There’s this longstanding stereotype we’ve all seen and heard of: “Asian kids are better at math.” Of course, this statement is to be approached by numerous perspectives, but if we delve into the statistics and specifics, it’s true to an extent. The real question is why and how. What makes students from the Eastern side of the globe outperform their Western counterparts? Canadian author and speaker Malcolm Gladwell shared a promising theory for why.

The biggest reason for such an observable difference in these students’ performances lies in the varying attitudes of their societies. While Asian students tend to possess a mindset revolving around effort and focus, Western students rely more on the presence of an innate ability. This difference contributes to contrasts in quantitative data, including results from nationwide assessments and questionnaires. 

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell theorizes that the reason for this varying performance lies in our ancestors’ routines that they had to follow for survival. “Hong Kong, China, South Korea, and Japan are all similar in that they are historically rice-growing cultures,” Malcolm observes. Rice farming is the most laborious and complex agricultural practice, especially compared to European farming.

Gladwell’s theory is similar to an often overlooked psychology concept, Carl Jung’s collective unconscious. It’s the idea of “a collection of knowledge […] shared […] due to ancestral experience,” as Jung himself once defined. This concept plays well into Gladwell’s theory of how Asian rice farming, which required learned focus and consistent hard work, has rendered itself in an emphasis on studying in today’s Asian generation. The same mindset that allowed those farmers to persevere through many challenging circumstances is consistent in the approach their descendants apply in school.

Connections and theories like these allow us to expand our understanding of how the brain works on a deeper level rather than assuming that “some are just born different” and brushing it off. I believe the collective unconscious is such an interesting concept; there’s a piece of your ancestors’ thinking that will forever be embedded in the way you approach a task or a situation. It offers a unique explanation for many of our tendencies.

Works Cited

Excelsior. “Why Do Asian Kids Outperform Western Kids in Math? | by Malcolm Gladwell.” Www.youtube.com, 31 July 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wo31YeAI0Q. Accessed 18 Sept. 2024.

Fritscher, Lisa. “How the Collective Unconscious Is Tied to Dreams, Beliefs, and Phobias.” Verywell Mind, 17 May 2023, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-collective-unconscious-2671571.