Academic Achievement and Problem Behaviors among Asian Pacific Islander American Adolescents

Abstract

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study tests whether the relationship between academic achievement and problem behaviors is the same across racial and ethnic groups. Some have suggested that academic achievement may be a weaker predictor of problem behaviors among Asian Pacific Islander American (API) youth; that they can have high grades but still exhibit problem behaviors. This study finds that academic performance is a significant predictor of aggressive and nonaggressive delinquent offenses, gang initiation, sexual behaviors, and substance use, and that the relationship generally does not vary by race and ethnicity. Thus, there is little evidence that API youth are high achievers who are also engaging significantly in problem behaviors. The existing perceptions of API youth may be largely based on stereotype and ambivalence. Keywords API youth; Academic achievement; Problem behaviors; Interrelations of youth behaviors; EtiologyIdentifying risk factors of problems is critical to designing effective interventions (Mrazek and Haggerty, 1994). Problem behaviors among youth are highly correlated with one another and often share etiology . For example, academic underachievement and school problems are significantly associated with violence, delinquency, and substance use (Huzinga and Jakob-Chien, 1998). Similarly, higher academic performance and better school behaviors predict lower rates of risk behaviors (Maguin and Loeber, 1996). Early problem behaviors among youth are also one of the strongest predictors of later problem behaviors (Moffitt, 1993). Many youth who are incarcerated report previous school problems and drug use (Dryfoos, 1998). These findings are consistent across both gender and age (Thornberry et al., 1995). © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006Correspondence to: Yoonsun Choi, yoonsun@uchicago.edu. Yoonsun Choi is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Service Administration. Her fields of special interest include minority youth development; effects of race, ethnicity, and culture in youth development; children of immigrants; Asian American youth; prevention of youth problem behaviors; and research methods. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptHowever, it is less clear whether the associations between youth behaviors are also consistent across racial and ethnic groups. Although Asian Pacific Islander American (API) youth academically perform better than other racial and ethnic groups (Choi and Lahey, 2006), some suggest, but do not empirically show, that academic achievement may be a weaker predictor of problem behaviors among API youth compared with other racial and ethnic groups of youth (Kang and Saar, 1996; Seo, 1995). For example, Vietnamese youth earned the highest grades among student samples in a San Diego study (Rumbaut, 1997). At the same time, they were the fourth-largest group on probation, following Hispanic, white, and black youth in California, and their probation ...

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