<p>Asian Americans score higher than any other demographic group on standardized/cognitive tests. They are also the most educated ethnic group in the United States.</p>
<p>How long has this been the case? </p>
<p>I mean, given how Asians were once subjected to discrimination, I imagine that this was not always so…
And that their academic/intellectual success is a more recent phenomenon. </p>
<p>Is there any research/scholarship on this?</p>
<p>I don’t have any research on this but as an Asian I can say that the successful ones have probably always been overachieving in an academic sense. I grow up in a predominantly Asian community (like 67-70%) and everyone’s parents are really pushy about academics… If you don’t get into at least UCLA, if you don’t become a doctor, your parents are going to be disappointed in you.</p>
<p>In most universities in Korea and China your college choices traditionally depend a lot (if not entirely) on one single test so the Asians with a lot of money always send their kids to tutoring. I think they think the AP tests and SAT/ACT are like their old placement tests. So instead of getting like a summer job or going to camp my friends always spend like two thirds of their summer at Elite (SAT prep). During the school year, they go back on weekends and breaks are an opportunity to squeeze in 4-8 more hours of test prep a day.</p>
<p>That’s a bit of a generalization but that’s the closest thing I can find to why we “overachieve”. And it’s not really a good thing either because there just isn’t much chance to go out with friends or any of that. I think it’s always been this way for the top Asians even before they came to America, but lately college is our way of keeping up with the Joneses.</p>
<p>Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk</p>
<p>And most of the tutoring centers are based in Asia (or started there), so our success correlates probably with the rise of emigration and the Asian economies in the global market, although I honestly think this has always been the lifestyle for people who can afford it, predating their presence here in America.</p>
<p>Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk</p>
<p>This is due to the Brain Drain effect, where the most educated, intelligent, and ambitious people left 1970s-1990s impoverished asian countries and immigrated to the United States to find better opportunities/more money. They came to America, found lucrative careers in Engineering, Medicine, and IT or started their own businesses, settled themselves, started a family, and passed on their work ethic and discipline to their children, who now outperform other demographic groups in Academics. So contrary to popular belief, China and India aren’t countries full of super-geniuses. It’s just that the Asians that are here were already smart to begin with, that’s why they’re here!</p>
<p>Um actually Nigerian-Americans are the most educated ethnic group in America.
[Data</a> show Nigerians the most educated in the U.S. - Houston Chronicle](<a href=“Data show Nigerians the most educated in the U.S.”>Data show Nigerians the most educated in the U.S.)
[Nigerians</a> have the highest level of education in the U.S. - SmartPlanet](<a href=“Nigerians have the highest level of education in the U.S. | ZDNET”>Nigerians have the highest level of education in the U.S. | ZDNET)
<a href=“https://sites.google.com/site/afropedia/nigerians-are-the-most-educated-immigrant-group-in-america[/url]”>https://sites.google.com/site/afropedia/nigerians-are-the-most-educated-immigrant-group-in-america</a>
Oh, didn’t see that one coming did ya?</p>
<p>Now, let’s see. How are Nigerian-Americans and Asian-Americans similar? Oh yeah, they are both immigrant groups.</p>
<p>Asians have been performing well in academics since they began arriving to America (1940s?) because Asians prioritize academics and their parents push them excessively to excel in academics so they spend more time on academics than most other cultures, thus, they earn better grades. The downside is, as above poster mentioned, that they don’t get to socialize much. The more assimilated parents (even if immigrants) realize that their children need good social skills for success as well as some socializing for mental happiness.</p>
<p>I think you are really confused. Asians do not always ‘outperform’ other ethnicities; there are plenty of other people who do better.
However, most Asians are good at math. I think that this started at around 1950~? and after WW2 when the only escape from poverty was to send a child to America, become educated, earn a lot. Ever since then, the competition rose and rose until how it is now. It is true that many Asian parents do prioritize academics but Asians do have a social life…
Hope this helped :)</p>
<p>Since the Ming and Qing dynasties haha.</p>
<p>Like, since forever.</p>
<p>Been looking for an excuse to post this link: [High</a> Expectations Asian Father | Meme Generator](<a href=“http://memegenerator.net/High-Expectations-Asian-Father]High”>http://memegenerator.net/High-Expectations-Asian-Father)</p>
<hr>
<p>Danny
University of California, Berkeley '09 (B.S.)
St. Mary’s College of California '10 (M.S.)</p>
<p>Does this high Asian American performance still show up if you account for family income?</p>
<p>You can’t compare two groups without accounting for differences such as parental income and education. Do statistics show a significant difference between Asian-American and non-Asian-American students when you look only at upper-middle class families with highly educated parents? I wonder if there would be much of a statistical difference between the two groups in terms of educational success.</p>
<p>Well, the Asian countries have a fundamentally great system of education, and when these kids grow up and move to America, they still have the feeling that education is one of, if not the most, important thing in their kids’ lives. </p>
<p>This leads to the kids receiving a stressed education.</p>
<p>NoSoccerMom,</p>
<p>Asians were in this country well before the 1940s. And they also experienced discrimination–though probably not as much as African or Native Americans.</p>
<p>Asian culture are more reserved and back in the day they generally avoided conflict. That being said, there was quite a bit of overt racism (I.e. The Chinese exclusion act), but that’s a story that is seldom told.</p>
<p>I don’t understand this thread at all. :(</p>
<p>It begins with a false assertion: Asians (in America, I assume?) have not been academically outperforming everyone else. As dsi411 mentioned, Nigerian-American immigrants and their offspring are more educated than any one Asian group. Even if we compare on a continent-continent basis, African immigrants and their offspring are more educated than any other group in America, native-born or recently immigrated.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s also the problem of talking about whole continents at a time. Saying “Asian-American” ignores the disparities between different peoples. Sure, (Han) Chinese-, Korean-, and Japanese-American students overall perform well, but Hmong-, Laotian-, and Cambodian-American teenagers in California have higher high school drop out rates than do Latina/o or black teens. Are Hmong-, Laotian-, and Cambodian-Americans not “Asian”?</p>
<p>Anyway, if you want to compare recently immigrated populations (which of course does not account for all Asian-Americans), the most obvious feature to start with is who is emigrating from which countries. If a country suffers brain drain, with rich, well-educated members of society leaving, then immigrants of that descent will appear to outperform others. On the other hand, if the rich remain in the home country while the poor flee for better paying but still menial jobs, immigrants of that descent will of course appear to be performing at a lower level.</p>