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“What’s your secret?” Several years ago, a colleague asked me this question about the academic success of Asian Americans. I was taken aback and didn’t have an immediate answer. My colleague inferred that there might be something about being Asian that leads to academic success. He was also inferring that I was keeping this secret from him.
Asian American academic success is well-documented. Compared to other groups, Asian Americans have higher grades. They are also more likely to complete high school and attend college. So, is there a secret to this success?
One explanation involves cognitive abilities. This is the idea that Asian Americans are naturally smarter than everyone else. However, the differences on standardized tests between Asian Americans and Whites were minimal in a large national study of school-aged children. Asian Americans included East Asians, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, and South Asians. So, Asian Americans did not have better cognitive abilities than Whites. What did differ was academic effort. Teachers rated Asian Americans as working harder in school than Whites. And working harder resulted in better grades.
The book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother captured the extreme emphasis on working hard in school. Indeed, Asian American high school students report experiencing more pressure from their mothers than White high school students do. A common joke among Asian Americans is about the child who receives a grade of less than an A. In response, their parent tells them, “You’re not a C-sian. You’re not a B-sian. You’re an A-sian.”
So why are Asian Americans so singularly focused on academic success? Although Asian cultural values are offered as an explanation, there may be a more practical reason. Education is required for the career opportunities open to Asian Americans. For example, Asian Americans are physicians, scientists, and engineers. Careers unrelated to education are limited for Asian Americans. Few Asian Americans are well-known entertainers, athletes, or politicians. Many Asian Americans see academic success as the only path to career success. This idea is known as relative functionalism.
Career opportunities based on education became available to Asian Americans in the 1960s. The 1965 Immigration Act allowed Asians who were already educationally and economically successful to come to the United States. These immigrants had not experienced centuries of discrimination that had prevented the success of other minority groups. For example, working harder in school would not help African Americans or Latinas become engineers if engineering jobs were not accessible to them. Whites touted Asian Americans as a “model minority” that succeeded without special help. However, Asian Americans began to experience another form of discrimination. They became pigeon-holed into jobs requiring education and were excluded from career opportunities that became available to other minority groups.
Evidence of limited career opportunities for Asian Americans abounds in holiday season media. In the new movies, Asian Americans are absent in leading roles. The Asian American supporting actors in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story are notable because of their absence in previous Star Wars movies. Asian Americans are also rare in college football bowl games and in the NBA. This invisibility of Asian Americans in the media reinforces the idea that they don’t belong in entertainment or sports careers.
But why should anyone feel sorry for Asian Americans? What’s wrong with academic success? The hard work involved in academic success comes at a high cost for many Asian American students. Compared to Whites, they have lower self-esteem and are more alienated from their peers and parents. And there is a high cost of academic failure for Asian Americans because of extremely few career options without education.
There is no secret to Asian American academic success. Like everyone else, Asian Americans experience academic success when they work hard. And like everyone else, Asian Americans deserve opportunities to succeed both in academic and non-academic careers.
References
Fu, A. S., & Markus, H. R. (2014). My mother and me: why tiger mothers motivate Asian Americans but not European Americans. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 739-749.
Hsin, A., & Xie, Y. (2014). Explaining Asian Americans’ academic advantage over whites. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111, 8416-8421.
Sue, S., & Okazaki, S. (1990). Asian-American educational achievements: A phenomenon in search of an explanation. American Psychologist, 45, 913-920.
Yoo, H. C., Miller, M. J., & Yip, P. (2015). Validation of the internalization of the Model Minority Myth Measure (IM-4) and its link to academic performance and psychological adjustment among Asian American adolescents. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 21, 237-246.
