Social scientists have only recently begun to explore students' conceptions of their world and the relationship of these conceptions to their success in school. In particular, investigators have found that students who perceive themselves to be more in control of their environment are more successful in school than are students who feel less in control of their environment. Several theorists have suggested that this is a universal phenomenon. The study described in this paper examined children's perceptions about the resolution of problem situations in relationship to their school achievement. The participants in the study were 1800 fourteen year old students from the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. Reading and math achievement scores, grade point average, and the results of the Views of Life scale were collected for each student. It was found that: (1) internal locus of control is not related to school success in all societies; (2) attribution patterns, or ways that children view their world, are culturally conditioned and not universal; and (3) though world view is related to success in school, the way these phenomena are related differs among countries. These results suggest that it is unwise to construct educational theory based on data from a single country. (Author/GC)