" … But it isn’t Asian “culture” or any other attribute of ethnicity that is responsible for this success. Instead, it’s a unique form of privilege that is grounded in the socioeconomic origins of some – not all – Asian immigrant groups. Understanding this privilege offers insights into how we can help children from all backgrounds succeed." …
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/03/opinions/lee-immigration-ethnic-capital/index.html
I found this article while googling for something. In the article The Mexicans are more succesful than the Asians. Maybe the title should be changed?
3rd generation Asian-Americans (I’m assuming that means that their great grandparents were immigrants and their grandparents were born in the US) are descendants of Asians who came to the US pre-WWII, not on some H1-B, not educated, likely coming to do manual labor. First generation or immigrants came or their parents came on H1-B (or whatever was before it that was similar) or EB-5, are descendents or the social elite. The fact that 3rd generation Asian-Americans are less successful than 1st generation or immigrants shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
This capital includes ethnic institutions -- such as after-school tutoring programs and after-school academies -- which highly educated immigrants have the resources and know-how to recreate for their children. These programs proliferate in Asian neighborhoods in Los Angeles such as Koreatown, Chinatown and Little Saigon. The benefits of these programs also reach working-class immigrants from the same group.<<<
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Aka Exhibit 1 in the bible to game a system that is supposed to provide equal treatment through monopolistic sources.
centers, immigrant parents circulate invaluable information about which neighborhoods have the best public schools, the importance of advance-placement classes and how to navigate the college admissions process. This information also circulates through ethnic-language newspapers, television and radio, allowing working-class immigrant parents to benefit from the ethnic capital that their middle-class peers create.<<<
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A continuation of Exhibit 1
There, they learned about the best public schools in the Los Angeles area and affordable after-school education programs that would help Jason get good grades and ace the SAT. Jason's supplemental education -- the hidden curriculum behind academic achievement -- paid off when he graduated at the top of his class and was admitted to a top University of California campus.<<<
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In so many words, a rather unveiled attempt to red create the ABJECT system that has permeated the education in countries such as South Korea.
Behind the luster and the applause so for so-called academic successes one can find the darker side of a soul destroying obsession to social climbing, the destruction of the years that should be devoted to be a child, the absence of learning and playing for fun, and plenty of signs of gamesmanship at all cost.
Hagwons, Kumon centers, and similar outfits masquerading as bible schools hardly deserve the kudos some think they deserve. They represent a cancer and a risk that continues to be ignored and misunderstood. They are the equivalent of organized card counting to casinos!
The only positive is that their existence underscores the mediocrity of our public system of education. But that also remains massively ignored,
I totally agree at this.
The linked article reminds me of this: At my previous company, there are quite a many employees who are Asian Americans and parents. At one time, a parent whose child would soon be a freshman in high school invited many other parents to discuss what classes their children should take in the coming semester. In the end, the parents likely had 5 meetings (held after work) in total. (My kid had long passed this stage so I was not interested in attending any of such meetings.) They were very “obsessed” about this topic.
Is this a part of “ethics capital”, i.e., having parents who are willing to devote so much of their attention to their children’s education.
Well…my own child at one time sort of “accused” me of being overly obsessed about what classes he would take either - so it is not that I am “holier” than these parents. But considering that I did not know anything about his college application essay because I am fully aware this is beyond my knowledge/skills, I think I am relatively moderate in my obsession. Also, we asked our child NOT to take SAT test toward the end of middle school (for a certain “talent search” program for middle schoolers in the south) and we did not ask him to pay any attention to SAT till the junior year in high school. This proves that we are quite moderate in pushing our child.
@xiggi, any system will be gamed. If you don’t want people to game, don’t create a gameable system.
And casting aspersions on count-counters is . . . odd. Obviously, casinos want guaranteed profits, but I certainly don’t consider them to be morally superior. If someone can legally make money off of them, why is that wrong?
In any case, I’m a big fan of diversity and flexible thinking.
It’s hypocritical to only mention hagwons, kumon centers, why not include and mention the many and various kinds of test preps for SAT, ACT, LSAT,MCAT,GMAT etc etc. They are multi-million dollar businessses. Oh, and don’t forget those individual math, english, science.etc etc tutors too.
They are all gaming the system, aren’t they?
Not exactly news to me that the selection effect of immigration to the US is likely the main reason for the high academic achievement levels associated with Asian students.
As an aside, if it were mainly about Asian race/ethnicity, rather than other factors like parental education level derived from immigration selection effects, Hawaii schools (K-12 and colleges/universities) would be considered elite (Hawaii is 38% Asian, plus 23% two or more race people, many of whom have Asian as at least one of them). But they are not generally considered elite.
Hagwons, Kumon centers, and similar outfits masquerading as bible schools hardly deserve the kudos some think they deserve. They represent a cancer and a risk that continues to be ignored and misunderstood. They are the equivalent of organized card counting to casinos!
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It’s hypocritical to only mention hagwons, kumon centers, why not include and mention the many and various kinds of test preps for SAT, ACT, LSAT,MCAT,GMAT etc etc. They are multi-million dollar businessses. Oh, and don’t forget those individual math, english, science.etc etc tutors too.
They are all gaming the system, aren’t they?<<<
Haha, here we go again with the usual jeremiad and … denial in an attempt to obfuscate the context if the story. Was the article NOT about the ethnic capital of Asians? Are you really that poor in critical reading?
In addition, your addition of certain classes only compounds the real issue as those multi-million businesses are extremely popular with the hagwon typical clients and its determined gamers. Of course, ostriches would not recognize that!
And speaking about hypocrites, how about parents who have had great success shepherding their offspring into the tippy top schools ceasing to jump on the discrimination bandwagon when convenient.
Next!
It was about Asian Americans, not people in Asia who may have access to the cheater test-prep companies who surreptitiously acquire recycled US tests that are later used internationally (enabled by the College Board practice of doing so). As far as gaming the tests (in a non-cheating way) goes, pretty much all test-specific preparation includes or emphasizes that.
In any case, the “ethnic capital” and such things as test preparation is probably much less important than the mere selection effect of the immigration system, which brings in mostly highly educated Indian and Chinese immigrants, but Filipino and Vietnamese immigrants who are closer to the US native-born average, and Mexican immigrants who tend to be on the low end of educational attainment compared to either the US native-born average or people in Mexico generally.
In my work relating to literacy, I’ve helped mostly immigrants over the last almost 30 years, primarily from Mexico and Central America, but more than a few from Asia, What I have noticed in my own, personal experience is that in the last few years the make-up of the immigrants from Mexico and Central America has changed somewhat and they are much, much more likely to be people coming from extremely distant, rural, isolated areas who have no history of literacy in any language and don’t even necessarily speak Spanish well. I think without a foundation of at least understanding and being comfortable with the concepts of literacy, success is almost impossible in this generation and the next, particularly in English and in an unfamiliar culture with unfamiliar challenges. Those people are being coerced across the border with no hope of success for themselves or their children, and probably not their grandchildren. On the other hand, I have also helped immigrants from various parts of Asia who were culturally adrift and struggling and lacked personal reading skills, but I have never had one who lacked the overall culture of literacy, and they have all moved on successfully. Maybe not to become engineers in the first generation, but their kids did well. The home culture is vastly important in many ways.
Hagwons in the US have access to the same unlimited supply of real tests as their international brothers. It is a global market.
Why is it so bad that Asian-American created after school academic and cultural enrichment and test-prep classes? Other ethnic groups who value culture and education did the same. With the same results.
And that is exactly what I wrote about and about the “import” of tactics and devices from different cultures. One has to be very naïve or unaware of what is happening in the US prep centers to believe that the material “borrowed” abroad does not find its way to the US.
While it is true that the test centers are not closed and open to interested students from all races, anyone involved in that cottage industry should be happy to describe the distribution of his or her clients. I do believe that YOU must be aware of the scene in California!
But that is not even the reason why one should hardly applaud this type of organizations. When you start having parents of kids in pre-school and elementary school worrying about the NEED to hire tutors and development specialists to just … keep up with the non-Jones, you know that things have gotten out of control!
I see this on a routine basis, including with the parents of younger family members who live in cities known for their competitive academics. I believe to know a thing or two about standardized tests and what it takes to excel academically, and rest assured that the developments in the past decade (and probably prior to that) are simply mindboggling.
If I were to run to free clinics at a middle school or high school with one being “How to help your community and clean it up” and the other being “How to prepare for DUKE TIP and ace the SAT” could I tell how different the audience would be? I can guarantee you that it would be a 10-90 and 90-10 divide on racial attributes. I am hardly speculating about this. I know from experience!
That is why I tell people to drop the blinders and agree to be objective about certain things. That or learn how it has worked in THIS century!
Make your points without denigrating the other person. Stating your opposite opinion is enough. It doesn’t further your argument to call the other person names or belittling their opinion.
These kind of arguments usually come down to “the reasons X succeed is because they cheat” somehow, it was leveled at Jews back in the day, that “Jewish interests” colluded against non Jews, it was much the same thing, because after all, how could as a group Jews do so well, must be cheating. With the Jews there were cultural issues there that allowed this, centered around their faith, Temples are (or at least used to be) community centers, where the temple as a whole took an interest in the kids, and there was a very strong aspect to Judaism in learning, it is a fundamental part of the faith, too.
With Asians, like with Jews, it is also too easy to make quick assumptions. Some of the Asian kids you see succeeding do in fact come from educated, well off parents, who often came here as grad students and the like, and ended up being well off. With more modest means Asians, there also are cultural issues, within the community among Koreans and Chinese, for example, there are organizations that help kids as well, and like with the Jews before them, there is a major recognition of the value of education.
There are also negatives to this, as there were among the Jews in prior generations, when it goes from being a healthy concern for the kids success into an obsession. It is one thing to support your child in something, it is another to do something like vandalize the instrument of a student applying to a program alongside your child to try and make sure your kid gets in (and yes, virginia, that does go on). There also is another side to this, about what learning is, if the obsession is with high grades, test scores and ‘doing the right things’, and doing everything possible to game the system, is that really having the kid learn? With the pressure these kids are under, there have been massive cheating scandals at elite schools and many of those caught have been Asian kids (note, I am not saying ‘Asian kids all cheat’ or that no one else does; I am just saying that the pressure to be perfect, that everything is wrapped up in a perfect grade, leads kids to do less than ethical things). It also often leads to Asian kids being pigeonholed into certain things, the way in past generations there were those among the Jews who fit that stereotype, that everything was about becoming a well paid professional with all the trappings, and that may not be healthy.
Where I have a problem is when people look at the ‘achievements’ of Asian kids and hold that up as a model of something and don’t look at the negatives. In Asian countries, a kids life is basically determined by a series of tests and what school they go to (and no, that isn’t myth, the New York Times had an article about colleges in China, and they said if you didn’t get into one of the elite colleges, students had little chance of aspiring to the middle class, that they often ended up doing little more than manufacturing jobs), and what disturbs me is this is what we are modeling into our education system, that all that matters are test scores and so forth. There is a lot to be said about the Asian communities, the work ethic, the sense that it is important to learn and do well in school, but we also have to be careful not to use a simple, stupid measure like test scores and GPA and the like as proof of anything or use that, God forbid, to shape society. I will add that with Asians, we are in the middle of this trying to see the forest for the trees, we only have had significant Asian immigration for the past 50 years or so, and in recent decades we are seeing waves from China and Korea. I can tell you that like most immigrant groups, their kids are very different from the parents, and things kind of mellow down, the obsessive parent you see (and I saw a ton of them with my son in music) is not their kid, and I would bet by the next generations attitudes change. I work with people from China, and while they want their kids to do well, and definitely put expectations on them, they also understand there is more than gaming test scores and such, so the stereotype doesn’t hold for all, either, though the description we are talking about is pretty common.
In any case, the higher education system here isn’t like anything in China or Korea, so if you have faith in holistic admissions, why should you care if other folks send their kids to cram schools or hire tutors or not (other than because you feel a sense of pity for the kids). No one’s forcing anyone to keep up with the Jones or anyone else. If you think that cram schools and tutors are terrible and stunt development, then don’t send your kids there. Educate and develop your kids how you deem best. Unlike in some other countries, what grades you get in 6th grade isn’t going to determine anything.
Have faith in holistic admission, are you kidding? Even adcoms admit they make mistake.
Since recycled old tests are not used in the US (as opposed to outside the US), the effect of such dishonest acquisition of them is probably rather little. Indeed, if the customers of such test-prep companies are being put through time consuming test-prep classes taking large numbers of full length old practice tests, they are probably wasting a lot of money and time on inefficient test preparation (i.e. preparation beyond the high-value types like test familiarization, time management and guessing tactics, and targeted studying of content knowledge for weaknesses revealed by a single practice test). The time and money would very well be better spend on other academic, intellectual, or extracurricular activities than getting 10 more points on the SAT. Of course, it is a much bigger deal for international test administrations using recycled tests – the College Board should stop recycling tests in this manner (might as well release all old ones).
In any case, the effect of test preparation is really on the margins of the main effect, which is selection effect of immigration to the US. That may give the appearance of racial/ethnic differences in academic achievement, even though the differences are almost certainly much more related to parental educational attainment (as selected within each racial/ethnic group by immigration) than anything else.
Ucbalumnus, I am afraid that the above statement is hardly correct. If the reuse of tests abroad has reached a level that borders on the ridiculous, ETS and TCB have reused tests in a number of administration as they continue to rely on the integrity of the “non-released” program. There are various levels of piracy in the test that goes well beyond finding a QAS test. For instance, one could find tests from dates that were never part of the released programs. A hint: people have been known to sit down for the test and bolt out with the booklet or rely on devices to scan an entire test.
However, the cheating part is NOT what constitutes the most nefarious part of the organized after school program, and that was NOT the focus of my reply. The bigger picture is found when looking at the impact of those outfits on the general population. The oped article clearly suggested that more communities such as the Hispanics should develop similar programs. Should we ask ourselves if that really corresponds to the vision the US clings to of a just and equitable system of education? Should young parents really face a dual system in which schools are purported to offer a curriculum that fits everyone (again that monopoly at work) but are “expected” to complement it not only through parental guidance but also through the hiring of tutors and outside drill sergeants?
Forget the Asian angle --if that is possible-- and think about the attraction of having our system turning into what exists in South Korea? Is that what WE should have? Some of us have looked at the models used abroad and analyzed what happens in Asia (think South Korea or Singapore) and Europe (think Finland – that new darling – or Belgium with its dual system) to find the cures to our mild malaise.
I am interested in the issue since it is highly probable that I will be wrestling with educational decisions for my own family. If the path seen in this century continues to be paved, I really wonder how bad it will be in places such as California. Will I have to schlep my children from the middling public school that I could afford to the back of donuts shops to discover the joys of after school programs or will have to embark on a life of sacrifices to pay for the ever increasing private schools? Obviously, there is an “in-between” and it takes the form of a different sacrifice with homeschooling but although I do not doubt that the education will be superior it would come at a social cost and balance of the little Xiggis. School is more than cramming books!
In the end, one can wonder if this education farce of creating classes of students will ever stop! It ain’t pretty with images of a dystopian society with Frankenstudents assembled to satisfy twisted objectives.
None of the extreme sacrifices should be necessary. Some parents have cultivated a love of reading and learning in their kids from an early age. Then the kids go to the top of their class and stay there, with no tiger parenting, after school cram school, or anything like that needed. And the kids do not necessarily think that doing well in school requires a huge amount of hard work, if they enjoy reading and learning.
And even if the kid does not get a 4.0/2400/36, that is ok, since there are plenty of post-secondary education and career paths that do not require that.