JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY Tzuriel, Kaufman / MEDIATED LEARNING This study examines the relation between mediated learning experience (MLE) and cog- nitive modifiability among children who underwent cultural change. The case of Ethio- pian immigrant children who had to adapt to Israeli society, tested by a dynamic assess- ment (DA) approach, was used. Our main hypothesis, based on L. S. Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development concept and R. Feuerstein’s (1991) MLE theory, was that these immigrants would reveal cultural difference but not cultural deprivation. A group of first-grade Ethiopian immigrants was compared with a group of Israeli-born children on the Colored Progressive Matrices (CPM), the Children’s Analogical Cognitive Modi- fiability test, and the Children’s Inferential Thinking Modifiability test. There were sig- nificant group differences on the CPM and on the Preteaching scores of both DA meas- ures, indicating superiority of the Israeli-born comparison group. However, after a short but intensive teaching process, the Ethiopian group narrowed the gaps and performed at about the same level on Postteaching and Transfer tasks. MEDIATED LEARNING AND COGNITIVE MODIFIABILITY Dynamic Assessment of Young Ethiopian Immigrant Children to Israel DAVID TZURIEL Bar Ilan University RUTH KAUFMAN The International Center for Enhancement of Learning Potential A central question that has been raised recently with new Ethiopian immi- grants to Israel is how to assess their learning potential, especially in view of the inadequacy of standard testing procedures to reflect this population’s cognitive functioning accurately. The question, however, transcends the spe- cific context of the Ethiopian Jews. Theoretically, it raises issues such as the impact of cultural changes on the individual’s zone of proximal development 359 AUTHORS’NOTE: Parts of this article were presented at the 23rd International Congress of Applied Psychol- ogy in July 1994 in Madrid, Spain. The writing of this article was supported by the Schnitzer Foundation for Research on the Israeli Economy and Society of Bar Ilan University. Parts of this article were written while the first author was on a sabbatical year at York University, Canada. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to David Tzuriel, School of Education, Bar Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52 900, Israel; e-mail: tzuried@mail.biu.ac.il; fax: 972-3-535-3319. JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 30 No. 3, May 1999 359-380 © 1999 Western Washington University