SOCIETAL INFLUENCES ON EDUCATION Running head: SOCIETAL INFLUENCES ON EDUCATION

Societal Influences on Education and the Rates of Success in Different Societies Isaac Hudson Colorado Mesa University

SOCIETAL INFLUENCES ON EDUCATION Abstract

This research is on the idea that the high dropout rate within our country is partially due to the United States being an individualistically minded nation and that this directly affects the academic motivation within students. The US has lost much motivation for schooling, especially when compared with collectivistic societies, such as China, Malaysia, and many other Eastern Cultures. Our society has lost much interest in improving the education of its students and it has affected the dropout rate significantly. This is compared with collectivistic societies in which the dropout rate is much lower and students are motivated to get a good education in order to improve the society around them. People in our society are not realizing that this motivation in one form or another is one thing necessary to get through school.

SOCIETAL INFLUENCES ON EDUCATION Societal Influences on Education and the Rates of Success in Different Societies Starting in the late1970s and continuing through the 1980s, something

interesting began to happen in Chinas political system. Engineers and Scientists began to become the majority of Chinas government and the push for education began to increase in the developing country (Suttmeier, 2007). Since 1983, the public high school dropout rate in America has increased to 32 percent (Gergen, 2005) from a mere 11.4 percent (Larry, 1985). Why has there been such a large increase in the dropout rate of American high schools while China continues to push education more and more? Some have argued that it is due to the differences in the societal push for education. Societies differ by country and can have a large impact on the individual within the society. Collectivistic Societies teach their children to value priorities such as family, school, and state. They believe that you should pursue the edification of the society in which you live. Individualistic societies on the other hand, push the ideas of finding oneself and individual potential (as cited in Brand, 2004). The differences in the views of who a person should be are the reason that there are differences in someones attitude towards their own education. When looked at from a scholastic perspective, these differences in views and attitudes can have a huge impact on the way public schools are run. One example of this can be seen when in Meyers research on disability in different cultures. He looked first at the disability rates within collectivistic versus individualistic, then looked into what both types of societies are doing about these rates. Meyer found that the rates within collectivistic societies are significantly lower than those of individualistic societies. However, he also found that individualistic societies are doing much more to help the

SOCIETAL INFLUENCES ON EDUCATION disabled then collectivistic societies. This help is offered all throughout the country and to anyone who may be able to access it, including within school systems. I would like to know what the cause is in this large difference of school dropout rates between cultural types. I believe that one of the large factors causing this difference is motivation for an education. Students in Eastern cultures (such as China, India, Japan, etc.) are much more motivated to get an education and, if possible, continue their schooling beyond basic education. Oftentimes they do not necessarily care what degree they get so long as it betters their society. America is much more trade based within higher education because people are focused more on their own goals. Academic Motivation Across Cultures There are many different factors in determining academic motivation. One of the

larger factors has been determined to be family dynamics (Komarraju, 2007). Komarraju studied various students within Malaysia and the United States to look at the motivation towards schooling and variables that may influence it. Motivation to continue education plays a key role in succeeding academically (2007). However, motivation is not necessarily easily encountered and can be influenced greatly by the society you are surrounded by. Our families are extremely important in helping us gain this motivation. Recall that collectivistic societies take pride in family values much more than those that have individualistic views. This means that families are much more supportive in general of their fellow family members. It is because of this that eastern, collectivistic societies have a higher motivation for their education (Komarraju, 2007). It

SOCIETAL INFLUENCES ON EDUCATION is much easier to not lose your motivation for something when you have people behind you supporting you along the way.

Political Impacts on Education The United States Federal Government spending on education in 1984 was approximately $87 million (I. 1984). In the same year, the government spent about $500 million on the Department of Energy and about $2.4 billion on the NASA fund (1984). The NASA fund in 1984 was nearly 30 times what the fund for education was. This just goes to show that the USA does not have education as their main priority. On the other hand, China has a strong governmental focus on their younger generations education. They begin school at a very young age and study English, mathematics, and various other subjects early on (Powell, 2009). This shows the high contrast in efforts towards education within a collectivistic nation versus an individualistic one. When looking at the government of China, it is significantly different from ours. For one thing, until a few years ago, the whole leadership committee was entirely comprised of engineers (Suttmeier, 2007). Because the leadership of China was so science based, they were able to push education much more and, by leading the people well, the people were more motivated to try and study harder and do more with their education. They saw that their country was more successful with these kinds of leaders. They wanted to better their own country because that is how their society has raised them. In order to keep this going, their government has put much more federal spending into education. Because of the way that their society works, this has helped to decrease the dropout rate and increase the desire to continue school.

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Self-Esteem Self-esteem can be a huge factor in gaining motivation towards academia. There have been studies on motivation and self-esteem they have found a largely positive correlation between high self-esteem and high motivation for school (Brand, 2004). Researchers have also looked into youth violence and have found a negative correlation between levels of violence and how collective a culture may be (as cited in Lim, 2009). However we know that correlation does not necessarily mean causation and some researchers have looked into a relation between self-esteem and youth violence. They found that self-esteem, first of all, comes differently for people in individualistic cultures versus those in collectivistic cultures (Lim, 2009). Self-esteem in collectivistic cultures comes more from how well the group that you are in is succeeding. Individualistic cultures will usually gain self-esteem by how well the individual does rather than the group they are in. For example, if you did well on a test, you would probably feel pretty good about yourself because we live in an individualistic society. If we were to look at a sample in, say, Japan, we would probably see that more of them gain a higher self-esteem when their class or their school do well then just if one of them does well. When they gain this self-esteem, they tend to do better in school and then the school grades go up. Therefore the dropout rates go down because the students are much more motivated towards their schools.

SOCIETAL INFLUENCES ON EDUCATION Conclusion Motivation and self-esteem within different types of cultures can be used to explain why individualistic cultures have a much higher dropout rate than collectivistic cultures. Oftentimes people do not notice or do not care about how well their children are doing in school and thus do not provide the support that is often needed for their offspring to gain the self-esteem that is so beneficial to being successful. Another large factor that affects academic motivation is financial support, which comes from the government. Because of this, the society as a whole thinks that education is not as important as defense or energy but what they do not see is that the advances in these areas do not come without the education needed for them. China, a collectivistic culture, has figured this out from its collection of engineers in leadership and has made huge progress in these same areas because they have pushed education much more (Day, 2010). If the United States of America and many similar individualistic countries are to lower their public school dropout rate, they need to realize that federal and family support positively affect self-esteem and motivation towards school which are both highly needed to get through school.

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