Chinese and American adolescents' perceptions of the purposes of education and beliefs about the world of work

We studied and compared the views of Chinese and American high school students as to what attendance at school should achieve, and what brings success in work. The worlds of school and work were perceived by American students to be related, but not so by Chinese students. American students are more firm in the view that school should teach them to understand science, think critically, be useful to society, and consider their family first. In contrast, Chinese students showed greater preference that school should teach them to face challenges, creatively sacrifice, and respect authority, and to prepare them to earn money for respect, and luxuries, and to enter high status colleges and jobs. Significant country × sex interaction effects were found, indicating that generalizations about cultural differences which ignore gender are suspect.