“It’s a Skill That Can Be Trained”: How Chinese Parents View Mathematics and What This Means

Abstract

Students from a Chinese background demonstrate outstanding performance in international mathematics assessments. Besides cultural characteristics, innate mathematics ability is often referred to as the reason for their performance. This paper aims to debunk this assumption of innate ability and provide an alternate perspective to the discussion by examining Chinese immigrant parents' views towards mathematics. Data used in this paper were collected from an empirical, qualitative study that explored cultural identity and mathematics learning of Chinese families in Sydney. It was found that Chinese parents in this paper viewed mathematics as a skill that, with appropriate support and practice, could be improved. As well, they were confident in helping their children with mathematics homework themselves. These views and attitude underpinned the resources that they provided for their children in mathematics learning and had positive impacts on the children's attitudes towards mathematics, which had significant ramifications to their mathematics performance. Consequently, parents and teachers are encouraged to reflect on their attitudes towards mathematics as the first step to break the cycle of mathematics anxiety.