CMEI Colloquium
Larsen Hall, Harvard Graduate School of Education
April 15, 2014
Learning is a universal human capacity and activity. However, Western and East Asian people hold fundamentally different beliefs about learning. These beliefs influence how they approach learning, childrearing, and education. What are the different beliefs and why are they so different? Based on decades of research, Dr. Li has advanced a conceptual distinction between the Western mind-model and the East Asian virtue model of learning. The former aims at cultivating the mind to understand the world, but the latter prioritizes the self to be perfected morally and socially. Dr. Li discussed different empirical methods that she used to collect and analyze data such as the prototype methods, written descriptions of ideal learners, children's story completions, and mother-child conversations about learning. She presented the findings that resulted in the two basic cultural learning models, related patterns of children's learning beliefs, and differing parental socialization processes. Implications for childrearing and education across cultures were discussed.
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Jin Li is Professor of Education and Human Development at Brown University. Originally from China, she received her B.A. in German from Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages in 1982. She earned her first Ed.M. in education from the University of Pittsburgh in 1988, her second Ed.M. in Administrative Planning and Social Policy in 1991, and her doctoral degree in human development and psychology from Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1997. Dr. Li’s research focuses on East Asian virtue-oriented and Western mind-oriented learning models and how these models shape children’s learning beliefs and achievement. She has studied children and families from Chinese, Taiwanese, Chinese American, European American, and other cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The age groups range from early childhood, middle-childhood and adolescence to college students. Her research has been published in leading professional journals. Her 2012 book Cultural Foundations of Learning: East and West synthesizes related research over the past decades and offers new perspectives on the indispensable role of culture in human learning. Dr. Li was one of the six inaugural Fellows selected by the Berggruen Philosophy and Culture Center 2015-16 and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University and at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, China, 2016-17.
