Educational Expectations of Asian American Youths: Determinants and Ethnic Differences

Abstract

This paper tests three explanations for the high educational expectations of Asian-American high school students living in the United States: favorable socioeconomic and background characteristics, demonstrated academic ability, and cultural values conducive to education. We focus on differences in the relevance of these explanations across Asian-American ethnic groups. With data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS), 1988-1992, we employ five multivariate regression models to explain differences in educational expectations between Asian-American ethnic groups and whites, both for the base year and for changes over time. We find much diversity in the factors that shape educational expectations and effect changes in them across Asian-American ethnic groups. The educational expectations of groups that are well-assimilated into U.S. society are principally influenced by socioeconomic and demographic factors, while parental expectations explain much of childrens high educational expectations for recent immigrant refugees.

Explaining Asian Americans’ academic advantage over whites

“…Relative to whites, their parents tend to be better educated, and they are more likely to live in stable, two-parent families with higher incomes (5). This explanation, however, is insufficient because advantages in socio-demographic factors only partially explain the achievement gap (2,3,5). Moreover, Asian Americans are not uniformly advantaged in terms of family socioeconomic background.…”

“…These arguments, however, have been rejected by other scholars who find little difference in general intelligence between native Chinese/ Japanese children and white American children (12)(13)(14)(15). Most researchers instead attribute observed racial differences in measured cognitive ability to variations in parents' socio-economic status, parental expectations, and access to educational resources at home and in communities (2)(3)(4)(13)(14)(15).…”

“…Finally, we highlight the potential psychological and social costs associated with Asian-American achievement success. noncognitive skills | model minority | Asian advantage A sian Americans have higher grades and standardized test scores, are more likely to finish high school and attend college, and are more likely to attend the most elite colleges relative to whites (1)(2)(3)(4). Despite the vast research documenting their educational advantage, explanations for this remain uncertain.…”

Asking Differently About Race and Ethnicity: New Needs for a Changing Population

“…Also, there is nontrivial variability in educational expectations and attainment of Asian Americans based upon national origin (see, e.g., Sakamoto, Goyette, & Kim, 2009). Goyette and Xie (1999) reported that the expectation of graduation from college is almost 30%…”

Race and Ethnic Inequality in Educational Attainment in the United States

“…It seems that the very high levels of encouragement ("the most important thing to do after high school is to go to college") accounts for a share of the Asian American edge. There is a considerable literature on the very high levels of Asian American parental expectations for their children's educational attainments (Hao andBonstead-Bruns 1998, Goyette andXie 1999) But the difference between Asian American students and white students widens in Model 4 when childrearing patterns are included and in Model 5 when self-esteem and locus of control are added as covariates. The reason is that Asian American families (especially VCL Asian Americans) are less likely to communicate with their children and are more likely to try to control them.…”