ABSTRACT
In this chpter, the authors examine the association between school discipline and academic performance per geographic cluster and also for each country/society in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 data set. They focus on additional PISA dimensions that drive performance with a broader view of discipline, including, for example, truancy. The authors discuss the role of Confucian culture in East Asia in the context of education and performance, by way of dissecting how certain aspects and understandings of the tradition have shaped the social, cognitive, and behavioural processes within their societies. In Confucianism-Discipline-Competitiveness model, the authors specifies that the factor of family wealth–through the available resources to service an education–influences students’ cognitive and behavioural dispositions at school, which ultimately drive academic performance. The overarching aim of education, as seen by Confucianism, is in developing one’s innate ability and nature through moral cultivation.
