A Ridiculous Study on Asian American “Advantage”

From the New York Moments:

In “The Asian American Achievement Paradox,” which I wrote with Min Zhou and is dependent on 162 interviews of Asian, Hispanic, Black and white grownups in Los Angeles, we uncovered that Asian American precollege learners gain from “stereotype assure”: Teachers assume they are good, tough-doing the job, significant-achieving and morally deserving, which can improve the grades of academically mediocre Asian American college students.

Let us stop appropriate there. The coauthors attempt to make clear the ordinary academic accomplishment of “Asian People in america,” a classification that includes dozens of ethnic/countrywide subgroups that have varying common levels of instructional good results (which include some that are underneath ordinary), who live all about the United States, based mostly on *162 interviews* with grown ups of numerous “racial” teams in just one city, Los Angeles.

The e-book received a variety of awards. Go figure.

UPDATE: Probably the e book is much extra nuanced? But in any function, to give you some concept about the extent to which Asian American subgroups vary in instructional results, let us choose a glimpse at undergraduate matriculants to UC Berkeley, which breaks the classification down by subgroup.

California is about 1.5% Indian American. 12.7% of Berkeley’s class is “South Asian,” mostly Indian.

California is about 3.5% Chinese American. 15.3% of Berkeley’s class is Chinese.

California is about 2.5% Vietnamese American. 3.9% of Berkeley’s class is Vietnamese.

California is about 3.2% Filipino American. 3.8% of Berkeley’s class is Filipino.

California is about 1.2% Korean American. 4.6% of Berkeley’s course is Korean.

California is about .7% Japanese American. 1.4% of Berkeley’s class is Japanese.

California is about .8% Pacific Islander. Pacific Islanders are typically lumped collectively into an AAPI group, and assumedly would advantage from at the very least some of the good stereotypes that Asian Americans get. Berkeley’s course is 1/10 of 1% Pacific Islander.

As you can see, even though the bigger Asian American subgroups in California nearly all do much better than average, the stereotype of extraordinary Asian American educational achievements, at least in California, is pushed generally by Indians, Chinese, and Koreans who are “overrepresented” by about 8, 4.5, and 4 periods their populations, respectively.