How Long Have Asians Been Academically Outperforming Everyone Else?

Millancad
Sat, 18 Jan 2014 22:34:09 +0000

I don’t understand this thread at all. :(

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.

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”?

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.