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A worldwide perspective on psychology is presented, including its origins and important developments in both Western and in communist countries. International associations, journals, and congresses are described. At the present time, psychology depends very much on Anglo-Saxon culture, especially on the United States, and shares the main values of that culture. In spite of its goal of finding general laws and universal principles, contemporary psychology is still far from being an international psychology.Psychology in the contemporary sense began in Germany in the 19th century. Around the beginning of the 20th century, the United States became the center of the new science and has remained so since that time. Contemporary psychology shares all the characteristics of Anglo-Saxon culture: emphasis on adaptation, emphasis on function more than structure, dynamism, operationalism, evolutionism. Psychology is conceived in English, is written in English, and for the most part considers problems relevant to Anglo-Saxon culture, specifically to North America.I would like to point out from the beginning that I am not making any value judgment but just describing a situation. I am not saying that contemporary psychology is "provincial," "narrowminded," or anything like that. I am saying that the largest part of research and applications of contemporary psychology has the mark of a particular culture. In spite of our efforts to create a science that is universal, culture-free, and beyond the .boundaries of time and space, psychology is still very much culture-bound.The majority of today's psychologists live and work in the United States, a very large proportion of the research is carried out in the United States, and the great majority of psychological journals are written in English. This situation is not specific to psychology; it also exists in other disciplines like biology, sociology, astronomy. The largest part of contemporary science has the mark of the United States' culture, although in the physical and biological disciplines it may be easier to be culturefree. In the behavioral sciences-psychology, economics, linguistics, sociology, anthropology-the

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Numerous technical—scientific reports have demonstrated that student performance variability is linked to several factors, especially socioeconomic factors. For a century, differential psychology has shown that students’ socioeconomic level has little or no relevance in the explanation of student performance variation when the intellectual factor is considered. Here we present a study on a student samples (N = 1264) aged 13 to 16 yrs, enrolled in 32 schools from five Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru). A short version of the PISA test (composed by 16 items) and five cognitive measures were administered, in addition to a socioeconomic questionnaire. Multilevel analysis (marginal models) indicated that general intelligence (g-factor) and socioeconomic school status were robust predictors, and the students’ socioeconomic status very little accounted for the variation in the PISA test. This study concludes that education policy must incorporate individual differences in intelligence, beyond socioeconomic variables, as an important predictor variable in student performance studies.

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