MIND, BRAIN, AND EDUCATION

Culturally Appropriate
Education: Insights From
Educational Neuroscience
Jiaxian Zhou1 and Kurt W. Fischer2

ABSTRACT Culturally appropriate education focuses on

educational competence needed in a global world and respect
for different world views of learners and teachers from different
cultural contexts. The relationship between gene, brain, and
culture is complex and dynamical. Cultural experience and
learning sculpts the anatomy and function of the human brain
and shapes human behavior. This neuroplasticity is the basis
of educability in human beings. Education reform should
reect cultural diversity and embed teaching practices into
the cultural history of a nation and should promote positive
inclusion of minority and indigenous history so as to maximize
successful adoption by teachers and parents. This tenet is at
the core of the concept of culturally appropriate education.
Successful educational reform and pedagogy require that
teachers become culturally and neuroscientically literate.

With the increase of cultural diversity all over the world and
the impact of globalization in recent decades, the migration
of population and the ow of individuals to different regions
bring new cultural values, practices, and productions to each
specic social cultural environment. This in turn results in
the changing of each culture. As a result, cultural factors
become important in educational policy and reform. Educators
face the challenge of educating children from multicultural
backgrounds as well as the challenge of addressing what
UNESCO calls culturally appropriate education in various

1
School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal
University
2
Harvard Graduate School of Education

Address correspondence to Jiaxian Zhou, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, No. 3663 North Zhongshan
Road, Shanghai 200062, China; e-mail: jxzhou@psy.ecnu.edu.cn

Volume 7Number 4

documents (Meriam et al., 1928; UNESCO, 1953, 2003; United

Nations, 2008). Culturally appropriate education focuses
on educational competence adapted to a global context
and emphasizes the cultural sensitivity of instruction in a
global world, as well as respect for different world views,
epistemologies, cultural traditions, and the diversity of learners
and teachers from different cultural contexts (Meriam et al.,
1928; Rose, Rouhani, & Fischer, 2013).
UNESCO plays an important role in spreading the concept
of culturally appropriate education. As early as 1928, the
Meriam Report in the United States stressed the importance
of the cultural background of Native American students
(Meriam et al., 1928). In 1953, UNESCO published The Use
of Vernacular Languages in Education (UNESCO, 1953), attaching
importance to culturally appropriate education. More recently,
UNESCO reiterated the importance of culturally appropriate
education in its position paper Education in a Multilingual World
(UNESCO, 2003). In 2007, culturally appropriate education
aroused further interest among educators after the Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations, 2008) was
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, and 143
countries voted in favor of it. All these documents emphasize
the importance of cultural diversity and the development of
an educational policy of equity focusing on that diversity.
Thus culturally appropriate education was adopted by the
Assembly of Alaska Native Educators (issued as the Alaska
Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools as part of the
Alaska Native Knowledge Network, 1998) in the United States
and for culture-based language instruction in high schools in
China (Muir, 2007).
In this paper, we (1) explain the complex dynamical
relationship between gene, brain, and culture, (2) describe
neuroplasticity with evidence from cognitive research to
show cultural adaptation and educability of human beings,
(3) demonstrate the dynamics and complexity of cultural

2013 International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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Culturally Appropriate Education

adaptation and give some suggestions for educational reform concepts of self in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience.
based on brain and cognitive research, and (4) describe Concepts of self in East Asia typically include close family
culturally appropriate education as affected by globalization. members and distinguish among in-group members and outgroup members. When Chinese individuals think about close
family members, such as their mothers, the magnitude of
THE COMPLEX DYNAMICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN activation in medial prefrontal cortex tends to be higher and
GENE, BRAIN, AND CULTURE
the brain areas that represent others who are close are similar to
the ones representing self (Han & Northoff, 2009; Heine, 2001;
Culture is a complex dynamical system that continually Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Zhu, Zhang, Fan, & Han, 2007).
interacts with participating individuals bidirectionally, This suggests that Eastern cultures include the boundary
including psychological and biological processes (Ray et al., between self and non-self within we and otherness. Western
2010; Vogeley & Roepstorff, 2009) with the features of culture, however, seems to represent the self as separate and
universality and particularity. The universal characteristics individual. Unlike Eastern culture, Western culture treats the
of culture are shared by all individuals, while the particular boundary between self and non-self as I versus otherness.
ones refer to the specic features of certain subgroups as well Consistent with this distinction, neuroscientic researches
as individual and regional variation. At the universal level, nd that the medial frontal cortex of Westerners represents
culture not only shapes innate and biological mechanisms self more strongly than mother (Heine, 2001; Zhu et al., 2007).
but takes place across different time scales. It demonstrates
The interaction of genes and environment is important
stability in the longer time scale, such as evolution, and
for the development of human beings, including required
it demonstrates dynamical development in shorter time
input from the environment for proper functioning (Gottlieb,
scales with the interplay among the factors of situational
1997). According to culture-gene coevolution theory, cultural
embeddedness, ontogenesis, and phylogenesis (Li, 2003).
traits are adaptive and emerge due to environmental and
As to regional variation, Nisbett and his colleagues put
ecological pressures that vary across geography under which
forward a cultural framework that is supported by evidence
genetic selection occurs (Boyd, Richerson, & Henrich, 2011,
from behavioral research, including eye movements and
as cited by Chiao & Blizinsky, 2010, p. 529). Important issues
neuroscientic evidence, addressing how Western and Eastern
concerning culturally appropriate education include valued
cultures and values signicantly affect the way people process
traits in a culture and the extent to which they are adaptive.
information and understand the world (Nisbett & Masuda,
According to culture-gene coevolution theory, normative but
2003; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). East Asian
not non-normative traits in a culture are adaptive from the
culture has a holistic world view, emphasizing harmonic
relationships among people, social environments, and natural perspective of evolutionary biology. This contrasts with the
environments, which are rooted in Chinese philosophical theory of natural selection, which may imply that general
and religious traditions of Taoism and Confucianism. traits are adaptive, not just normative ones (Sasaki, 2013).
Easterners tend toward a collectivistic and dialectical way Culture-gene coevolution theory raises more questions than it
of thinking, characterized by relatedness, internal attributes, answers concerning the adaptation of culture.
Recently, more and more evidence shows that cultural
and interdependent self-construals (although of course there
orientations
in thinking and behavior are not as clear-cut as
is much variability within each cultural group). On the other
described
in
the cultural framework put forward by Nisbett
hand, Western culture, which derives from philosophical
and
his
colleagues.
Cultural differences, for example, are
trends of reductionism, individualism, and utilitarianism,
treats individuals as separated from nature, and emphasizes present among regions in a country: Southern states in the
logical reasoning and categorization. Westerners thus tend to United States are relatively more collectivist, while Mountain
think more analytically. Culture signicantly inuences not West and Great Plains states are more individualist (Vandello
only cognitive capacities and beliefs, but also cultural practices & Cohen, 1999). Perhaps the historical and community
contexts in these regions have shaped current cultural traits
and products.
Some research shows that people in Western versus East gradually. Differences in cultural orientation seem to develop
Asian cultures differ not only in how they think and act but also slowly, and the human brain responds to this chronic cultural
in neural processing of cultural information. Corresponding to experience dynamically, modulated by temporary cultural
cultural differences, there are two common models of self- and contexts.
In conclusion, the reason that Eastern and Western people
other-construal. People from Western cultural environments
tend to focus on the characteristic of individuality, think and act differently from each other cannot be attributed
while people from East Asian cultural environments tend only to physical bases such as genes and brain structures,
to emphasize interdependent self-construal (Markus & nor only to cultural backgrounds, experiences, and education.
Kitayama, 1991). People may also show similar biases in their Cultural, social, individual, and biological factors interact

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Jiaxian Zhou and Kurt W. Fischer

dynamically to create existing differences (Ray et al., 2010; identity. They are encouraged to be socially dominant and
Rose et al., 2013).
assertive and use competitive conict tactics in group work
settings. But students with interdependent self-construals in
Eastern cultures tend to draw on the we identity. They are
NEUROPLASTICITY, CULTURAL ADAPTATION, AND
nurtured to demonstrate social subordination and harmony
EDUCABILITY
and are more likely to avoid conict and use cooperative
tactics (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998). These tendencies are
The human brain displays plasticity, with experience and consistent with a neuroimaging study which shows that
learning sculpting its anatomy and function. For example, American subjects activate the reward-related brain regions
London taxi drivers show denser gray matter in the in the task of dominance, while Japanese participants activate
posterior hippocampus with increased driving experience, the same brain regions in the task of subordination (Freeman,
suggesting that thousands of hours of sustained search Rule, Adams, & Ambady, 2009). The different values of
and navigating through space affects development of the collectivism and individualism not only inuence how the
relevant brain anatomy (Maguire et al., 2000). Similarly, students understand themselves, but also play a key role in
3 months of sustained practice with juggling enlarges the how they relate to their teachers (Chiao et al., 2009; Liew, Ma,
bilateral midtemporal area and left posterior intraparietal Han, & Aziz-Zadeh, 2011). Individuals generally respond more
sulcus (Draganski et al., 2004). Even older adults learning quickly to their own face than to the faces of others due to
the same skill demonstrated dynamic change in their brain the implicit positive association with the self, which is called
structure (Boyke, Driemeyer, Gaser, Buchel, & May, 2008). the self-face advantage (Keenan, Wheeler, Gallup, & PascualPerhaps most striking, just 2 hours of high-intensity training Leone, 2000). However, this difference is reduced by threats
increases the volume of gray matter in the visual cortex for to ones self-concept (Ma & Han, 2010). Chinese graduate
modulating color (Kwok et al., 2011).
students recognize the face of their supervisor much faster
Cultural experience likewise has impact on the anatomy and than their own faces in high or low threat contexts, which is
function of the brain, shaping its behavior. For example, most known as a boss effect (Ma & Han, 2009). This boss effect
of the time symbol representation and digit representation signicantly inuences Chinese graduate students to process
are separate in the human mind. Although some shapes of their own face in the presence of their supervisors, who are
letters and numbers are the same (e.g., 0/o, l/1), they are inuential social superiors. However, European and American
processed in different brain areas, which are the result of students still demonstrate the self-face advantage when they
experience, but not of evolution, because society and culture identify their supervisors faces. But their self-face advantage
assign different categories to letters and numbers arbitrarily. decreases as they increase their scores rating their bosss
However, Canadian postal workers process letters (symbol social status. These results suggest that ones social status,
representation) and numbers (digit representation) together not ones hierarchical position, modulates self-processing in
in their postal codes (e.g., V5A 1S6), and this long-term American students. This shows that culture also modulates
experience alters the categorical representation of these two self-processing strongly in school situations, and concepts of
different symbolic systems into a relatively unitary system social position exert different meanings for students growing
(Polk & Farah, 1998).
up in different cultures (Liew et al., 2011).
Education (as part of culture) thus sculpts the human brain.
To sum up all this evidence, sustained cultural experience
Researchers have found that several frontal areas and the right changes the function of the human brain, inuencing the way
superior parietal lobule of young Americans are thicker than people process information. The plasticity of human brain
Asian youth, who have greater cortical thickness in the left and cognition continues for all of life, showing a sustained
inferior temporal gyrus (Chee, Zheng, Goh, & Park, 2011; neuroplasticity that forms the basis of educability in human
Rose et al., 2013). Those authors suggest that the different beings.
cultural and educational styles may contribute to this brain
difference because Western cultures rely more on reasoning,
problem solving, and independent thinking, whereas East
DYNAMICAL CULTURAL ADAPTATION AND
Asian cultures focus more on following directions and rote
EDUCATIONAL REFORM
memory. The differences in linguistic properties from the two
With the increase of globalization and migration, many people
cultures seem to contribute to differences in the cortex.
The different focus of Western versus Eastern cultures identify with two or more cultures, and these trends make
also inuences students self-concepts and socializes students bicultural brain research even more complex. For these people
with individualistic or contrasting collectivistic tendencies two types of bicultural identity emerge: Blended bicultural
in schools. Students with independent self-construals in identity merges the two original cultures into a different
Western cultures have the tendency to draw on the I single one, while alternating bicultural identity switches between

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the two separate original cultures (Hong, Morris, Chiu, &

Benet-Martnez, 2000; Phinney & Devich-Navarro, 1997).
Across cultural contexts such as home or school and across
cultural symbols such as writing systems, people demonstrate
what is called cross-cultural frame switching (CFS). For
example, exposing bicultural Chinese participants in Hong
Kong and the United States to their own cultural icons
activated both Chinese and American self-concepts depending
on external cultural primes. Thus, the inuence of culture is
not unidirectional and unchangeable. Individuals may actively
adapt to cultural differences and develop a bicultural brain
with two neural representations, adjusting their own behavior
according to different cultural environments (Chiao et al.,
2010; Ng, Han, Mao, & Lai, 2010; Sui, Zhu, & Chiu, 2007). For
example, research on Asian American implicit self-evaluation
shows that culture does not affect ventral medial prefrontal
representations, which probably relate to the automatic
processing of self information. Instead, culture inuences
the activation of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, which
may relate to processing during assessment. Thus cultural
values of collectivism and individualism dynamically affect the
neural representation of self-referent information in people
with bicultural brains (Harada, Li, & Chiao, 2010). People
who grow up in a multicultural environment are able to use
cognition and neural resources properly and respond exibly
to the changing cultural demands, switching between different
cultural habits in multicultural communities. This process is
analogous to that shown by multilinguals, who switch among
different languages, using them freely in different language
communities.
In a multicultural environment, it can be difcult to assign an
individual to either end of the dimension between Eastern and
Western cultures. The relation of Western and Eastern culture
is not opposition, but instead ts on a unied continuum. One
kind of culture is at a certain point between the two ends
of the continuum (Triandis, 1989). Comparisons of American
with East Asian participants who came to America recently
indicated that the greater the afliation to American culture,
the higher the magnitude of the activation in frontal and
parietal brain regions for culturally nonpreferred judgments in
simple visual and attentional tasks. Culturally nonpreferred
tasks showed greater task difculty (Hedden, Ketay, Aron,
Markus, & Gabrieli, 2008). But American subjects who are
nearer to Eastern culture and more dependent on self-construal
in the self/non-self continuum had higher activation of their
medial frontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex in a selfreferential processing task in comparison to activation for
the stimulus pattern of their mother. Possibly they relied
more on episodic memory and estimation of others minds
(theories of mind) in order to incorporate social information
such as attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to make judgments
about themselves (Ray et al., 2010). Instead of considering
the self as a stable and enduring concept (Moran, Macrae,

228

Heatherton, Wyland, & Kelley, 2006), these studies indicated

a more dynamic self, prone to inuence by different cultural
environments (Hong et al., 2000; Ng et al., 2010; Sui et al.,
2007). It seems that there is growing prevalence of bicultural
individuals who have internalized both interdependent and
independent self-concepts.
Educational reform should also take into account the
cultural orientation that individuals develop over their long
history along with the modulation of temporary cultural
context. Most cultural groups develop a specic educational
model for their schooling along with theories, practices, and
policies rooted deeply in their cultural-historical background.
The cultural orientation of teachers embodies this professional
ideal (Rodriguez, 2012), with skills and attitudes that develop
gradually during their professional training and with their
cultural immersion as they make it happen in their social
behaviors, schools, and families. Innovations in educational
theory can cause inconsistencies among thoughts, feelings,
attitudes, and actions, creating cultural conicts among the
practitioners. An essential part of educational reform therefore
is to build a culture that promotes effective schooling. This
involves a new educational culture that anticipates chronic
change in the society and social structure, and that conforms
to the general nature of evolution of the culture (Fischer, 2013;
Wan & Wang, 2005).
Since 1990, many governments in Eastern and Southern
Asia have adopted Western educational policies, theories, and
practices in order to bring about educational reform. These
changes have raised many issues because they have created
new challenges for teachers and students in these countries.
Sometimes these changes have neglected the cultural heritage
of the countries and their relevant social identities. Research on
these imported education programs has produced inconsistent
results, with teachers and parents who support traditional
education avoiding the imported theories, practices, and
policies (Nguyen, Terlouw, & Pilot, 2006). In China, the
newest national educational reform started from the beginning
of the 21st century, introducing many Western educational
policies, theories, and practices and thus making the whole
country move quickly toward new approaches with the goal of
taking a huge developmental leap toward modern educational
systems and becoming more competitive with innovations
around the world. However, the reform brought not only
new theories and innovative teaching methods, skill, and
technology but also cultural conicts for practitioners. Ample
professional training during the reform helped educators to
master teaching methods, skills, and technology, but there
were difculties internalizing the mores specic to Western
culture that underlie the innovations.
In this top-down educational reform, some of the teachers
became bicultural, successfully using imported teaching
methods and theories when called upon to show innovation
but slipping back to traditional ways of teaching in their

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Jiaxian Zhou and Kurt W. Fischer

daily lives in the classroom. In order to implement educational

reform effectively, some schools have emphasized lively and
invigorating ways of teaching, assessing quality of the teaching
by how much teachers used group learning, multimedia
courseware, and inquiry-based instruction in their classes,
sometimes even setting explicit time limits for lecturing in
class (Wan & Wang, 2005).
In this way, top-down national educational reform has
altered methods of teaching and learning, but cultural
adaptation by practitioners has been neglected. Berry (2003)
suggested four major cultural strategies that a group could
adopt, ranging from totally accepting to totally rejecting
suggested changes. He calls these four reactions assimilation,
separation, integration, and marginalization (Berry, 2003).
For assimilation and integration, individual instructors can
integrate their cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors with
the recommended changes. On the other hand, separation
and marginalization produce inconsistent outcomes and
arouse stress and anxiety. Accordingly, teachers who practice
separation and marginalization experience cultural conict,
making it difcult for them to understand and master the new
educational culture. As a result, it is easy for them to slip back
into the traditional habitual way of teaching.
Education should raise the awareness of the positive value
of culture (UNESCO, 2003). Curriculum and ways of teaching
should be reformed not only to reect cultural diversity
but also to embed teaching practices within the cultural
history of the nation and to promote positive inclusion of
minority and indigenous history so as to maximize successful
adoption by teachers and parents. This tenet is at the core of
the concept of culturally appropriate education. Successful
educational reform and pedagogy require that teachers become
both culturally and neuroscientically literate.

for the 21st century. Cultural intelligence refers to the capability of individuals to function effectively in multicultural
situations (Earley & Ang, 2003). It is important for students to learn about cultural differences and to communicate
effectively with diverse groups. In order to understand and
develop a culturally intelligent brain to deal with diversity,
people not only need to understand how others think and
act, but they also need to understand the incredible diversity
that people show in neural processing skills, including differences between effective communicators and ineffective ones.
People who acquire cultural experience do not ensure that
they will have cultural awareness. To thrive in a multicultural
world, people need to have the competence to work with and
coordinate cultural differences and to deal with multicultural
environments. People need to cultivate cross-cultural skills of
perception and communication.
In order to develop cultural intelligence in the workforce
for the 21st century, the rst step is to cultivate cultural
awareness, helping learners to understand both their own
culture and the diverse inuence of values and cultural issues
on their work and behavior. Also helpful is awareness of other
peoples expectations about ones own cultural practices and
issues. An important step is to help teachers and students
to appreciate cultural diversity and to use cross-cultural
knowledge reectively to understand ones own cultural
heritage and appreciate the diversity of knowledge of others,
helping them to develop sensitivity to cultural variations in
their home communities (Earley & Ang, 2003).
AcknowledgmentsThis work was supported by Humanistic
and Social Science project, State Education Ministry, China
(10YJAZH139); Shanghai Pujiang Program, China (11PJC047);
Large Instruments Open Foundation of East China Normal
University, China. We are grateful to the reviewers for their
suggestive opinions.

CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE EDUCATION IN A

MULTICULTURAL WORLD

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Furthermore, student populations have become increasingly diverse around the world. We must cultivate learners
who are sensitive to differences between cultures, and who
can communicate effectively and work competently in different cultures, developing the cultural intelligence that is needed

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