ABSTRACT
The primary goal of this chapter is to provide a principled consideration of the source of mathematical ability differences comparing children from East Asia and the United States (Husen, 1967; Stevenson, Chen, & Lee, 1993). Arguments for the source of these differences range from racial differences in intelligence (e.g., Lynn, 1982; Rushton, 1992) to cultural differences in the relative valuation of mathematical competencies (Stevenson & Stigler, 1992). In this chapter, cross-national differences in mathematical abilities are considered from an evolution-based framework that allows for biological as well as cultural influences on children’s cognitive and academic development (Geary, 1995). Three general sections were required to achieve the primary goal of this chapter. In the first, a distinction is made between the architecture and developmental mechanisms associated with biologically based and culturally taught abilities, which are termed biologically primary and biologically secondary cognitive abilities, respectively. Next, this framework is applied to research on children’s mathematical development, and finally, in the third section, to cross-national differences in the pattern of mathematical abilities.
