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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Dev. Psychol.
Sec. Cognitive Development
Volume 3 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fdpys.2025.1511224
This article is part of the Research Topic Children's Teaching View all articles

The Development of Children’s Teaching Varies by Cultural Input: Evidence from China and the U.S.

Provisionally accepted
Nina Ni Ye Nina Ni Ye 1Yixin Kelly Cui Yixin Kelly Cui 1Samuel Ronfard Samuel Ronfard 2Kathleen H Corriveau Kathleen H Corriveau 1*
  • 1 Boston University, Boston, United States
  • 2 University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Teaching, often seen as a natural cognitive ability, is also shaped by cultural environments.This study compared the teaching strategies among 146 3-to 7-year-old children (81 females) from the U.S. (n = 52, White) and China (traditional preschool n = 49, Asian; "westernized" preschool n = 45, Asian). Children taught a board game to learners with varying knowledge levels. We measured children's false belief and knowledge attribution and coded three teaching strategies: verbal, contrastive, and contingent. Results showed that children from traditional Chinese preschools were less likely to engage in verbal and contingent teaching than their U.S. and "westernized" Chinese counterparts. Knowledge attribution predicted teaching strategies across cultures. These findings underscore the influence of cultural input on teaching strategies.

    Keywords: culture, Teaching, preschoolers, Social transmission, cognitive development

    Received: 14 Oct 2024; Accepted: 07 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Ye, Cui, Ronfard and Corriveau. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Kathleen H Corriveau, Boston University, Boston, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.