ABSTRACT

International tests demonstrate that students’ mathematics and reading skills vary widely across countries. I investigate whether a country’s cultural characteristics are the fundamental cause of these differences, while family and school characteristics are the proximate causes. I find that while either cultural characteristics or family and school characteristics can explain average student scores on PISA mathematics and reading literacy tests across countries, when the effects of both types of characteristics are examined together, the cultural characteristics explain most of the differences. These results indicate that families and schools function as agents of society and that schools have a limited capability to improve students’ skills absent accompanying changes in a country’s cultural characteristics.

摘要

国际测试表明，不同国家学生的数学和阅读技巧差异很大。我调查了一个国家的文化特征是否是造成这些差异的根本原因，而家庭和学校的特征是否是造成这些差异的直接原因。我发现，虽然文化特征或家庭和学校特征都可以解释全国学生在PISA数学和阅读素养测试中的平均成绩，但同时考察两种类型特征的影响时，文化特征可以解释大多数差异。这些结果表明，家庭和学校是社会的推动者，而随着国家文化特征的变化，学校缺乏提高学生技能的能力。