as “cram schools”; in fact, they are highly valued. Yet in South Korea, people have begun to complain that cram schools give affluent students an unfair advantage. Since 2008, the South Korean government has regulated the after-school tutoring industry, limiting its hours and imposing fees on the schools. Some think this policy has lowered their society’s expectations of students, describing it as an attempt to make South Koreans “more American” (Ramstad 2011; Ripley 2011). Another example of cultural differences in values is public opinion regarding the treatment of different racial and ethnic groups. As Figure 10-2 shows, opinion on the need for equal treatment of different racial and ethnic groups varies dramatically from one country to another. Global Culture War For almost a generation, public attention in the United States has focused on culture war, or the polarization of society over controversial cultural elements. Originally, in the 1990s, the term referred to political debates over heated issues such as abortion, religious expression, gun control, and sexual orientation. Soon, however, it took on a global meaning— especially after 9/11, as Americans wondered, “Why do they hate us?” Through 2000, global studies of public opinion had reported favorable views of the United States in countries as diverse as Morocco and Germany. But after the United States established a military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign opinion of the United States became quite negative (J. Hunter 1991; Kohut et al. 2005, 2007). In the past 30 years, extensive efforts have been made to compare values in different nations, recognizing the challenges FIGURE 10-1 Life Goals of First-Year College Percentage who identify goal as very important or essential 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Students in the United States, 1966–2012 Financial security remains a popular goal of entering college students. Develop a meaningful philosophy of life Help to promote racial understanding Become involved in cleaning up environment Be very welloff financially 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2012 Think about It Why do you think values have shifted among college students in the past few decades? Which of these values is important to you? Sources: Pryor et al. 2007, 2013. to become involved in cleaning up the environment. By the 1980s, however, student support for embracing this objective had dropped to around 20 percent or even lower (see Figure 10-1 ). Even with recent attention to global warming, the proportion remains level at only 26.5 percent of first-year students in 2012. Recently, cheating has become a hot issue on college campuses. Professors who take advantage of computerized services that can identify plagiarism, such as the search engine Google, have been shocked to learn that many of the papers their students hand in are plagiarized in whole or in part. Box 10-2 examines the shift in values that underlies this decline in academic integrity. Values can also differ in subtle ways not just among individuals and groups, but from one culture to another. For example, in Japan, young children spend long hours working with tutors, preparing for entrance exams required for admission to selective schools. No stigma is attached to these services, known FIGURE 10-2 Valuing Ethnicity by Country 94% 90% 80% 79% 69% 62% 44% 37% 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Proportion of respondents saying it is “very important” for “people of different races and ethnicities to be treated equally” 0 Mexico China Kenya United States France Iran India Russia Source: Council on Foreign Relations 2009. Elements of Culture 63
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