Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-018-9440-z

R E V I E W A RT I C L E

Envisioning a Culturally Imaginative

Educational Psychology

Ronnel B. King 1 & Dennis M. McInerney 1,2 &

Riddhi J. Pitliya 1,3

Published online: 28 May 2018

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract Culture has mostly been neglected in mainstream educational psychology research.
In this paper, we argued for the need to cultivate a cultural imagination and provided seven key
recommendations for conducting culturally imaginative research. We explained how these
recommendations could prove useful in avoiding the two types of errors that trap cross-
cultural researchers. The first type is the cultural attribution error which pertains to attributing
any observed difference to culture even if culture is not the relevant factor. The second type is
the cultural blind spot error which pertains to the failure to see how culture influences psycho-
educational processes and outcomes. We proffered seven recommendations to avoid these twin
pitfalls. We reviewed the papers published from 2006 to 2016 in four flagship educational
psychology journals including the Journal of Educational Psychology, Contemporary Educa-
tional Psychology, Cognition and Instruction, and British Journal of Educational Psychology.
Our review focused on how educational psychologists have studied culture over the past decade
and how the published studies aligned with our seven recommendations. The content analysis
indicated that only a small percentage of the articles dealt with culture, most of the studies drew
on Western samples, and that almost all studies relied on an etic approach with very few studies
using an emic bottom-up perspective. We ended with a justification for why a culturally
imaginative educational psychology is urgently needed in an increasingly diverse world.

Keywords Culture . Cross-cultural educational psychology . Etic . Emic . Cultural imagination

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-018-

9440-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

* Ronnel B. King
ronnel@eduhk.hk

1
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong
Kong
2
Australian Catholic University, New South Wales, Australia
3
The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
1032 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

Introduction

The educational psychology community has given short shrift to the role of culture and the
closely related constructs of race and ethnicity. As Portes (1996, p. 331) noted, BThe way
educational psychology has dealt with ethnicity and culture mirrors how psychology has
addressed those issues in general, chiefly, as areas outside its primary research concerns.^
Unfortunately, this observation is still an accurate depiction of the current state of the literature
two decades later. Although there is widespread agreement that culture plays an important role
in learning processes (DeCuir-Gunby and Schutz 2014; King and McInerney 2014, 2016;
Usher 2018; Zusho and Clayton 2011), Zusho and Kumar 2018 researchers have given this a
perfunctory acknowledgment at most but proceed as if the majority of psycho-educational
processes are culturally invariant and that Western theories and models are universally
applicable to people from diverse cultures, races, and ethnicities.
The aim of this paper is to argue the need for a cultural imagination in educational
psychology research that is sensitive to how cultural forces shape psycho-educational process-
es. The paper proceeds as follows: We first give a brief overview of how we define culture.
Next, we elucidate what we mean by the term Bcultural imagination^ and give seven key
suggestions that would help researchers conduct culturally imaginative research. We review
papers published in top educational psychology journals including the Journal of Educational
Psychology, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Cognition and Instruction, and the
British Journal of Educational Psychology from 2006 to 2016 to assess how educational
psychologists have studied culture in relation to the seven recommendations we proffered. We
explain how these seven suggestions would help researchers avoid two key types of error in
cross-cultural research. The first error is the error of attributing every single group difference to
culture even if culture is not the critical factor (cultural attribution error; Matsumoto and Yoo
2006). The second error is that of assuming that culture does not play any role whatsoev-
er when in fact culture shapes how our constructs are manifested and are related to each other
(cultural blind spot error). We end with a justification for why a culturally imaginative
educational psychology is needed in a multicultural world.

Culture

Culture has been defined in many ways. In fact, cultural anthropologists have more than 100
definitions of culture (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952). One of the most heuristic definitions is
Herskovits’ (1948, p. 17) definition of culture as the Bman-made part of the environment.^
Triandis (1972) further refined this definition by distinguishing between objective culture and
subjective culture. Objective culture refers to physical objects such as buildings, roads, and
tools among others. Subjective culture pertains to the social norms, roles, beliefs, values, and
traditions that influence the behaviors of a particular social group. Psychologists usually focus
on the latter in their research programs. Despite the multiplicity of definitions, there is
widespread agreement that culture involves shared elements among a group of people who
share a certain history, language, and/or geographic region (Shweder and LeVine 1984). It is
not just Bin the head^ with its attendant mental processes and functions but also Bout there^ in
the form of external realities and collective patterns of behavior (Kitayama 2002).
Researchers have focused on different aspects of culture. This has led to a multiplicity of
definitions and disagreement among researchers whether what one is studying is really culture
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1033

or not (see for example the debate among Fiske 2002; Miller 2002; Oyserman et al. 2002). In
an effort to synthesize research on culture within psychology, Oyserman et al. (2002) argued
that culture can be studied across different levels (see also Oyserman and Uskul 2008). We
adopt Oyserman and her colleagues’ (2002) framework in this paper because it is an inclusive
model that enables us to capture the broadest possible range of work. We elucidate these
different levels of analyses and give relevant educational psychology examples.
The first approach is called the distal approach which looks at culture-laden products such
as language, history, philosophical, and religious traditions. Tweed and Lehman’s (2002)
analysis of Socratic versus Confucian approaches to learning exemplified this approach. They
argued that even today, culturally Western and culturally Chinese students differ in their
approaches to learning, and these differences can be traced to the philosophical traditions
associated with Socrates and Confucius. Socrates valued the need to evaluate knowledge, held
self-generated knowledge in high regard, emphasized the importance of doubt, and prioritized
the search for knowledge over the possession of beliefs. In contrast, Confucius emphasized the
need for effortful learning, valued learning for its capacity to lead to self-cultivation and
achieve pragmatic ends (e.g., get a civil service job), regarded the acquisition rather than
generation of knowledge as more crucial, and urged the need for respectful learning (over
criticizing authorities). Studies have shown that these core themes still distinguish how
students from culturally Western and Chinese environments approach their learning even
today (e.g., Li 2003).
The second approach is the individual-level approach which focuses on those parts of
culture that exist at the individual level as mental representations. Scholars who study culture
at the individual-level focus on internalized values, attitudes, scripts, and norms. Educational
psychology researchers who measure individualism, collectivism, and cultural values at the
individual-level and use these to predict key psycho-educational processes and outcomes
use the individual-level approach. An example of the individual-level approach is the work
of Liem and his colleagues (2012) who measured cultural values among secondary students.
They found that valuing achievement was positively associated with a performance orientation
and that self-direction positively predicted academic achievement. On the other hand, valuing
security and conformity negatively predicted academic achievement.
Another example is the research conducted by Luo and her colleagues (2014) who
measured self-construals among high school students. They found that an independent self-
construal positively predicted a stronger math self-concept while interdependent self-construal
positively predicted math anxiety. A third example is the work of King (2016) who measured
students’ collectivist values. He found that collectivism moderated the effects of performance-
avoidance goals (wanting to avoid the demonstration of incompetence before others) on
learning outcomes. In particular, for students high in collectivism, performance-avoidance
did not lead to detrimental outcomes. These results are contrary to Western research which has
found performance-avoidance to be maladaptive.
The third way to examine culture is through the proximal approach which looks at currently
instantiated proximal institutions which include various culture-laden systems including par-
enting, education, and legal systems among others. The work of Ng et al. (2007) exemplified
this approach. They examined cultural differences in how Chinese and European American
parents responded to their children’s academic performance. They found that Chinese parents
put a greater emphasis on academic failure and less on academic success, while American
parents did the opposite. These differences in parenting style accounted for why Chinese
children responded more strongly to failure rather than success. The authors concluded,
1034 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

Bparents’ responses to children’s performance may be a channel for cultural transmission and
perpetuation of responses to performance^ (p. 1239).
The fourth approach is the situated approach which focuses on the everyday situations
faced by individuals. The social situations faced by individuals differ across cultures and these
differences can account for cultural differences in cognition, behavior, and affect. For example,
it is possible that East Asian students may encounter more teachers who emphasize the role of
effort and context in learning and achievement, while Caucasian American students may
encounter more teachers who emphasize the role of innate ability (e.g., Choi et al. 1999;
Hong 2001; Norenzayan et al. 2002). These everyday classroom interactions which focus
on different factors necessary for success may lead Chinese students to attribute success/
failure to effort more than to intelligence and the obverse might be true for European-
American students.
The most proximal approach is through research on culture as subjective construal. It
emphasizes that culture influences the way individuals make sense of situations. Researchers
who focus on subjective construal usually prime cultural orientations to individualism-
collectivism and examine how these cultural orientations lead to differences in cognition,
affect, and behavior. Psychologists who rely on priming techniques to experimentally
make individualistic or collectivist tendencies more salient rely on the logic of
experimentation to ensure that the changes in key psychological processes are indeed
caused by cultural factors and not other confounding variables. Controlling for
confounding variables in cross-national research is difficult because there are many
factors that one cannot control for and priming studies can potentially address this
shortcoming (Oyserman et al. 2002).
The work of Cheng and Lam (2013) is a good example of this approach. They experimen-
tally primed students’ self-construals by asking students to read an article that emphasized
either an independent or an interdependent self-construal. In the independent self-construal
condition, participants read an article emphasizing the importance of uniqueness and distinc-
tiveness. In the interdependent self-construal condition, the importance of relatedness and
connectedness were highlighted. Cheng and Lam (2013) and found that when the interdepen-
dent self-construal was activated, seeking for social approval was not associated with mal-
adaptive outcomes. However, the same goal led to greater self-handicapping when students’
independent self-construals were primed.
Taken together, these studies show the multi-layered nature of culture. Educational psy-
chology researchers have focused on different aspects of culture and a cultural perspective has
helped provide key insights into psycho-educational processes.

Cultural Imagination

We argue that educational psychologists need to cultivate a cultural imagination which can
facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the role of culture in psychological processes. We
use the term imagination as a habitual way of perceiving things or a Bquality of mind^ (Mills
1959). Cultural imagination therefore is not a specific theory or framework but rather an
outlook, a way of seeing human behavior as shaped by cultural forces and vice versa (King and
McInerney 2014). Below, we present several suggestions on how culturally imaginative
research can be conducted.
We also examined how educational psychologists have actually examined the issue of
culture in the top educational psychology journals. Two coders (the first author and the third
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1035

author) reviewed all the publications from 2006 to 2016 in four flagship educational psychol-
ogy journals including the Journal of Educational Psychology (JEP), Contemporary Educa-
tional Psychology, Cognition and Instruction, and the British Journal of Educational
Psychology. While the educational psychology literature is certainly much broader than these
four journals, given their bellweather status, the trends found in these journals could generalize
to the broader educational psychology literature.
The two coders looked at all the published empirical papers (excluding editorial letters and
non-empirical theoretical papers) that dealt with issues related to culture as well as the closely
related constructs of race, and ethnicity and how these influenced key psycho-educational
processes. We found 1666 empirical articles that could be potentially analyzed for culturally
relevant content. In the end, the coders decided to include 107 articles. The agreement rate
among the two coders was 95%. The Supplementary File includes the details of our coding
scheme.
Below, we elucidate seven suggestions for advancing a culturally imaginative educational
psychology and present our analysis of the broad trends in the four flagship journals. These
suggestions include the need to (1) take issues of equivalence into account, (2) use other
methods of data collection aside from self-reports, (3) consider the multilevel structure of data,
(4) identify and unpack the sources of cross-cultural variability, (5) include cross-national
samples when possible, (6) broaden the forms of cultures examined, and (7) complement etic
with emic approaches.

Take Issues of Equivalence into Account

Suppose that students from Culture A have higher mean scores on an academic motiva-
tion scale compared to students from Culture B. Can we automatically assume that
Culture A students are more motivated than Culture B students? Our answer to this
question is no. Before we can conclude that Culture A students are indeed more motivated
than Culture B students, we need to make sure that our instruments are actually measuring
the same thing (i.e., academic motivation) in Culture A and Culture B and not something
else.
Berry (1980) argued that any comparison of psychological phenomena assumes that the
underlying dimension is the same. We focus on two types of equivalence that are most
pertinent for educational psychology research: linguistic equivalence and metric equivalence.

Linguistic Equivalence

Linguistic equivalence pertains to whether the words carry the same meaning across cultures.
Simple translation is now regarded as problematic. Back translation has become the standard
procedure and technique of choice for cross-cultural researchers (Brislin 1980). This design
involves translating a test from the source language to the target language version by a group
of translators. Next, the target language version is back translated to the source language by a
second translator or group of translators. The back translated scale is compared against the
original version and problems of inaccuracy or inconsistency in the meanings can then be
resolved. The International Test Commission (2016) has issued extensive guidelines on how
researchers can translate and adapt questionnaires which are now recognized as the gold
standard in cross-cultural research.
1036 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

Metric Equivalence

The second type of equivalence is metric equivalence. Metric equivalence is shown if the
psychometric properties of two sets of data are the same for different cultural groups.
Classical test theory posits that there is a true score and an error component inherent in
any measurement (Byrne 2010). Differences between scores represent both actual differ-
ences on the construct as well as nonsystematic measurement error. The relevant construct
is expected to cause variations in the observed true scores. In order for the comparisons
across groups to be truly valid, a lot of assumptions need to be met: the construct should
have conceptual equivalence across groups, the measurement error factors are equivalent,
and observed scores relate to the underlying construct in a similar way. These assump-
tions, however, are rarely tested.
Several authors have outlined key steps to establish metric equivalence using an
invariance testing framework (Byrne 2010). First, covariance matrices should be
examined. Second, the patterns of factor loadings are examined to evaluate configural
invariance. Third, metric equivalence is tested by examining the values of factor
loadings across groups. Fourth, scalar invariance is examined by comparing the
intercepts of the items. Fifth, the uniqueness of each variable is tested. Sixth, factor
variances across groups are tested to see whether they are equal. Seventh, factor
covariances are tested to determine equality across groups. Lastly, factor means are
tested for equivalence across groups. Not all these invariance tests are required for
every single study and researchers can establish partial invariance on a subset of
parameters when variance is found in one of the eight steps elucidated above.
Despite the importance of testing for metric equivalence, there are many cross-cultural
studies and studies comparing various ethnic groups wherein researchers compared groups in
terms of mean-level differences on composite scores but did not examine whether there is in
fact metric equivalence. This is disappointing because conclusions derived from such mean-
level comparisons cannot be given too much credence if metric equivalence is not shown. We
note that in recent years, there has been an increasing upward trend in explicitly testing metric
equivalence.
In the Journal of Educational Psychology, we found only 15 studies which explicitly
established equivalence of the measures across the different cultural groups (Cheung
and Pomerantz 2012; Cheung et al. 2015; Flanagan et al. 2007; Hernandez et al. 2013;
Kim et al. 2010; Lipnevich et al. 2011; Marsh 2016; Marsh et al. 2013, 2015;
Nagengast and Marsh 2012; Niehaus and Adelson 2013; Rjosk et al. 2015;
Salchegger 2016; Witkow and Fuligni 2007; Zhou et al. 2012). In Contemporary
Educational Psychology, we found four papers that conducted invariance tests (Frenzel
et al. 2016; Klassen et al. 2009; Mooney et al. 2016; Usher 2009). Likewise, in the
British Journal of Educational Psychology, only four papers conducted a formal test
of invariance across groups (Ahn et al. 2016; Brok et al. 2010; Lau 2009; Miessel
and Rubie-Davies 2016). None of the studies in Cognition and Instruction conducted
tests of metric equivalence though this seemed less relevant for the journal because
many of their studies did not rely on self-report surveys and used alternative
methodologies.
Though not all cross-cultural studies took equivalence into account, some researchers tried
to mitigate the difficulty of comparing groups by taking into account response style biases
(e.g., Richardson 2010). However, we still found a number of published studies that compared
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1037

mean-level differences but did not explicitly test whether the scales measured the construct in a
similar way across groups (e.g., Schommer-Aikins and Easter 2008). We also found some
studies that aggregated data from samples from different cultures without testing whether there
was some form of equivalence across the groups (e.g., Sapouna et al. 2012). Researchers are
encouraged to take issues of equivalence into account whenever they are measuring constructs
across different cultural groups.

Use Other Methods of Data Collection Aside from Self-Reports

Closely related to the issue of equivalence is the over-reliance on self-reports in research on

group differences. This problem is not just particular to research on race, ethnicity, and culture
in educational psychology but to the broader psychological literature. In fact, Baumeister et al.
(2007, p. 396) accused psychology of turning into a Bscience of self-reports and finger
movements.^ The problem with self-reports stems from the fact that these surveys require
social comparisons. The referent group, however, would be different for individuals in
different cultures. For example, even if a student is highly academically engaged, he/
she may not believe this to be the case if many others in the same group are equally or even
more highly engaged. Likewise, even if two students believe that they are both average in
terms of engagement, they are also likely to be very different if they are from different cultures.
To illustrate, suppose Student A is in a culture where most students are highly engaged
(e.g., East Asian cultures which score at the top of international rankings) and hence
compares herself with other equally engaged students. A second student may be in a
culture where students have a more relaxed attitude toward school and compares
herself with other less engaged students. The first student is actually more engaged
in behavioral dispositions. She may actually put in more hours in studying, ask more
questions, and do more homework but this difference may fail to show up in self-
report measures of engagement. Heine et al. (2002) refer to this as the reference
group effect.
This problem with over-reliance self-report measures was faced by Niehaus and
Adelson (2013). They examined the self-concept of three groups of students: English-
speaking English language learners (ELL), Spanish-speaking ELLs, and Asian-
background ELLs. They found that the Self-Description Questionnaire (Marsh and O
′ Niell 1984), a popular tool to measure self-concept, was invariant across the three
groups of students. However, they also found that Spanish-speaking ELLs had the
highest levels of academic self-concept in reading, math, and other school subjects.
This is a surprising result given that Spanish-speaking ELLs have been found to do
poorly in school compared to other cultural groups. Niehaus and Adelson (2013) only
measured self-concept using self-report measures in their study and they wrote, B…it
appears that there may be an interesting discrepancy between the academic self-beliefs
of Spanish-speaking ELLs and their actual achievement levels…though this question
warrants further research…^ They proposed that future studies include actual achieve-
ment results to examine whether the link between self-reported measures of academic
self-concept and academic achievement is indeed weaker among Spanish-speaking
ELLs. The inclusion of actual achievement data would have enabled researchers to
test whether ethnicity moderates the strength of the relationship between self-concept
and achievement.
1038 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

There are ways to improve self-report questionnaires to lessen problems associated with the
reference group effect. Some scholars have suggested the use of forced-choice questionnaires
instead of traditional Likert-scale questionnaires (Heine et al. 2002). Doing so eschews the
need to evoke a comparison group. Another suggestion is to replace abstract wordings with
more specific behavioral questions (Heine et al. 2002). Instead of merely asking students
whether they are motivated or engaged in school for example, researchers can ask students
more specific questions such as letting them estimate how much time they actually spend on
doing schoolwork. Compared to more abstract questions, responses to specific questions are
less prone to being swayed by reference group effects.

Implicit Methods

Another way to go around the problem associated with self-reports is to use implicit measures
alongside explicit self-report measures. Implicit measures seek to assess underlying automatic
evaluations that are not under the subject’s conscious awareness (Greenwald and Banaji 1995).
Implicit methods address masking by self-presentation strategies and could uncover attitudes
and other automatic associations even for subjects who prefer not to express such attitudes.
A study by Nosek et al. (2009) showed that implicit methods may have greater predictive
validity compared to self-report measures when trying to understand the gender gap in science
and math achievement. They found that nation-level implicit stereotypes associating science
with males more than with females predicted nation-level sex differences in science and math
achievement. Self-reported stereotypes did not provide much additional predictive validity
after taking implicit stereotypes into account. They found that explicit stereotypes accounted
for 1–2% of the variance in the science and math achievement gap, whereas implicit stereo-
types accounted for 19–24% of the achievement gap.
In our review, we found only one study that used implicit methods. Kumar and her
colleagues (2015) measured teachers’ implicit and explicit biases toward White vs. non-
White students. They found that both implicit and explicit bias predicted differences in teacher
beliefs which in turn influenced instructional practices. This study highlighted the need to
incorporate both implicit and explicit measures as both predicted a significant amount of
variance in the outcomes examined.

Behavioral Observations

Educational psychologists can also rely on observations of actual behavior. An advantage of

observational studies is that there is no need to rely on cultural insiders to provide information
about their own culture. Paradoxically, cross-culturally interesting phenomena may be more
obvious to outsiders compared to insiders. As Stigler and Perry (1988) attested, BJust sitting in
a Japanese mathematics classroom can provide us with important insights, not only about the
way mathematics is taught in Japan but also about the way mathematics is taught in the United
States^ (p. 28).
For example, Stigler and Perry (1988) observed math classes in the USA, Taiwan, and
Japan. They found that American students engaged in more off-task behaviors compared to
their Taiwanese and Japanese counterparts. Americans spent less time in school compared to
their Asian counterparts. Japanese classrooms are also more reflective (defined as the amount
of verbal explanation given by both teachers and students during a lesson) compared to
American classrooms. These cross-cultural differences in classroom dynamics can explain
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1039

why Japanese and Chinese students have higher math achievement scores compared to their
American counterparts.
Researchers might not have uncovered these cross-cultural differences if they just relied on
self-report questionnaires. In fact, researchers found that when asked through self-report
surveys, American parents had more positive evaluations of their children’s performance
compared to Asian parents (Stevenson et al. 1993). American students seemed to internalize
these positive evaluations and were confident that they were doing well in school even
when their objective performance was lower than the Asian students.
In the educational psychology papers we examined in the four flagship journals, only a few
studies used behavioral observations. Good examples of behavioral observations include the
study conducted by Rosario et al. (2016) which relied on observational coding of student
engagement and the study conducted by Richland (2015) which relied on observations of
videotaped data. Other studies looked at a specific behavioral outcome such as frequency of
reading books (Kim and Guryan 2010), leaving school (e.g., Petras et al. 2011), or dropping
out of the STEM pipeline (e.g., Estrada et al. 2011).
We also found a number of studies relying on teacher (e.g., Ansari and Winsler 2014)
and parent reports (e.g., Kim et al. 2010). Other studies relied on standardized achieve-
ment tests such as the studies that used secondary data analysis of the Program for
International Student Assessment (PISA) (e.g., Chiu and Chow 2015) or the Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) (e.g., Marsh et al. 2015). It was
also not surprising to see numerous studies using school grades or other achievement
tests as sources of data (e.g., Harackiewicz et al. 2014; Ku et al. 2012). Still, self-report
surveys were over-represented in the studies which we content analyzed indicating that
this remains to be the most popular way of collecting data for educational psychology
researchers.
We do not advocate the replacement of self-report measures with implicit and behavioral
measures. Instead, we argue for the need to use a variety of complementary methods, each
replicated against similar studies and checked against the results from other methods. Urdan
and Bruchmann (2018, p. 123) called for methodological diversity in our discipline and wrote,
“No single study will include all of the research questions and methodologies necessary to
capture a phenomenon as complex as the interplay between race, ethnicity, culture... a
combination of methodologies employed across a wide range of researchers is needed to
understand this phenomenon.”

Consider the Multilevel Structure of the Data

Cross-cultural data has a nested structure. Individuals can be conceptualized as nested

within cultures (Cheung et al. 2006). Thus, the multilevel data structure necessitates the
use of statistical techniques that can focus on the individual (disaggregated) as well as
the group (aggregated) levels of the structure (Oyserman and Uskul 2008; van de Vijver
et al. 2008). Failure to do so can lead to several problems such as violations of the
assumptions of independence, aggregation bias, ecological fallacy, and heterogeneity of
regression leading to spurious significant results (Raudenbush and Bryk 2002; van de
Vijver et al. 2008). Unfortunately, most of the studies involving culture, race, and
ethnicity only examine data at the individual level (van de Vijver and Poortinga 2002).
1040 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

A good example of a study that simultaneously took into account several levels of analysis
is a study conducted by Seaton et al. (2009). They tested the universality of the big fish little
pond effect (BFLP) theory which states that high ability students’ self-concepts may suffer
when these students are put in high ability schools or classes because of social comparison
effects (Marsh and Hau 2003). Using secondary data from PISA (Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development 2005), they found that the BFLP effect was cross-culturally
universal. The effect was found across both individualist and collectivist cultures and both
economically developed and developing countries.
Multilevel modeling techniques are not only useful for cross-country studies. Even studies
that examine various ethnic minority groups within one country can use multilevel techniques
(Cheung et al. 2006). For instance, multilevel factor models can assess whether a factor model
is similar across different ethnic groups. Multilevel causal models can also assess whether
ethnicity as a second-level variable affects an individual-level variable or moderates the effect
of an individual-level predictor on an individual-level outcome variable.
In content analyzing the culture-related studies in the four journals, it was encouraging to
find that studies which used large-scale cross-national datasets took into account the multilevel
nature of the data structure. This was especially true for the studies that relied on data from
PISA and TIMSS which used hierarchical linear modeling techniques (e.g., Chiu and Chow
2015; Marsh 2016; Marsh et al. 2013; Morris et al. 2015; Salchegger 2016). Other studies
adjusted the standard errors to take into account the clustered nature of the data (e.g., Martin
et al. 2016; Tarbetsky et al. 2016).

Identify and Unpack the Sources of Cross-Cultural Variability

Suppose researchers want to examine differences in achievement motivation between

Culture A and Culture B. Although Culture A and Culture B differ in a variety of ways
(e.g., socio-economic status, political system, climate, geography, etc.), researchers attri-
bute differences in achievement motivation to the collectivist culture of Culture B. Can we
trust these findings?
Our answer to this is no. Educational psychologists interested in cross-cultural research
need to move beyond simple East-West comparisons which have dominated the cross-cultural
discourse thus far. Early studies have often pitted Western cultures (i.e., the USA) against
Eastern cultures (usually Mainland China, Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea). Other studies
operationalize culture in terms of ethnic groups and assume that ethnic minority groups (e.g.,
Latino, African-American) are higher in collectivism while European-Americans are higher in
individualism. Studies have shown that this is not always the case and that African-Americans
are actually higher in individualism compared to Latinos, Asia-Americans, and even European
Americans (Coon and Kemmelmeier 2001). Cultures are complex and such simple dichoto-
mies will, in the long run, not suffice to fully characterize the interaction between culture and
educational processes (Urdan & Bruchmann 2018).
There is a need to use the Bunpackaging^ approach advocated by Matsumoto and Yoo
(2006). Essentially, this approach entails measuring the relevant cultural ingredient responsible
for causing the purported cross-cultural difference in the outcome measures. Without directly
measuring the active cultural ingredient and examining whether this cultural ingredient can
account for the group differences, any claim we make is on shaky ground. This is because
there are so many confounding factors present that might cause two groups to differ on a
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1041

certain outcome measure. For example, if the theory tells us that collectivism is the probable
cause of why Chinese adopt more social goals compared to American students, then there is a
need to measure collectivism at the individual level and directly examine whether it can
account for the group differences in social goal endorsement (Cheng and Lam 2013).
Decades of research in cultural and cross-cultural psychology have revealed important
cultural dimensions that could possibly account for observed cross-cultural differences. Fore-
most among them would be the Hofstede’s (2001) five cultural dimensions: individualism-
collectivism; power distance; uncertainty avoidance; masculinity; and long- vs. short-term
orientation. Aside from Hofstede’s (2001) work, Schwartz (2004) has uncovered seven
universal value orientations on which cultures differ-embeddedness, hierarchy, intellectual
autonomy, affective autonomy, egalitarianism, mastery, and harmony. Inglehart (1977); on
the other hand, identified traditional vs. secular and survival vs. self-expression as the most
critical value dimensions. Leung and Bond (2004) posited five types of social axioms
(beliefs about the world) that could account for key cross-cultural differences. These five
social axioms include social cynicism, fate control, reward for application, social com-
plexity, and religiosity.
Much of the research on cross-cultural psychology has focused on individualism and
collectivism (Hofstede 2001). While the individualism-collectivism dimension is certainly
important, researchers will need to carefully examine the role of other key cultural dimensions
in developing theoretical models that could predict differences or similarities in psycho-
educational processes. For example, Liem et al. (2012) examined how Schwartz’s
(2004) value dimensions shaped the quality of students’ motivation. They found that
cultural values had both direct and indirect effects on students’ motivation and
achievement. Zhou et al. (2009) found that social axioms were linked to students’
academic outcomes.
Taking into account multiple dimensions of cultural variability is necessary because
cultures vary in many ways and not just in whether they are individualistic or collectivistic.
An analogy to personality psychology may be useful. Personality psychologists claim that we
cannot understand people’s personality structure if we just focus on one dimension of the Big
Five such as introversion-extroversion. A more accurate understanding of the person is
obtained if we examine different dimensions of his/her overall personality structure. Analo-
gously, culture is complex and reducing every cross-cultural difference to individualism-
collectivism is an oversimplification of culture’s inherent complexity.
The need to unpack the cultural factors responsible for cross-cultural differences can be
found in the study conducted by Ahn et al. (2016). They attributed the lower levels of self-
efficacy of Korean and Filipino students to the collectivist cultural context. They wrote,
BCross-cultural studies have consistently shown that students in individualistic Western
countries report stronger beliefs of personal efficacy compared to those in collectivist Asian
countries….sometimes despite their superior performance.^ (p. 129–130). The high levels of
anxiety among Filipino students compared to Korean and US students was attributed to high
levels of power distance. They wrote, BThe Philippines is characterized by a much higher power
distance index than Korea and the United States. Individuals in hierarchical societies with a large
power distance emphasize status, referent power, authority, and legitimacy. They learn to comply
with ascribed social status and are expected to preserve this order, which can create strong social
pressure to meet social standards. This may in turn explain a heightened sense of anxiety^ (p.
130). Ahn and her colleagues (2016), however, did not measure collectivism or power distance
explicitly. Thus, their speculations though plausible cannot be tested empirically. An unpackaging
1042 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

approach would enable them to directly test whether collectivism predicts lower levels of self-
efficacy and whether power distance predicts higher levels of anxiety. Unpackaging studies would
help move the field towards greater theoretical and empirical precision.
Our content analysis indicated that only very few studies directly measured key cultural
dimensions. Most of the studies simply equated culture with ethnicity or nationality. A good
example of a study that unpackaged culture was the research conducted by Chiu and Chow (2015)
on secondary PISA data. They included country-level measures of collectivism, egalitarianism,
and uncertainty avoidance and examined how these cultural factors were associated with reading
achievement. Another example was the study conducted by Seaton and her colleagues (2009)
who examined how country-level scores on individualism moderated the big-fish-little-pond-
effect. Nagengast and Marsh (2012) included cultural factors such as power distance,
individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation in exam-
ining the cross-cultural generalizability of the big fish little pond effect. Similarly,
Lam and her colleagues (2016) examined the generalizability of the decline in engage-
ment across students from countries with varying levels of individualism.
We did not find any study within the purview of our review which examined other
dimensions of cross-cultural variability (aside from individualism-collectivism) such as the
seven value orientations identified by Schwartz (2004) or the two-dimensional value orienta-
tions proposed by Inglehart (1977). We also did not find any study which utilized Leung and
Bond’s (2004) research on social axioms. There is clearly a need not only to unpack cultural
variability but also to explore other dimensions of cross-cultural variability aside from
individualism and collectivism.

Cultural Priming

Aside from just measuring the active cultural ingredient, researchers can also prime the
relevant cultural ingredient using an experimental design. Cultural priming involves manipu-
lating a cultural element in order to ascertain the causal role of culture in key psychological
processes (see also Oyserman and Lee 2008). For example, a researcher who wants to prime.
A primary advantage of the priming culture in the lab is that results of studies that use priming
techniques could better support causal reasoning.
Although manipulating societal structures that are assumed to be consequences of cultural
factors is not possible, it is possible to manipulate the accessibility or salience of certain
cultural dimensions such as individualism and collectivism. The assumption is that cultural
dimensions are more likely to influence outcomes when salient and accessible than otherwise.
In the lab, priming typically involves having participants engage in a series of tasks. Partic-
ipants are typically not aware of the researchers’ intent. Concepts, procedural knowledge, and
goals cued by the first priming task carry over to subsequent tasks. This spillover effect can be
examined by examining different groups that were subjected to different kinds of primes.
Cultural priming studies create an experimental analog of between culture differences.
Cultural primes direct individuals’ attention to culture-relevant content (values, norms, atti-
tudes, and beliefs). By comparing responses after a culturally-relevant content is primed,
psychologists can examine the extent to which differences between members of different
societies are actually due to the primed content rather than other potential explanatory variables.
There are three common priming techniques used in the cross-cultural psychology litera-
ture. The first one involves asking participants to read a story, a general who had to promote
someone either on the basis of advantage for one’s family (collectivism prime) or on the basis
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1043

of getting the best person for the job (individualism prime) (e.g., Trafimow et al. 1991). The
second one involves reading a short paragraph about a trip, and one is asked to circle
pronouns—either first person singular pronouns such as BI^,B me^, Bmy^ (individualism
prime) or first person plural pronouns such as Bwe^, Bour^, Bus^ (collectivism prime) (e.g.,
Gardner et al. 1999; Haberstroh et al. 2002). The third one involves asking participants to
reflect on either their similarities (collectivism prime) or differences (individualism prime) with
family members and friends (e.g., Trafimow et al. 1991).
Across the 1666 published articles we included in the content analysis, we only found one
paper that used a cultural priming approach: Cheng and Lam (2013) primed students’
independent vs. interdependent self-construals and examined how these self-construals mod-
erated the effects of social goals on learning. Their study explained how culture (via self-
construals) moderated the effects of social goals (studying in order to gain social approval) on
learning. They found that when students’ independent self-construals were primed, social
goals were associated with maladaptive outcomes such as self-handicapping. However, when
one’s interdependent self-construal was primed, social goals did not have any detrimental
consequences. Their study pinpointed the important role of self-construals in moderating the
effects of social goals on learning-related outcomes.
Although cultural priming has received some criticism (Fiske 2002; Miller 2002), it remains
a valuable tool in a psychologist’s arsenal that can enable researchers to disentangle the active
ingredients of culture hypothesized to cause the cross-cultural differences from other con-
founding factors. We encourage educational psychologists to explore the utility of cultural
priming to answer cross-cultural research questions.

Include Cross-National Samples when Possible

Oyserman (2017) argued, BNoticing culture requires some way of stepping out of it in order to
gain perspective on it^ (p. 436). One of the best ways to step out of one’s own cultural confines
is to collect data from cross-national samples. Henrich et al. (2010) argued that much of our
psychological knowledge is built on studies from WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized,
rich, democratic) societies. Graham (1992) made the same criticism more than two decades
ago drawing attention to the fact that most of the subjects in psychological research were
White and middle class.
Our content analysis of the top articles indicated that much of the existing research is
focused on Western cultures particularly English-speaking cultures. Of the 107 culture-related
papers included in our content analysis, only 28 (26%) studies explicitly included students
recruited from different countries. Most of these studies with cross-national samples relied on
publicly available datasets from PISA or TIMSS (e.g., Chiu 2012; Chiu and Chow 2015; Lee
2014; Li et al. 2008; Marsh 2016; Marsh et al. 2013, 2015; Nagengast and Marsh 2012;
Salchegger2016; Seaton et al. 2009; Williams and Williams 2010). Other studies included
students from two different groups such as the USA and China (Cheung and Pomerantz 2012;
Schleppenbach et al. 2007; Zhou et al. 2006, 2012); UK and Hong Kong (Ku et al. 2012);
USA and Belarus (Lipnevich et al. 2011); Germany and Canada (Frenzel et al. 2016); USA
and Germany (Feucht and Bendixen 2010); USA and UK (Lohman and Lakin 2009); UK and
Germany (Sapouna et al. 2012). There were a few studies that included three or more
nationalities (Ahn et al. 2016; Klassen et al. 2009; Lam et al. 2016; Richland 2015) though
these were the exceptions rather than the rule.
1044 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

The majority of the studies—93 studies out of the 107 culture-related studies—only
included samples from English-speaking countries. The bulk of these studies were conducted
in the US. A few of the studies were conducted in Confucian heritage cultures (e.g., Cheng and
Lam 2013; Lin et al. 2016). We did not find any single study conducted in South Asian and
Latin American contexts despite these regions being home to a huge part of the world’s
population. A number of studies only examined different ethnic groups within one country
(e.g., Brady et al. 2016; Koury and Votruba-Drzal 2014; Kumar et al. 2015; Olson et al. 2016).
Clearly, there is a need to redress this imbalance. Educational psychology research is still
largely based on data obtained from English-speaking countries, particularly the US. This
makes Usher’s (2018) call to confront the Whiteness and colorblindness of educational
research especially relevant.

Broaden the Forms of Culture Examined

Culture has most often been equated with nationality, ethnicity, or race. For example, the
special issue guest edited by Kumar and Zusho (2018) in Educational Psychologist focused on
critically examining the role of race and ethnicity in educational psychology research (e.g.,
Graham 2018; Gray et al. 2018; Kumar et al. 2018; Urdan and Bruchmann 2018). Despite the
critical importance of race and ethnicity, there are other forms of culture which educational
psychologists may need to consider. Cohen (2009) noted, BAlong with ethnicity or nationality,
religion, region, and social class probably account for an especially large amount of variation
in transmitted norms, values, beliefs, behaviors, and the like. By studying these as cultures,
psychologists can understand these domains better, as well as culture more broadly^ (p. 159).
In our review of empirical articles, we found that nation, ethnicity, or race were the most
common ways that educational psychology researchers operationalized culture. The most
frequent operationalization was ethnicity or race within a given country (e.g., Espinoza and
Juvonen 2011; Flanagan et al. 2007; Hernandez et al. 2013; Kieffer 2008; Koury and Votruba-
Drzal 2014; Kumar et al. 2015; Mandara et al. 2009; Matthews et al. 2010; Olson et al. 2016;
Petras et al. 2011; Roberts et al. 2010; Schommer-Aikins and Easter 2008; Taylor and Graham
2007; Thomas et al. 2009; Verhallen and Bus 2010; Witkow and Fuligni 2007; Wood et al.
2010). It is encouraging, however, that in recent years there has been an emergence of interest
in issues of intersectionality that takes into account how different forms of culture (such as
race, ethnicity and social class), identities, and social categories influence educational
outcomes (e.g., Brannon et al., 2017; Harackiewicz et al., 2016).

Religion

Religion is an understudied topic in the educational psychology literature despite its critical
importance for educational outcomes. Studies have found that religious students had better
academic and social outcomes compared to their non-religious counterparts (Furrow et al.
2004; Regnerus 2000, 2003). Students who see religion as important have higher levels of
academic motivation, obtain better grades, and are less likely to engage in maladaptive
behaviors (Kim-Spoon et al. 2014; Mooney 2010).
Although the theoretical mechanisms responsible for the positive effects of religion are not
yet clear, some studies suggest that this may be due to the ability of religion to increase self-
regulation which is critical for success in school (Rounding et al. 2012). Religions also
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1045

facilitate the endorsement of positive social norms such as prosocial behavior (Shariff and
Norenzayan 2007), which could be beneficial in the school context.
Existing studies on the role of religion in the educational context have focused on a global
notion of religion. They have not examined the finer distinctions among different religious tradi-
tions. Individuals from different religious groups, even within one country, can exhibit striking
differences in diverse psychological processes (Sanchez-Burks 2002). These may possibly be due
to the distinct cultural norms, values, and attitudes espoused by various religions. Thus, different
types of religious cultures may have different effects on student learning and motivation.
Although the evidence is not extensive, there are empirical studies that have shown
divergent effects on educational outcomes associated with different religious cultures (e.g.,
Fatima et al. 2017; Nasser and Birenbaum 2005). There is also evidence that certain religious
traditions may actually be antagonistic to the contemporary school ethos (Berliner 1997). Not
all types of religion may be beneficial for students’ learning and motivation. A culturally-
informed approach to religion could potentially explain how and why some religious cultures
are associated with positive educational outcomes and others not, and provide information
about the particular aspects of religious cultures that are relevant for teaching and learning.
We found only three studies that specifically focused on religion, and all three studies focused
on Catholic and Protestant youths in Northern Ireland. Ramiah and his colleagues (2013)
examined intergroup friendships; Stringer et al. (2009) investigated intergroup contact in segre-
gated and non-segregated schools; and Stringer and his colleagues (2010) examined political
attitudes among Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland where inter-group relations have
been strained. No single study which was included in our review focused on studying religion as a
form of culture. Moreover, no empirical study examined other religious traditions such as Islam,
Buddhism, and Taoism and how norms and values within these traditions could potentially
influence psycho-educational processes (see Gaskins 1999 for a counterexample). s.

Region

Aside from between-country differences which form the focal target of cross-cultural psychol-
ogists, regional variations within a country can also be associated with distinct cultural
patterns. For example, Nisbett and Cohen (1996) found that geographic regions within the
USA differ in their norms and values especially with regard to the importance of honor and
reputation. Southern states espouse a distinct culture of honor which makes Southern males
more likely to respond with violence when one’s honor and reputation are threatened. More
relevant to the educational psychology discipline is the finding that high school students in
culture of honor states were more likely than their counterparts in non-culture of honor states to
bring weapons to school. Culture of honor states also had higher rates of school shootings per
capita compared to non-culture of honor states. Many of the acts of school violence reflect
retaliatory aggression springing from a threat to one’s honor and reputation (Brown et al. 2009).
Another regional difference which educational researchers focus on is the rural-urban
difference. Within any single country, there are both more rural and more urban
environments. The differences in sociodemographic characteristics may also be associated
with distinct forms of culture. Greenfield (2013) used the sociological concepts of gemein-
schaft (community) and gesellschaft (society) to characterize two distinct types of environ-
ments. Gemeinschaft environments are characterized as simple, small-scale, relatively poor,
and subsistence-based. In such environments, family relations have a more prominent role and
large families are usually the norm. At the other extreme would be gesellschaft environments
1046 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

which are characterized as complex, large-scale, relatively rich, commerce-based, and highly
urbanized. In such environments, there are many opportunities for transitory relations with
strangers, families are usually smaller, and there are usually highly developed formal educa-
tional systems.
Greenfield (2013) theorized that individualistic values, behaviors, and psychology are more
adapted to gesellshcaft environments, whereas collectivist values, behaviors, and psychology
are more adapted to gemeinschaft environments. These distinct values associated with urban
and rural environments also have important implications for student learning and development.
For example, Greenfield et al. (2006) found that different types of intelligence were valued in
gesellschaft and gemeinschaft environments. In the former, scientific, academic, and cognitive
types of intelligence were more highly valued while in the latter, social/relational types of
intelligence were prioritized. In terms of learning processes, active participation, independent
learning, and praise were used more often in the former while collaborative learning, obser-
vation, and criticism were used more often in the latter.
Cultural differences in value orientations lead to a host of difficulties for students who move
across regions even within one country (e.g., moving from a rural school to an urban school).
Researchers found that helping students, teachers, and parents recognize the cultural gaps
between the students’ home culture (which is geared toward collectivism) and the school
culture (which is tilted towards independence) facilitated students’ ability to negotiate regional
transitions more smoothly (Greenfield et al. 1996).
While much of Greenfield’s research has been conducted in the US, the distinctions
between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft cultural orientations can also be used to shed light on
regional differences in other cultures. For example, in another study among Aboriginal
Australians, McInerney (2012) compared the academic goals of Aboriginal students living
in urban, remote, and very remote settings (which could correspond to the gesellschaft and
gemeinschaft dimensions). He found that Aboriginal students in very remote settings had the
highest levels of socially oriented goals while those in urban settings had the lowest levels of
socially oriented goals. These findings are closely aligned with the postulates of Green-
field’s (2013) gesellschaft-gemeinschaft framework. It seems that Aboriginal students who
moved to more gesellschaft environments (urban setting) became more individualistic and
less socially oriented as reflected in the types of goals they pursue in school. The cultural
norms encouraged in urban vs. rural environments may have influenced Aboriginal
students’ motivation. Thus, even among Aboriginal students themselves, there are inter-
esting cross-cultural differences.
In our review of the articles across four educational psychology journals, we were only able
to locate one article which examined regional differences. Lin and her colleagues (2016)
examined the nature of maternal mediation of children’s word writing across Hong Kong and
Beijing. Although both these cities are Chinese, there are important regional differences in
terms of educational system and culture. Lin and her colleagues found that the relationship of
socio-emotional support to word reading and word writing was different in Hong Kong and
Beijing, and they also found differences in maternal mediation. They speculated that these
differences may be related to the differences in script (Hong Kong uses traditional Chinese
characters, whereas Beijing uses simplified Chinese characters), educational systems (Hong
Kong emphasizes explicit instruction more than Beijing), and parenting (Beijing mothers may
be warmer than their Hong Kong counterparts because of the single-child policy in the former)
among others. Clearly, there is a need to explore how regional differences could impact key
psycho-educational processes.
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1047

Social Class

Previous research on socioeconomic status has focused on the effects of socioeconomic

status on academic outcomes (e.g., Sirin 2005). These studies generally show the dele-
terious effects of low SES on a wide range of outcomes. Social class has mostly been
treated it as a demographic variable. However, one can also take a more nuanced
approach and recognize that individuals from different social classes espouse different
cultural norms. Social class contexts repeatedly expose people to common conditions
which foster certain types of values, mindsets, and behaviors. Over time, these patterns
become norms and expectations for people inhabiting a particular social class. Social
class contexts shape the way individuals see themselves, the values they endorse, and the
behaviors they enact.
To date, very few studies have taken a culturally informed approach to social class (see
Harackiewicz et al. 2014 for an exception). This is an important gap that needs to be addressed
because studying social class as a cultural context could shed light on a diverse set of
psychological phenomena that existing theories could not account for. In studying social class,
much of the existing research has focused on how theoretical models derived from middle-
class contexts generalize to individuals from lower socio-economic status. For example, Wang
et al. (2013) aimed to examine how the Opportunity-Propensity framework generalized to
low income children. Equally important, however, are studies that examine how social
class moderates purportedly general psychological processes. An important example of
how socio-economic differences moderated key psychological processes was demonstrat-
ed by Sorhagen (2013). She found that when teacher expectations were high, all students
regardless of social class benefited. However, teachers’ under-estimation of their students’
math and language abilities was especially inimical to students from disadvantaged
backgrounds.
When looking at the difficulties faced by first-generation college students, most
researchers have focused on a resource deficiency perspective, attributing the difficul-
ties to lack of economic (e.g., money) or academic (e.g., preparation) resources
(Pascarella et al. 2004). While it is important to understand how these resource
deficits contribute to first-generation students’ adversity, another source of difficulty
stems from a cultural mismatch between the independent norms espoused in univer-
sities and the interdependent norms that first generation college students were social-
ized in their working class environments. A simple intervention that highlighted the
interdependent norms in the university eliminated the achievement gap between first-
generation students and their middle class continuing-generation peers (Stephens et al.
2012a, b).
We hope that educational psychologists will take up the challenge of investigating culture in
its many different forms and instantiations. While race, ethnicity, and nationality are the
prototypical targets of cultural research, expanding our focus to other types of culture such
as religion, region, and social class might yield rich dividends. Morris et al. (2015) argued
Ban individual engages with and gets shaped by more than one culture^ (p. 634).
Rather than a uniform programming, individuals select aspects of habits, beliefs, and
values from different cultural milieus. Religion, region, and social class—alongside
nationality, ethnicity, and race—are also important cultural contexts that offer individ-
uals cultural choices that have partial and plural influences on key psycho-educational
processes.
1048 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

Complement Etic with Emic Approaches

The etic emic distinction was first coined by Pike (1967) in the field of linguistics. In
linguistics, phonetics refers to the study of general aspects of sound production, while
phonemics refers to the study of sound in particular languages. Berry (1969) borrowed the
etic emic term and applied to cross-cultural work. In cross-cultural research, the etic approach
usually places the researcher outside the cultural system he/she is studying. Given that much of
psychology is Western-centric, it frequently involves testing Western-derived theories and
models in different cultural settings. Closely allied to etic perspective is the transport-and-test
mode of research wherein researchers want to test the transferability of their Western models to
diverse cultural groups (Cheung et al. 2006).
The emic approach, on the other hand, involves exploring indigenous theories, models, and
constructs. It emphasizes understanding psychological phenomenon and its inter-relationships
with other phenomena from a native’s perspective. One avoids the imposition of a priori
theories and constructs foreign to the culture one is studying. In most cases, emic research is
qualitative in nature which allows researchers to understand a phenomenon in its full com-
plexity. The bulk of the culturally oriented research in educational psychology has used a
purely etic approach. This is a key limitation of the extant literature. There are culturally
grounded ways of knowing and doing things that could not be properly captured by Western
theory. Thus, there is a need to complement the dominant etic mode of research with emic
approaches (Cheung et al. 2006).
Qualitative investigations may be more suited for uncovering these bottom-up phenomena.
Li’s (2003) research on the meaning of learning across American and Chinese cultures is an
excellent example of how an emic approach can be used in educational psychology research.
She used prototype analysis to uncover the meaning of Blearning^ across cultures. She found
that while Americans usually conceived of learning as a cognitive activity or process, Chinese
were more likely to imbue learning with strong social and moral connotations. These social
and moral associations are mostly absent in the American context. Li’s (2003) indigenous,
emic approach helped elucidate how cultures vary in the way they conceive of something as
common and as central to educational psychology research as Blearning.^ Merely translating
Western measures of learning into Chinese and examining how they are correlated with
different outcome variables would be unlikely to yield such rich findings.
We do not advocate for an abandonment of the etic research approach nor do we seek to
discourage quantitative studies in favor of qualitative ones. The point we want to emphasize is
that no single method should hold the monopoly in cross-cultural educational psychology
research because each method is prone to weaknesses idiosyncratic to it. A methodologically
democratic and inclusive discipline would guard against the pitfalls associated with over-
reliance on a single method.
Our review of existing educational psychology journals, however, revealed that educational
psychologists are focused exclusively on etic approaches. Gray, Hope, and Matthews (2018)
made a similar point and argued that much of the published educational psychology research
reflects White norms. Out of the 107 culture-related papers in the four flagship journals, only 6
used an emic approach (Kember et al. 2008; Larkin et al. 2016; Minthon and Marsh 2016;
Robbins et al. 2016; Webber et al. 2016; Zusho and Clayton 2016). Most of the published
studies were interested in testing their Western models across diverse cultural contexts or
across different ethnic groups. We highlight a few verbatim quotes to give a sense of this
dominant etic perspective among educational psychology researchers:
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1049

& BI was particularly concerned with whether these relationships were generalizable between
African American and Euro-American families… (Hill 2001, p. 687)
& B…the purpose of these studies was to conduct a formal test of SDT’s (self-determination
theory) basic needs theory using samples of middle-class South Korean students, students
who generally embrace collectivistic cultural values to a greater degree than do students in
the United States^ (Jang et al. 2009, p. 645)
& BThis study was designed to put self-efficacy to the test in terms of its generalizabiltiy to an
Indo-Canadian, specifically immigrant Punjabi Sikh, group of early adolescents ^ (Klassen
2004, p. 733)

It is also a cause for concern that educational researchers can sometimes be more concerned
about proving the validity of their theoretical models rather than modifying it to take into
account how socio-cultural realities should be incorporated into psychological theorizing.
Marley and his colleagues (2007) related the story of how a reviewer challenged their study
because they were testing a theoretical model among Native American students. They wrote,
BA reviewer…asks specifically, ‘To what extent do the authors feel that including children
with academic learning difficulties in the study actually mitigated the overall test of the
theoretical model?’ (p. 547). In the end, they had to apologize for their decision to conduct
the test among Native American students and wrote, The reviewer’s concern is therefore
acknowledged in that our making these decisions, a valid test of Glenberg’s (1997) theoretical
notions was likely compromised^ (p. 547).
Although there is much value to testing the generalizability of our theoretical models across
diverse groups, it might also be fruitful to examine indigenous perspectives that are not captured
by Western theories. One of the best examples of an emic-oriented study was conducted by
Zusho and Clatyon (2016). They examined the meaning of motivation among Jamaican
students and the factors that influence motivation within this particular cultural context.
The researchers found that socio-cultural factors such as those related to home/family
context, school climate, cultural values, and religion play a more important role in impacting
Jamaican students’ motivation than personal and cognitive factors. One of the more interesting
findings was the importance of religion, which is usually ignored in Western models of
achievement motivation. Jamaican students emphasized the role that God played in helping
them in their struggles. For example, one student shared, BI believe as a student one of my
most powerful witness as a Christian is to maintain a standard of excellence because God is not
mediocre, God is excellent and so that motivates me to do well.^ (p. 15). Another important
determinant of motivation was the family. Jamaican students emphasized the role of family
obligation with one student sharing, Bmy mother really motivates me because she faced
adversities and has worked hard over the years to send me to school and…this is the only
way in which I can repay her by doing well in school^ (p. 15). Zusho and Clayton’s (2016)
research provided important cultural insights into Jamaican students’ motivation.
There is a need to explore psychological phenomena from an indigenous perspective. The need
to combine both etic and emic approaches becomes especially apparent when Western-derived
models fall short of explaining important psychological phenomena. This was highlighted in stark
relief in the study conducted by Chiu (2012) who tested the effects of the internal-external frame
of reference effect and the big-fish-little-pond effect on students from 27 countries based on the
PISA dataset. It was not surprising to find that all the hypotheses were supported in countries such
as the US, England, Norway, and New Zealand—traditionally Western societies from which
much of our psychological knowledge is based on. Hypotheses drawn from the big-fish-little-
1050 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

pond-effect model, however, failed to be supported in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and
Iran. Partial support was found for countries such as Malaysia, Chile, and Korea among others.
The author acknowledged that variations in the theoretical model Bare difficult to explain^ and
noted that these may reflect Bmultiple contextual factors in the country (e.g., curricula, peda-
gogies, and academic values)^ (p. 102). Emic research may help researchers uncover why some
of the key hypotheses were not supported in certain contexts.
An example of how etic and emic approaches were synthesized can be found in the work of
Mooney and colleagues (2016) who examined school engagement among indigenous and non-
indigenous students in Australia. Alongside measuring etic constructs such as achievement goals,
engagement, and self-concept, they developed emic measures of the Aboriginal perspective (e.g.,
BMy teacher uses stories about the Aboriginal perspective in class.^), cultural diversity (e.g., BIn
my class we learn about peoples from different cultures.^), and cultural identity (e.g., BI feel good
about my culture when I am in class.^). The researchers found that engagement was predicted by
both emic (cultural diversity and cultural identity) and etic (mastery goals and self-concept)
constructs. Their study highlighted the importance of complementing etic with emic perspectives
in order to more fully understand relevant psychological phenomena.
Emic approaches that are responsive to the needs of a particular socio-cultural community
are also especially valuable. Nelson-Barber and Johnson (2016) warned researchers against the
dangers of uncritically applying practices from Western participants in other contexts. They
wrote, B…best practices can negatively affect individual learners through the structure of the
educational system and through their teacher^ (p. 44). A case in point was the uncritical
application of family involvement which emphasizes the need for parents and siblings to join
children in reading activities. Navajo families found that implementing shared reading of
English books takes time away from activities that build cultural identity and it also diminishes
the importance of the heritage language. They further argued, B…the school-promoted best
practice of encouraging families to spend daily time reading together actually supplants the
time students can devote to being with elders, learning the language, and doing important
heritage practices—it forecloses on the intergenerational learning opportunities that were once
so pervasive and essential to Navajo life^ (p. 47).
When educators are able to draw on emic knowledge and practices, intervention programs
become more effective. For example, Robbins et al. (2016) reported how an intervention program
called Gifts of the Seven Directions rooted in the Native-American traditions helped Native-
American participants in dealing with alcohol and substance abuse. Kumar and her colleagues
(2018) developed a framework called the Culturally Responsive and Relevant Educational Practice
(CRRE) which can be used to promote optimal learning across diverse groups of students.
Etic and emic approaches are both important in understanding psycho-educational phenomena.
However, it seems educational psychology is heavily tilted toward the etic approach with most of the
studies focused on testing the generalizability of Western theoretical models to different contexts.
This tendency to focus exclusively on the etic severely limits the scope of educational psychology
research and prevents the discovery of culturally-grounded ways of knowing.

How Well Do Educational Psychology Studies Align with These Seven

Recommendations?

Our review indicated that culture is still peripheral to mainstream educational psychology
research. There is still a long way to go although it is encouraging to see educational
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1051

psychologists incorporating methodological advances such as the use of multi-level modeling

techniques and invariance testing in cross-cultural work.
Most of the studies that dealt with culture were interested in issues of ethnic/racial
achievement gaps within one country. For example, in the Journal of Educational Psy-
chology, a number of researchers have achievement gap differences among different
ethnic groups in the US (e.g., domain-general: Mandara et al. 2009; literacy: Matthews
et al. 2010; reading: Chatterji 2006; Kieffer 2008) or in other Western countries such as
Canada (e.g., reading and spelling abilities: Jongejan et al. 2007; reading skills: Lesaux
et al. 2007) and the Netherlands (e.g., Verhallen et al. 2006). Others examined the
greater preponderance of maladaptive outcomes among certain ethnic groups such as
disciplinary offenses (e.g., Bradshaw et al. 2010) and school removal (Petras et al.
2011).
Although there is an increasing acceptance of the need to test for equivalence, it needs to be
more rigorously implemented. Moreover, educational psychologists could attempt to expand
their methodological repertoires beyond self-reports. Multilevel modeling is still an
underutilized statistical technique. Cross-cultural sources of variability that could account for
differences in the outcome measures need to be identified and unpacked. In particular,
researchers need to go beyond individualism and collectivism and explore other sources of
cross-cultural variability. Cultural priming studies are under-utilized with most of the existing
studies using nationality, ethnicity, or race as simplistic proxies for culture. Researchers also
need to expand their sources of data beyond students from English-speaking cultures, broaden
the forms of culture examined beyond nation, ethnicity and race, and to complement the
dominant etic approach with emic approaches that would give voice to non-Western
perspectives.

Avoiding Twin Pitfalls in Cross-Cultural Research

Culturally imaginative research attempts to avoid two types of error common in cross-
cultural research—the cultural attribution error and the cultural blind spot error. The
cultural attribution error in fact has two variants. The first variant is when researchers
attribute findings to culture when in fact there are other relevant factors that cause the
cross-cultural differences (Matsumoto and Yoo 2006). The second variant is when
researchers attribute a purported cross-cultural difference to one aspect of culture
when in fact they have failed to identify the Bactive ingredient^ that is actually
responsible for the purported cross-cultural difference.
The cultural attribution error is akin to type 1 error (false positive). Our first four
recommendations on taking equivalence into account (Recommendation 1), using other
methods of data collection aside from self-reports (Recommendation 2), considering
the multilevel structure of data (Recommendation 3), and identifying and unpacking
sources of cross-cultural variability (Recommendation 4) are especially useful in
avoiding the cultural attribution error.
One of the most extreme examples of the cultural attribution error can be found in early
research on IQ. In previous decades, psychologists assumed that individuals from non-Western
societies had lower IQs compared to Western individuals just because they scored lower on the
IQ tests (Sternberg 2004). They failed to see that the IQ tests were culturally biased which led
them to commit the cultural attribution error (i.e., attributing low intelligence to culture rather
than to the bias of their testing instruments).
1052 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

Lun and her colleagues (2010) provide a good example of how to avoid the cultural attribution
error. They examined cross-cultural differences in critical thinking. They administered a stan-
dardized critical thinking test to Asian and European New Zealand students and found that
European New Zealand students did better than their Asian counterparts on the critical thinking
test. Instead of just concluding that Europeans are better than Asians in critical thinking, they
attempted to find out the underlying cause of this difference. They found that English language
proficiency accounted for the performance gap. Moreover, Asian students seemed to rely more on
a dialectical thinking style (seeking the middle way in resolving contradictions) which can at times
be opposed to the principles of formal logic which are key components of critical thinking tests.
The elegance of their study lay in the search for an underlying explanation of apparent cross-
cultural differences in critical thinking. They were able to put forth a powerful explanatory model
that shed light on how language and cross-cultural differences in thinking styles are associated
with differences in critical thinking outcomes.
The second type of error in cross-cultural research is the cultural blind spot error. Re-
searchers commit this error when they fail to see the role of culture in key psychological
processes. This is akin to type 2 (false negative) error. This type of error is common in
educational research and is similar to what Usher (2018) calls “White supremacy and
colorblindness in research” (p. 139) and what Gray and his colleagues call “a cultural assump-
tions” in theoretical frameworks (p. 105). During a motivation symposium held in the 2017
American Educational Research Association (AERA) meeting, Sandra Graham, the discussant,
asked prominent motivation theorists (all White men) the following question: “Looking at your
theory as a whole and the ethnic representation of samples, do you think that most of the
subjects were White and middle class? And if the answer is ‘yes,’ ‘maybe,’ or ‘I’m not sure,’
how can you assure the audience that your theory has generality and relevance?” (Graham
2017). Graham’s question is a call for researchers to be wary of the cultural blind spot error. Our
last three suggestions involving the need to include cross national samples (Recommendation
5), broaden the forms of culture examined (Recommendation 6), and complement etic with
emic approaches (Recommendation 7) are especially useful in avoiding this error.
An example of the cultural blind spot error is the failure to see the cultural challenges faced
by first-generation college students. First-generation students who come from working class
backgrounds usually face a lot of difficulties adjusting to university life compared to continu-
ing generation students who usually come from middle class backgrounds (Harackiewicz et al.
2014). First-generation students have a higher drop-out rates and lower levels of achievement
(Sirin 2005). This achievement gap has usually been investigated from a resource deficiency
perspective. First-generation students are seen to lack academic preparation and economic
resources which are crucial for success in the university.
While undoubtedly important, focusing solely on academic and economic factors blinds
researchers to the fact that the independent middle-class cultural norms that pervade university
campuses are usually opposed to the interdependent working class cultural norms that first-
generation students have been socialized in. This cultural mismatch aggravates the difficulties faced
by first-generation students leading them to feel that they do not belong in the university (Ostrove
and Long 2007). Understanding the deleterious effects of cultural mismatch allows researchers and
practitioners to design culturally oriented interventions that could decrease the performance discrep-
ancy between first-generation and continuing generation students (Harackiewicz et al.
2014). Gray and his colleagues (2018) pointed out another example of the cultural blindspot error
which occurs when researchers fail to see how context (in the form of policies, institutional barriers,
and opportunity structures) constrain the sense belonging of students of color.
Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065 1053

Educational psychologists who conduct cross-cultural research and those who focus
on racial and ethnic minority issues need to avoid the cultural attribution error and the
cultural blind spot error by actively cultivating their cultural imagination.

Do We Really Need a Culturally Imaginative Educational Psychology?

Compared to traditional educational psychology theories (which merely specify sets of

psychological processes), theories that take culture into account introduce another level of
logical inference at which additional kinds of alternative explanations must be considered.
There are many empirical strategies that can be used to deal with these empirical complexities
which have been elucidated above. Given the myriad difficulties associated with cross-cultural
educational psychology research, one may be tempted to ask whether we really need a
culturally informed educational psychology.
Our answer to this is a resounding yes. Similar to other branches of psychology, educational
psychology likewise aims to describe, explain, predict, and change mental processes and
behavior in the educational context. It is our contention that our descriptions would be more
accurate, explanations more cogent, predictions more powerful, and changes more efficacious
if we take culture into account.
In terms of describing, culturally sensitive research would help researchers get a more
accurate description of relevant educational psychology phenomena. For example, researchers
have found that the way intelligence is defined across cultures varies. In African contexts,
obedience is seen as part of intelligence but this is not the case in Western cultures (Sternberg
2004). Without taking culture into account, our description of basic psychological phenomena
might be off the mark especially for non-Western populations which comprise the majority of
the world’s population.
A culturally informed educational psychology would help us explain phenomena
that would remain unsolved if one uncritically accepts Western theorizing as invariant
across cultures. For example, a major tenet of achievement goal theory is that
performance avoidance goals lead to the worst outcomes (Elliot 2005). However,
meta-analytic studies that have aggregated research done across numerous countries
have shown that in collectivist cultural settings, performance avoidance goals are less
maladaptive (Hulleman et al. 2010). Cross-cultural psychology research has explained
that avoidance goals (wanting to avoid showing others that one is incompetent) are
more common in collectivist cultures (Elliot et al. 2001). By extension, performance
avoidance goals being more normative are considered less harmful.
Theoretical models that include culturally relevant constructs have greater predictive power.
For example, King et al. (2012, 2013) have demonstrated that adding socially oriented goals
alongside the more commonly investigated achievement goals into their equations increased
the predictive power of their model in terms of accounting for Hong Kong and Filipino
students’ motivation, achievement, and engagement. They attributed this to the power of
interdependent norms in these Asian settings. Socially oriented goals may be more relevant
for collectivist students compared to mastery and performance goals which both focus on
individual notions of competence.
Educational psychologists also want to change student behavior for the better. Culturally
informed intervention programs offer perhaps the most direct evidence for the practical
relevance of including culture in educational psychology research. For example, values
1054 Educ Psychol Rev (2018) 30:1031–1065

affirmation interventions have been touted to reduce achievement gaps and improve the
academic performance of students. However, the values affirmation intervention is more
efficacious when the values that are affirmed actually correspond to the values of the
participants. Covarrubias et al. (2016) found that an interdependent values affirmation (e.g.,
emphasizing the family) was more effective for Latino students compared to an independent
values affirmation. This was attributed to the interdependent cultural norms that prevail in
Latino culture. Kumar and her colleagues (2018) argued that culturally relevant pedagogy
would benefit students and teachers alike.

Conclusion

Cultivating a cultural imagination would help educational psychology achieve its

goals of description, explanation, prediction, and change more effectively in a multi-
cultural world. A cultural imagination would help us avoid the twin pitfalls of
attributing any purported group difference to culture (cultural attribution error) on
the one hand and in naively assuming that culture does not play any significant role
in our theoretical models and empirical work (cultural blind spot error) on the other
hand. Our review of the literature published in the four flagship educational
psychology journals showed that there is still a long way to go before we can
achieve our vision of a culturally imaginative educational psychology. The world is
becoming smaller, and this trend shows no signs of reversal. Understanding how
cultural forces shape psycho-educational processes and outcomes has never been
more important.

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