Cross-C Research Deve t and Cult rnLng MiguelAngel Escotet he purpose of this chapter is to investi' Early Developments in gate, from a historical and descriptive viorpoint, the cross-culturai method in Crois- Cultur?l Research education as a part of the behaviorai sci- ln recent decades,a new branch of psychologyand ences. The first part of the chapter education, cross-cultural psychology/cross-cultural describes the early dwelopments in cross-cultural education,has becomean important elementin the research designsand the specification of some of the understandingof human development.Unlike more elements in cross-cultr:ral methodologr. The second traditional fields of psycholory, cross-cultural psy- part presents some issues related to cross-cultural cholory looks for diversity as well as similarities education and a basic framework to develop a culturai across nations. Furthermore, cross-cultural replica- learning theory in addition to the social learning tions are performed to veriff generalizationsdevel- approach. oped in a specificculture. The present comparative approach in education The cross-cttlfiral method in psychologyand includes the cross-cultural mettrod. The real value of education derived primariiy from theories of culttual the cross-cultural method in education lies, not in evolution in the field of anthropolory. One of the first discovering of facts for a single culturg but in obain- effectiveattempts to quantify, measure,and correlate ing empirical data to redesign educational objectives, ethnographic data to scientificdly tested theoretical implementation and oaluation of educational pro- posnrlatesis generallyascribed to EdwardB. Tylor. I:e grams and in finditrg means to reduce ethnocentrism 1889,he presenteda paperentitled "On a Method of in the society at larga Noah and Eckstein ogress that Investigating the Development of Lrstitutions: 'the field of comparative education is best defined as Applied to Laws of Marriage and Descent.'2It was at an inter-section of the social sciences,education, and the meeting of the RoyalAnthropological lnstitute of cross national study.'1 Great Britain, under the presidencyof Sir FrancisGal- Education as a discipline needs to very seriously to& who pointed out by scholarlyinvestigation for the F: a€mine the implications arising from educational first time, that the cultural units were dassifiedunder objectives which have been designed for a wide range degreesof independenceand concturenceAlthough Fof cultures or sub-cultues. A lack of clear and precise Tylor's study was,by the present researchmethodol- 5.scientific ':.'. research is one of the most serious problems ogy inadequate,historicdly, it is avery important con- t_:a .?i in the study of cultures. Under these circumstances, tribution to the evolution of a scientific methodologt , g. cross-culturd research is mandated in comparative in cross-culturalresearch. :-. education when more than trpo tlpes of validation are From 1889 to 1937 only two significantstudies €r involved. were presented in a cross-cultural perspective.The F,' Fi P:: F:. F:I tr F F. first one was done by H.J. Nieboerin 19103in order logical or rational operations are performed prior to to reliateslavery as a part of industrid systems.The the final empiricd and statistical test.oloUnder this second one was researchon the correlation between approach,Murdock has been for manyyears,a leader material culture and social instinrtions as reported in in applying coss-cultural method. The wide use by 1915by HobhousgWheeler, and Ginsberg.{ others of his Cross-Culnral Sr.uveyand his World However,in the area of the ComparativeMethod Ethnographic Sample are obvious ocamples of his inAnthropolory, the period noted abovgwasvery cru- influence. ciai in cross-culturalresearch. For examplgFrarz Boas In 7949, an inter university organization sup- in "The Limitations of the ComparativeMethod"s ported financially by the Carnegie Corporation was reportedin 1895,a programwhichinvolved: formed under the title of "Human Relations Area Files.'One of its main objectiveswas to duplicate the 1. Detailed studies of individud tribes in their cul- ocisting files of Murdock's Cross Culturd Survey for tural and regional conteJct. the members and to distibute additional data 2. Tbe comparisonsof these tribal histories as a obained by the Survey among them. Howeveq the meansof formulating generallaws. sample was not always representativeof the whole Boas compared the historical method with the population. comparativemethod. Sapir in 1916,Wsler in 7926, An imporant contribution to culturd methodol- Lowie in 1919,Benedict in 1934,Kroeber in 1935and ogy was given in 1953 by Whiting and Child using many others provided a seriesof culturd studies uti- descriptive data on many cultures recorded in the lizing distributiond analysisof cultural traits for the Human RelationsArea Files.Later, Whiting and Whit- study of culture process. ingll outli'led three aspectsof the concept of culture: Another important developmentin anthropolog5l 1. They regardedculture as the body of knowledge panicular$ valuableto cross-culturd psychologyand transmitted from one generation to the next education, in the sarneperiod, refers to ctrlture and about how to do things or how to get things persondity field researchwhich is generallyattributed done,the techniquesof the society. Mead's study on "Coming of Age in to Margaret 2. Itwas the belief qystemof the culturg the ethno- work of Malinowski on "Sex and Samoa"6and the scientific and religious dogma. Repressionin SavageSociety."T These studies of child developmentand famity patterns createdquite a sen- 3. It was the ethical systemor set of vdues whidr sation throughout the world becauseof their implica- provides guidance as to what is good or bad, tions for psychoanalytictheory. In the ensuing years, what is important or trivid, and the relativemer- its of various goalsand behaviorsin a hierarchi- numerous anthropologistsundertook similar Psycho- dynarnic casestudies of personality dwelopment in cd sense. other cultures.IGrdiner(1939), for e:<amplqadmitted With them the modern approachto cross-culturd the possibility of applying psychoandytic techniques methodology rests in testing hlpotheses which have in socio-anthropologicd investigation$ and estab- been derivedfrom theoriesof cultural evolution, the- lished the concept of the basic personalityt1'pe.8 That ories of the integration of culture, and theories of is, *rat personality configurations are shared by the individual and socid psychologr. majority of the membersof any given society,because of their having had many early oEeriences in common. Comparative Method in Although these anthropologicd studies con- Cro s^s-Cultural Perspective tributed in some ways to the developmentof cross- cultural researchmethodology, they neverequaled the From these aforementioned concepts, we seem to Tylor approach. The cross'culturd method was have three different qpes of comparativestudies: (a) renewedby GeorgeMurdock n 7937in a test of cor- Cross-cultural, (b) Cross-national, and (c) Intercul- relations betweenthe evolutionary priority of matri- ttrral. However,Fnjda and Jatrodal2did not consider lined and patrilined instinrtions.e Cross-culturd there to be differences between cross-culturd researchmethodologl has since reacheda high level research and cross-national research. They argued of scientific dwelopment not only in anthropologr, ttrat the term "cross-national" is artificid 'since the but alsoin psychologl,sociology and education. two t)?es involve no fundamenal contra$s in Murdock's method was essentiallythe sane as methodologr, cross-national studies will here be Tylor's. Both used the satistical-inductive method in included under the headingof cross-cultural."13How- the teatrnent of the daa. Later, howerrer,Murdock ever,there is a fundamentd distinction betweenthem. started to aElain the hypotheticd method whidr The methodologr does not have anphing to do with implies that one starts from a hypothesis,so that "all content of a discipline.As a matter of fact all sciences 74 Cultural and SocialFoundations of Education: fui lnterdisciptinary Approach .i; :.+ E F{' ffih! ffi' &i ur. the samemethodology; it is the scientific method instancg Radciiffe-Brown identifies itwith library tech- f, but there may be different techniques. nique and as the construction of history.zl Nadel ti The fundamentaldistinction becomespertinent if reducesthe scopeof cross-cultural method and defines we understand that while the "Latin culture" involves it as the systematic study of similarities and differences pany nations with different cultures (Spanish, French, tfuough the use of correlation and covariation.z2 Ialian, Portuguese, Albanian and Rumanian) and the For Campbella the purpose of research using circumstance of different nationalities, it is possible to cross-cultural dimensions or multinational compar- qtteralize commonalities which are derived in order to isons can be divided into three types: each from other culture+ such as the iifferentiate 1. Confirming and exploring the universality of culture" Margaret Mead has used the 'Anglo-Sa:<on some relationship or attribute of social man. term "cross-national" deliberately to indicate that she is dealing notwith relationships between nations, self- 2. Natural experiments, in which regions differ in maximizing competitive national units, but between some environmental factor which can be studied the peoplesof different nations.ola using an experimental treaEnent. Cross-culturd