The responsible critic serves both the general reader and the advancement of science by pointing out errors in design and interpretation that have eluded the researcher. Unfortunately, Bracey's broadsides serve neither purpose. Rather, they serve only to arouse curiosity in the reader and dismay in this author.
Bracey fails to mention that our conclusions are based, not on “a few data points,” but on a dozen years of research in which we have interviewed and tested nearly 20,000 students from kindergarten through 11th grade, interviewed hundreds of teachers and thousands of mothers, and observed in classrooms for hundreds of hours in Japan, Taiwan, China, Chicago, and Minneapolis. Nor have we been concerned only with mathematics, as he charges. In fact, the initial impetus for our research, as we state on the first page of The Learning Gap, was the study of reading. We continue to discuss reading as well as mathematics (see Stevenson and Stigler 1992).
Let me give an example of the absurdities that Bracey attributes to us. “Stevenson argues,” writes Bracey, “that American children attribute high performance in school to ability, while Asian children think it comes from effort.” We are not so naive as to ignore the role of ability. Had Bracey read what we have written, he would know that our point is communicated in statements such as the following: The emphasis given to effort relative to ability is much higher among Japanese and Chinese mothers than among American mothers (Stevenson and Lee 1990, p. 60).Our argument is not that Americans subscribe only to an ability-based model of learning, but that they apply the model in many more situations than do Chinese and Japanese (Stevenson and Stigler 1992, p. 104).
- our results are similar in Minneapolis, with a small minority population, and in Chicago, with a much larger minority population;
- the results from Taipei are very similar to those found in Beijing;
- our achievement tests are based on analyses of the students' textbooks in each country, thus ensuring that the students have exposure to the concepts and skills;
- Chinese children consistently surpass American children in reading;
- we have conducted all of our studies in cities where there is universal elementary education;
- we have been meticulous in our efforts to obtain representative samples of students in these cities for our research.
Let me suggest that we are more likely to find truth in well-conducted research of the types we have reported than in the news stories, television programs, and popularizations by writers such as Schooland and von Wolferen, which provide much of the substance for Bracey's arguments. The reader is invited to examine some of our studies, such as the reports in Science and Scientific American, before reacting to Bracey's uninformed criticisms.
I repeat what we have said before: American schools are in trouble. Bracey serves no good purpose in telling us otherwise. It is not a question of whether our schools are better or worse than they used to be—a topic on which Bracey frequently dwells in his reviews—or what happens in college. The question is whether we are graduating all of our citizens so that they can be competitive with their peers in other advanced countries.
