Looking at the coverage of Asian-American students in mainstream media, it’s easy to see why the myth of Asians as the “model minority” persists. In story after story, Asian students across the United States are portrayed as faring well—sometimes almost too well. Consider the trope of “the Asian-American nerd,” but also the ongoing arguments that the multitude of Asian American students at elite high schools such as New York City’s Stuyvesant High School and Alexandria, Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is somehow unfair. And at the college level, coverage of the affirmative action cases brought to the U.S. Supreme Court concerning Harvard University and University of North Carolina dominated the mediasphere in 2023, bringing allegations of discrimination against Asian-American students due to their outstanding academic performance to great prominence.
The usage of the broad “Asian” label in these educational assessments and discussions, however, has led to generalizations that have for decades obscured the true academic experiences and struggles of many Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students since their initial arrivals to the United States in the mid-twentieth century. The problem here is that, if researchers don’t look beyond broad categories to measure and report on the particular challenges confronting specific subgroups, solutions to those challenges won’t be found.
How the Myth Is Perpetuated
It’s not hard to find examples of research studies that unwittingly perpetuate the model minority myth. This commentary will focus on a 2023 report from the Fordham Institute that highlights the academic performance of Asian American students, but this is just one of many instances.
The Fordham study focuses on current “excellence gaps” between student groups in eighth grade over the past two decades, sorting between race and ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) to assess trends. The study defines excellence gaps as “the disparities in advanced academic performance that exist between” students of different ethnic/racial groups. Their findings reveal a trend of growth in both Asian and Hispanic groups deemed high-achieving over the past twenty years, though the study says that beginning in the early 2010s, Asian students regardless of socioeconomic group “often equal[ed] or outperform[ed] higher-SES students of other racial and ethnic groups.”
These findings are simultaneously startling and expected—startling, because while nearly every analysis of U.S. educational performance finds opportunity and achievement gaps where white students outperform students of color, these data flip that pattern, and yet also expected, because the findings fit neatly into preconceived notions about Asian students’ academic excellence. So while Fordham’s study accurately highlights the overall successes of Asian students, its findings also reflect a common misunderstanding of Asian students’ academic outcomes—one that is born of data conventions that obscure the diversity within this group of students.
A deeper look at Asian students’ academic performance reveals more complexity, however. When studies and articles like Fordham’s analyze Asian students, they treat them as a monolith, and thus extend the group’s characteristic of academic achievement and successes to everyone in the group. In this way, much is lost in contemporary analyses of Asian students that lump them together, obscuring the realities of Asian students such as Hmong, Cambodian, and other Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students.
How researchers choose to organize and collect educational data holds major implications for public perceptions of students, educators, and policymakers—and their access to educational opportunities. Researchers should strive to closely examine the Asian-American students in a more nuanced, comprehensive way, so they can identify what may be driving some students’ successes—and recognize what may be causing others to struggle.
Potential Factors and their Importance
Education researchers and practitioners must not dismiss Asian students’ academic achievement as inherent to their race, but rather work to understand their performance and the factors that contribute to it. Their achievements can thus be observed more clearly and the lessons learned can potentially be applied to reforms to increase educational equity for other ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups.
The Fordham study hints at this notion, asking,
Are there observable practices among Asian students that could apply more broadly? For instance, are they more likely to participate in extracurricular activities, sign up for more challenging classes, or take part in academic tutoring, clubs, or competitions? Are these behaviors helping AAPI students to reach the highest level of academic achievement? If so, how could smart policies expand those opportunities to students from other communities?
These hypotheses suggest possible sources of Asian students’ academic performance, but also assume an overly broad shared experience amongst “Asian students.” A danger lies in this overarching assumption, as it ignores differences in languages, cultures, socioeconomic status, educational privileges, times of migration, and initial learning backgrounds when entering school and throughout schooling. In this way, much is lost in contemporary analyses of Asian students that lump them all together, obscuring the realities that Asian students such as Hmong, Cambodian, and other Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students experience. There are drastic cultural differences between, for example, Chinese Americans and Hmong Americans, yet the word “Asian” encompasses a wide range of people and of students in the United States, referring to everyone from third-generation Chinese students descended from the earliest tides of Asian migration to the United States to students of Southeast Asian refugees from the United States’ intervention as recently as fifty years ago. Refugees of American intervention in Southeast Asia often arrived in the United States with diminished “English proficiency, less experience with formal education, and fewer transferable skills” compared to prior waves of Asian migration, which commonly featured members of the educated elite and others with increased resources and capital.
Disparities between members of the waves of Asian migration manifest in various ways, including their educational experience and performance, and that of their children. To better compare the performance of Asian students and students of other racial groups, researchers must isolate and distinguish specific student subgroup(s) in their studies when they research the performance of Asian students. Academic differences between groups often reflect differences in the educational experiences and resources students can access.
An example of the illusion created by data aggregation can be seen in the 2021 American Community Survey, where data demonstrate how 56.4 percent of Asian Americans aged 25 or older possessed bachelor’s degrees or higher, relatively high compared with 35.0 percent of the American population overall. However, upon closer examination, the percentage of students in various Southeast Asian American groups reaching that mark ranged from 17.8 percent to 51.6 percent. Among Vietnamese, Laos, Cambodian, and Hmong students from countries impacted by the Vietnam War spurring waves of refugees, and Burmese students hailing from a country currently undergoing political and economic instability, the percentages ranged from 17.8 to 34.8 percent. These five ethnic groups represent the five Asian ethnic groups that currently demonstrate the lowest educational attainment rate by percentage of bachelor’s degrees relative to other Asian American groups. Their percentages more closely resemble those of African American, Hispanic, and Native American groups, than those of Asian Americans. Draw back the data aggregation curtain, and we see the problems with simplistic “model minority” narratives.
Supportive Practices Going Forward
The Fordham study attempts to study the role that socioeconomic status and race play in educational achievement. Its conclusions regarding achievement gaps between students of different races with the same SES are highly relevant to forwarding the goal of educational equity, with some caveats. The study falls short in failing to consider the breadth of Asian students and how some, specifically Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students, may be faring. According to the study, “AAPI students of all SES categories have experienced soaring rates of Advanced achievement,” but recent data such as aforementioned 2021 American Community Survey data above illuminate the discrepancies between Asian subgroups and demonstrates that Southeast Asian students and Pacific Islanders students have historically and will most likely continue to achieve at a lower rate until their academic needs are addressed. In order to clearly understand the true scope of their academic experiences, research must first disaggregate data to allow for an accurate assessment of students’ trajectories unmarred by broad and opaque labels.
Data disaggregation can also inform supportive practices structurally within hiring practices for educators. The Fordham study recommends further recruiting and connecting students with racially diverse teachers. A 2016 study by researchers at Vanderbilt University found that Black students were “66 percent less likely to be referred to gifted programs in math and reading than their white classmates,” but in classrooms taught by Black teachers, they were “three times more likely to be assigned to gifted programs,” indicative of systemic neglect and access to opportunity whether intentional or not. Incorporating teachers of color in schooling and specifically “gifted and advanced programming has been shown to increase the enrollment of students of color in advanced courses.”
While current research directs itself primarily toward Black and Hispanic students, this raises the opportunity for similar studies to be directed toward other under-supported student groups, including Asian student subgroups, as all students could benefit from cognizant teachers aware of systemic biases and the challenges they face. Note, however, that researching the benefits of teacher/student identity matching requires disaggregated data about Asian-American students’—and teachers’—identities. Studies that fail to do this could, for instance, inadvertently inaccurately presume “matched” teacher/student identities within their Asian-American teacher and student groups. This would be akin to treating Punjabi-English bilingual teachers of Pakistani heritage as generically Asian-American and summarily testing whether their “matched” ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage benefited young, again generically-grouped, Asian-American students who speak Malay.
Overlooked student groups including Southeast Asian students’ academic needs will be difficult to address unless they are made visible through data disaggregation. Recognition in data would legitimize the academic struggles of Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students as a result of historic injustices and migrations, clarify how the academic needs of these students differ from that of the broader Asian American student group, and be a significant formal step in narrowing one of many excellence gaps faced by students within an alleged shared racial/ethnic gap.
Tags: educational equity, fordham institute, aapi students, model minority myth
Educators Need a Clearer Picture of Asian-American Diversity
Looking at the coverage of Asian-American students in mainstream media, it’s easy to see why the myth of Asians as the “model minority” persists. In story after story, Asian students across the United States are portrayed as faring well—sometimes almost too well. Consider the trope of “the Asian-American nerd,” but also the ongoing arguments that the multitude of Asian American students at elite high schools such as New York City’s Stuyvesant High School and Alexandria, Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is somehow unfair. And at the college level, coverage of the affirmative action cases brought to the U.S. Supreme Court concerning Harvard University and University of North Carolina dominated the mediasphere in 2023, bringing allegations of discrimination against Asian-American students due to their outstanding academic performance to great prominence.
The usage of the broad “Asian” label in these educational assessments and discussions, however, has led to generalizations that have for decades obscured the true academic experiences and struggles of many Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students since their initial arrivals to the United States in the mid-twentieth century. The problem here is that, if researchers don’t look beyond broad categories to measure and report on the particular challenges confronting specific subgroups, solutions to those challenges won’t be found.
How the Myth Is Perpetuated
It’s not hard to find examples of research studies that unwittingly perpetuate the model minority myth. This commentary will focus on a 2023 report from the Fordham Institute that highlights the academic performance of Asian American students, but this is just one of many instances.
The Fordham study focuses on current “excellence gaps” between student groups in eighth grade over the past two decades, sorting between race and ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) to assess trends. The study defines excellence gaps as “the disparities in advanced academic performance that exist between” students of different ethnic/racial groups. Their findings reveal a trend of growth in both Asian and Hispanic groups deemed high-achieving over the past twenty years, though the study says that beginning in the early 2010s, Asian students regardless of socioeconomic group “often equal[ed] or outperform[ed] higher-SES students of other racial and ethnic groups.”
These findings are simultaneously startling and expected—startling, because while nearly every analysis of U.S. educational performance finds opportunity and achievement gaps where white students outperform students of color, these data flip that pattern, and yet also expected, because the findings fit neatly into preconceived notions about Asian students’ academic excellence. So while Fordham’s study accurately highlights the overall successes of Asian students, its findings also reflect a common misunderstanding of Asian students’ academic outcomes—one that is born of data conventions that obscure the diversity within this group of students.
A deeper look at Asian students’ academic performance reveals more complexity, however. When studies and articles like Fordham’s analyze Asian students, they treat them as a monolith, and thus extend the group’s characteristic of academic achievement and successes to everyone in the group. In this way, much is lost in contemporary analyses of Asian students that lump them together, obscuring the realities of Asian students such as Hmong, Cambodian, and other Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students.
How researchers choose to organize and collect educational data holds major implications for public perceptions of students, educators, and policymakers—and their access to educational opportunities. Researchers should strive to closely examine the Asian-American students in a more nuanced, comprehensive way, so they can identify what may be driving some students’ successes—and recognize what may be causing others to struggle.
Potential Factors and their Importance
Education researchers and practitioners must not dismiss Asian students’ academic achievement as inherent to their race, but rather work to understand their performance and the factors that contribute to it. Their achievements can thus be observed more clearly and the lessons learned can potentially be applied to reforms to increase educational equity for other ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups.
The Fordham study hints at this notion, asking,
Are there observable practices among Asian students that could apply more broadly? For instance, are they more likely to participate in extracurricular activities, sign up for more challenging classes, or take part in academic tutoring, clubs, or competitions? Are these behaviors helping AAPI students to reach the highest level of academic achievement? If so, how could smart policies expand those opportunities to students from other communities?
These hypotheses suggest possible sources of Asian students’ academic performance, but also assume an overly broad shared experience amongst “Asian students.” A danger lies in this overarching assumption, as it ignores differences in languages, cultures, socioeconomic status, educational privileges, times of migration, and initial learning backgrounds when entering school and throughout schooling. In this way, much is lost in contemporary analyses of Asian students that lump them all together, obscuring the realities that Asian students such as Hmong, Cambodian, and other Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students experience. There are drastic cultural differences between, for example, Chinese Americans and Hmong Americans, yet the word “Asian” encompasses a wide range of people and of students in the United States, referring to everyone from third-generation Chinese students descended from the earliest tides of Asian migration to the United States to students of Southeast Asian refugees from the United States’ intervention as recently as fifty years ago. Refugees of American intervention in Southeast Asia often arrived in the United States with diminished “English proficiency, less experience with formal education, and fewer transferable skills” compared to prior waves of Asian migration, which commonly featured members of the educated elite and others with increased resources and capital.
Disparities between members of the waves of Asian migration manifest in various ways, including their educational experience and performance, and that of their children. To better compare the performance of Asian students and students of other racial groups, researchers must isolate and distinguish specific student subgroup(s) in their studies when they research the performance of Asian students. Academic differences between groups often reflect differences in the educational experiences and resources students can access.
An example of the illusion created by data aggregation can be seen in the 2021 American Community Survey, where data demonstrate how 56.4 percent of Asian Americans aged 25 or older possessed bachelor’s degrees or higher, relatively high compared with 35.0 percent of the American population overall. However, upon closer examination, the percentage of students in various Southeast Asian American groups reaching that mark ranged from 17.8 percent to 51.6 percent. Among Vietnamese, Laos, Cambodian, and Hmong students from countries impacted by the Vietnam War spurring waves of refugees, and Burmese students hailing from a country currently undergoing political and economic instability, the percentages ranged from 17.8 to 34.8 percent. These five ethnic groups represent the five Asian ethnic groups that currently demonstrate the lowest educational attainment rate by percentage of bachelor’s degrees relative to other Asian American groups. Their percentages more closely resemble those of African American, Hispanic, and Native American groups, than those of Asian Americans. Draw back the data aggregation curtain, and we see the problems with simplistic “model minority” narratives.
Supportive Practices Going Forward
The Fordham study attempts to study the role that socioeconomic status and race play in educational achievement. Its conclusions regarding achievement gaps between students of different races with the same SES are highly relevant to forwarding the goal of educational equity, with some caveats. The study falls short in failing to consider the breadth of Asian students and how some, specifically Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students, may be faring. According to the study, “AAPI students of all SES categories have experienced soaring rates of Advanced achievement,” but recent data such as aforementioned 2021 American Community Survey data above illuminate the discrepancies between Asian subgroups and demonstrates that Southeast Asian students and Pacific Islanders students have historically and will most likely continue to achieve at a lower rate until their academic needs are addressed. In order to clearly understand the true scope of their academic experiences, research must first disaggregate data to allow for an accurate assessment of students’ trajectories unmarred by broad and opaque labels.
Data disaggregation can also inform supportive practices structurally within hiring practices for educators. The Fordham study recommends further recruiting and connecting students with racially diverse teachers. A 2016 study by researchers at Vanderbilt University found that Black students were “66 percent less likely to be referred to gifted programs in math and reading than their white classmates,” but in classrooms taught by Black teachers, they were “three times more likely to be assigned to gifted programs,” indicative of systemic neglect and access to opportunity whether intentional or not. Incorporating teachers of color in schooling and specifically “gifted and advanced programming has been shown to increase the enrollment of students of color in advanced courses.”
While current research directs itself primarily toward Black and Hispanic students, this raises the opportunity for similar studies to be directed toward other under-supported student groups, including Asian student subgroups, as all students could benefit from cognizant teachers aware of systemic biases and the challenges they face. Note, however, that researching the benefits of teacher/student identity matching requires disaggregated data about Asian-American students’—and teachers’—identities. Studies that fail to do this could, for instance, inadvertently inaccurately presume “matched” teacher/student identities within their Asian-American teacher and student groups. This would be akin to treating Punjabi-English bilingual teachers of Pakistani heritage as generically Asian-American and summarily testing whether their “matched” ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage benefited young, again generically-grouped, Asian-American students who speak Malay.
Overlooked student groups including Southeast Asian students’ academic needs will be difficult to address unless they are made visible through data disaggregation. Recognition in data would legitimize the academic struggles of Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students as a result of historic injustices and migrations, clarify how the academic needs of these students differ from that of the broader Asian American student group, and be a significant formal step in narrowing one of many excellence gaps faced by students within an alleged shared racial/ethnic gap.
Tags: educational equity, fordham institute, aapi students, model minority myth