Cultural Narratives of Individualism and Collectivism

Besides teaching academic knowledge and skills, imparting cultural values and behavioral standard is also an important function of formal education. The present work examines stories sampled from American and Japanese school textbooks (Ns = 72 and 71, respectively) for their cultural values and characteristics. The study found that the stories in American textbooks highlighted themes of individualism such as self-direction and achievement, whereas the Japanese counterparts highlighted themes of collectivism such as conformity and group harmony. The study also found cultural differences in story characteristics (e.g., the narrator, attribution of the outcome, picture content) that are also related to individualism and collectivism. Implications and future directions are discussed.

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