International Maths and Science Study
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Top performers 1995-2003(8th grade and above)

• Science Maths
• Singapore Taiwan
• Hong Kong Singapore
• Korea Japan
• Taiwan Korea
• Japan Hong Kong
• Source Ruzzi, 2006

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The key lesson from the East.
Its the pedagogy, stupid!
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Cherry-picking?
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Looking to the East Soviet traditions and
Russian outcomes
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Factors underpinning differential educational
achievement across cultures

• satisfaction with mediocre performance

• attributions and effort

• social influences

• the value of education

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(Being educated) is more than important. It
may be the aim of life
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• I think that we are to become persons, not
  machines for making money. A man doesnt live
  for money onlysomething else is also important.
• When asked what this was, she replied
• Well, spiritual values, a soulnot only material
  things

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• Many teachers say Im clever.. But I became
• lazy recently, so I dont do homework properly.
• I think that if I start doing everything at home,
  I
• may become much better. To be honest, I feel
• like putting all my lessons aside and doing
• nothing. The thing I love to do most of all at
  the
• moment is just to lie on the sofa and dream
• about something.
• Q. What are you dreaming about?

• About everything.how to change the world
• like in the story, Oblomov that you may know.

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Cultural icons
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The key lesson from the East.
Its not the pedagogy, stupid!
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East to West What should be learned? (1)

• highly positive attitudes to learning and
• scholarship

• high educational standards and expectations

• influential family support parental hardship
• and child obligation

• belief in discipline and the importance of
• demonstrating appropriate virtues - diligence,
• humility, perseverance, conentration,

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East to West What should be learned (2)

• a strong sense of group identity (needs)

• a supportive pro-learning peer culturepeer
• role models

• respect for the authority and knowledge of
• parents and teachers

• recognition that education is often tough,
• and not always fun

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East to EastWhat can be learnt from the Russian
experience?
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Challenges to Russian education

• a shift from collectivism to individualism

• greater materialism and instrumentalism

• a reduction of the esteem in which education
• and teachers are held

• bifurcation of attitudes and orientations

• social differentiation by means of specialist
• schools and curricula

• alienation from traditional values

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• West to East What should be learned?
• Tensions will emerge in relation to.
• autonomy and individualism
• democratic pedagogy
• teacher and peer influence
• and behavioural regulation

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In an authoritarian teaching culture, routines
will not be negotiated or contested because
teachers simply will not permit this to happen,
while in a teaching culture that espouses
democratic values routines not only will be
negotiated and contested but by definition must
be. The combination of complex classroom
organisation, unpredictable lesson structure and
avowedly democratic pedagogy, such as we found in
Michigan, is a sure-fire recipe, if not for
conflict, then certainly for the constant testing
of regulatory boundaries (Alexander, 2000,
p.385-6).
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• West to East What should be learned?
• Tensions will emerge in relation to.
• autonomy and individualism
• democratic pedagogy
• teacher and peer influence
• and behavioural regulation
• The need to change the basis of teachers
• authority

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Will the East become the new West?

• The end of history?
• or
• The clash of civilisations?

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joe.elliott_at_durham.ac.uk
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The implicit bargain
relatively little concern for academic content,
a willingness to tolerate, if not encourage,
diversion from the specified knowledge to be
presented or discussed the substitution of
genial banter and conversation for concentrated
academic exercises improvisational instructional
adaptation to student preference for or
indifference towards specific subject matter or
pedagogical techniques the negotiation of
class content, assignments, and standards and a
high degree of teacher autonomy in managing the
level of academic engagement, personal
interaction, and course content
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Differences between England and the Pacific Rim
(Reynolds and Farrell, 1996)

• cultural

• systemic

• school

• classroom

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Globalising influences .

• Increasing emphasis upon
• personal autonomy

• A reduction in the perceived legitimacy
• of formal (adult) authority

• A devaluing of the intrinsic value of
• education

.may lead to a reduction in the work ethic