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The Chinese Learner: cultural, psychological and contextual influences
DAVID WATKINS & JOHN B. BIGGS (Eds), 1996 Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 285 pp., US$30 ISBN 0 86431 1826
For many years, the Chinese have been described as rote learners and the Chinese way of learning has been widely considered inferior to the Western way. This book dispels such common misconceptions. Within the past decade, considerable efforts have been devoted to investigations of Chinese education and to the appreciation of cross-cultural differences (e.g. Gardner, 1989; Stevenson & Stigler, 1992). However, this book is the first to challenge a set of Western misperceptions with sound empirical evidence and forceful arguments.
The book has 14 chapters written by 19 authors and is divided into four sections. Among the authors, approximately 70% are Westerners and approximately 30% are Chinese.
The first section, entitled `Setting the Scene', contains two papers which establish the theoretical, methodological and cultural contexts for the book. The chapters are useful, though one...