Constructing Educational Achievement

International interest focuses on why pupils from East-Asia tend to outperform pupils from the West and scholars have proposed a number of possible explanations to account for these international trends. Using Vygotsky's theory (1978) as a conceptual framework to "construct" school achievement, this book puts forward culturally relevant context for understanding developmental aspects of children's school achievement and their implication to classroom practice and education progress. Converging the two important lines of inquiry - the child factor and the sociocultural factor - this book showcases evidence-based scholarly works from across the globe that shed light on causes of academic achievement in different contexts. The book brings together eminent scholars from early childhood, primary education, secondary and vocational education who expertly capture the vitality of development and processes of specific child factors and their interaction with their environment that explain their school achievement. Foregrounded in the five planes of cultural historical, institutional, social, personal and mental, the research explain how children think, learn and form the will to perform amidst the changing social and family environment, and challenging school and educational environment.

Sivanes Phillipson is Associate Professor of Family Studies at the Faculty of Education, Monash University Clayton Campus. Kelly Y. L. Ku is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Studies at the Hong Kong Baptist University. Shane N. Phillipson is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education in Monash University.

Introduction 1. Constructing educational achievement within a sociocultural framework of planes Sivanes Phillipson and Peter D. Renshaw Part 1: Cultural-historical Plane 2. Framing achievement when learning is unified: The concept of unity in Vygotsky's theory and methodology Jennifer A. Vadeboncoeur 3. Family capital, child's personal agency, and the academic achievement of Chinese migrant children Qiaobing Wu 4. A psychometric understanding of sociocultural factors in test validity: The development of standardised test materials for Maori medium schools in New Zealand/Aotearoa Peter J. Keegan, Gavin T. L. Brown and John A. C. Hattie Part 2: Institutional Plane 5. Classroom chronotopes privileged by contemporary educational policy: Teaching and learning in testing times Peter D. Renshaw 6. Teacher self efficacy: Internalized understandings of competence Janet Draper Part 3: Social Plane 7. Parental expectations: The influence of the significant other on school achievement Sivanes Phillipson 8. Examining the Relations Between a Play Motive and a Learning Motive for Enhancing School Achievement: Doing 'School' at Home Marilyn Fleer 9. Peer co-regulation of learning, emotion, and coping in small-group learning Mary McCaslin and Ruby Inez Vega 10. Teacher-student relationships and students' learning outcomes Atara Sivan and Dennis W. K. Chan 11. Social learning, language and instruction for adult learners where English is their second language Ian Hay, Rosemary Callingham and Frederick Wright 12. Two instead of one ZPD: Individual and joint construction in the ZPD Aleksander Baucal Part 4: Personal Plane 13. When Lev Vygotsky meets Francis Galton: On the nature and nurture of reading development Simpson W. L.Wong 14. Education for Citizenship: An experiment in leadership development of pupils making the transition from primary to secondary school Jim O'Brien, Evgeniya Plotnikova, and Iain Mills 15. How encouragement in everyday family practices facilitates Hong Kong-Australian children's motive for learning Pui Ling Wong Part 5: Mental Plane 16. Cognitive style and achievement through a socio-cultural lens: A new way of thinking about style differences Elizabeth R. Peterson and Kane Meissel 17. Role of verbal reasoning in critical thinking Kelly, Y. L. Ku 18. Cognitive perturbation with dynamic modeling: A reconceptualization of conceptual change in science education Sandy C. Li and Jacky W. C. Pow Conclusion 19. The role of culture in constructing educational achievement Sivanes Phillipson and Shane N. Phillipson