Hegemonic Gender Norms and the Gender Gap in Achievement: The Case of Asian Americans

Abstract

Many argue that hegemonic gender norms depress boys' performance and account for the gender gap in achievement. I describe differences in the emergence of the gender gap in academic achievement between white and Asian American youth and explore how the immigrant experience and cultural differences in gender expectations might account for observed differences. For white students, boys are already underperforming girls in kindergarten, with the male disadvantage growing into high school. For Asian Americans, boys perform as well as girls throughout elementary school but begin underperforming relative to girls at the transition to adolescence. Additionally, I show that the Asian American gender gap is larger in schools with stronger male-centric sports cultures and where boys' underachievement is normalized. I speculate that model-minority stereotypes, the immigrant experience, and standards of masculinity that promote pro-school behaviors in boys act as protective factors in early childhood but wane at the transition to adolescence during a period when the dominant peer culture plays a larger role in shaping gender identities. The study offers evidence that the gender gap in achievement is not an inevitable fact of biology but is shaped by social environment.

Educational gender gaps

“…Other scholars have noted that though, for girls, hard work and conscientiousness in school is seen as desirable (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005), such behavior is inconsistent with a “cool” masculinity characterized by dominance, strength, and “effortless achievement” (Epstein, 1998; Archer et al ., 2001). Hsin (2018) provides an interesting case in an analysis of the achievement trajectories of white and Asian‐American schoolchildren. White boys underperform white girls as early as kindergarten, but Asian‐American boys do not begin to fall behind girls in school achievement until adolescence.…”

Gender Typicality and Academic Achievement among American High School Students

“…On the other hand, Asian American youth may benefit academically from the tendency to be stereotyped as academically talented ("stereotype promise") as well as having less rigid conceptions of masculinity among Asian Americans more generally. Even so, Hsin (2018) finds that these protective factors erode during adolescence, such that Asian American boys underperform relative to their female counterparts in high school.…”

“…To the extent that emphasized feminine behaviors are associated with lower GPAs, the relationship may be particularly strong among girls of lower socioeconomic status. Other research finds that among Asian Americans, traditional gender norms lead to high parental expectations and the tendency of immigrant parents to exert greater control over their daughters than their sons and these behaviors are beneficial to girls' academic performance (Qin 2009;Hsin 2018). Thus, girls and boys may practice gender differently depending on their location within the stratification hierarchy, and these differences may be related to their academic achievement.…”

Children’s Academic Achievement and Behavior Problems at the Intersection of Gender and Family Environment

“…From an intersectional perspective, the child's gender does not influence children's lived experiences in isolation from other categories of social position (Hsin 2018). Hence, gender differences in academic achievement may depend on and manifest in conjunction with other status characteristics of the child and the family.…”

“…Whereas there is abundant literature on the separate effects of socioeconomic status (SES) (e.g., Bradley and Corwyn 2002;Chmielewski 2019) and gender (e.g., Leahey and Guo 2001;McIntosh et al 2013) on children's academic achievement, "the interaction between gender and SES has attracted much less attention" (Entwisle, Alexander, and Olson 2007, p. 128). Few studies investigated whether gender differences in children's academic and behavioral outcomes differ across SES (DiPrete and Jennings 2012;Entwisle et al 2007;Penner and Paret 2008), family structure (Autor et al 2019;Bertrand and Pan 2013;Lundberg 2017) or race (Catsambis 1994;Fan, Chen, and Matsumoto 1997;Fryer and Levitt 2010;Hsin 2018;Penner and Paret 2008). However, none of these studies investigated whether gender disparities in academic outcomes and behavior develop differently across childhood depending on the family circumstances.…”