Since the mid-1960s when the model minority myth first appeared, "experts" have been using it to explain the success and achievements of Asian Americans in education.
Andrew Tan = Passed the high school equivalency test when he was nine years old; after three years of studying physics, linear algebra, and differential equations, he transferred to UC-Davis as a junior majoring in electrical engineering
Nicole Tan = Andrew's sister; intends to transfer to UC-Davis when she is ten to prepare for medical school
Sho Yano = At age nine, he became the youngest student at Loyola University in Chicago (and possibly the youngest full-time college student in the United States; his IQ is above 200 (it cannot be measured with standard tests); gifted pianist and fast reader (he has read the entire Bible three times); plans to complete college by age twelve and enter medical school by age fourteen
Additionally, in the 2000 Intel Science Talent Search (formerly known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search), three of the top ten were Asian Americans
These are just a few examples of "the new whiz kids," as Time magazine calls them. As Time stated, they have "humbled other students, impressed their teachers, fascinated researchers, and drawn tremendous media attention." Today, as Timothy Fong avers, such examples are almost mundane.
The recent phenomenon is a result of the large immigration of Asians after 1965. The extraordinary rise in Asian American enrollment in many of the country's top colleges in the early 1980�s probably had less to do with Asian Americans suddenly becoming smarter and more motivated and more with the phenomenal growth in the Asian American population during that time. According to the 1980�s census, Asian Americans were the country's fastest growing group. In fall of 1976, there were 150,000 Asian American undergraduates; ten years later, there were 448,000.
It is generally the offspring of these immigrants and refugees who are doing so well in school. Marta Tienda and Grace Kao, researchers at the University of Chicago, found that Asian, Latino, and African American children with immigrant parents outperform children with parents born in the United States. For example, the study proved that first and second-generation Asian Americans clearly had a higher achievement level (using the predictive value of admissions criteria, which is based on high school GPA, SAT verbal and math, and achievement tests) when compared to third-generation Asian Americans.
Results from the 1999 SAT showed Asian Americans scored an average of1058 on the combined verbal and mathematics sections (compared to 1055 for whites, 856 for African Americans, and 915 for Hispanic Americans). Because of this, in Alexander Astin's Minorities in Higher Education (1982) and John Ogbu's Minority Education and Caste (1978), Asian Americans were excluded from the data because they were not considered to be educationally disadvantaged like other non-white minorities.
Explanations why Asian Americans do so well in school are similar to why Asian Americans do so well socially and economically in the United States:
1. Nature = innate genetic superiority
2. Nuture = cultural advantages versus cultural disadvantages
3. Relative functionalism = combination of primarily both situational and structural forces
The most important educational issues for Asian Americans in school:
1. English as a second language
2. Parental pressure and stress on Asian American students to live up to the model minority standard
3. Racial violence and backlash against Asian Americans in school
4. Affirmative action and Racial Quotas