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Psychology Review
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Educational Psychology Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1992
Although Asian Americans today are lauded as a "model minority" and Asian
students are praised as "whiz kids, " racial prejudice toward Asians is as true
today as it was in the past. American stereotypes of Asians appear characterized
by persistent perceptual homogeneity and attitude-behavior inconsistencies.
This review aims to: (a) display and analyze the basic stereotype toward Asians,
(b) hypothesize an explanation for the basic Asian stereotype, (c) examine the
Asian student stereotype by analyzing three factors commonly used to account
for the achievement of Asian students, and (d) provide suggestions for research.
Arguments for Asians' inherited advantages in IQ and cognitive abilities appear
to be questionable. However, the factor of family encouragement and support
as well as the work ethic and drive for education factor are found to be ad
vantageous and disadvantageous to achievement, depending on how they are
applied. The article discusses homogeneity-heterogeneity of perceptions, atti
tude-behavior consistency, achievement motivation, parent-child social inter
action, mental health, and counseling needs relative to Asian students.
KEY WORDS: achievement motivation; Asian Americans; Asian students; attitudes; stereo
types.
INTRODUCTION
95
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96 Yee
house awardees by the article, "What Puts the Whiz in Whiz Kids?"
David P. Gardner, who chaired the National Commission on Excellence
in Education that produced A Nation at Risk (President's Commission,
1983) believes that Asian diligence in studies and rigid school standards
show how America's educational problems can be overcome (Gardner,
1987). As an example, the Air Force Academy valedictorian in 1987, Ho
ang Nhu Tran, is at Harvard Medical School after attending Oxford as
a Rhodes scholar. Hoang's fame comes from his sterling achievement as
a student since coming to the U.S. as a Vietnamese refugee who could
hardly speak English.
This review will show that perceptions of Asian students are stereo
typic and that they are part and parcel of a general or basic Asian stereo
type. The review (a) explicates the Asian stereotype with illustrations from
education and other sources, (b) hypothesizes an explanation for the basic
stereotype that could account for most of the common variance in percep
tions of Asians, (c) analyzes the Asian student stereotype as a specific mani
festation of the basic Asian stereotype, and (d) suggests research for
educational psychologists and others.
Model Minority
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Asian Students 97
Whatever their b
lion Americans s
respect for the l
cellence in educa
Kasindorf (198
to " . . . thrift
rosanct value
devoted to AA
able—and cert
is their excep
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the traditiona
Pacific Islande
highest of al
whites at 9.2%
lation, Hawaii
mony (Hewitt
Descendants o
as a model mi
all Japanese B
the national n
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tigious, 16 per
ics professor
far more mot
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affairs. Peru's
similation and
Successful des
ment and fou
found in Peru and other Latin American nations.
Ethnic studies of AAs (Daniels, 1989; Nee and Nee, 1973; Sue and
Kitano, 1973; Takaki, 1989) suggest a flip-flop, bad-good stereotypic nature
to perceptions (i.e., stereotypes of Asians turn positive or negative on key
attitudinal elements). This flip-flopping characteristic reflects perceptions
that Asians are homogeneous (i.e, "they're all the same") and that Asians
are of one extreme or the other (either positive or negative). For AAs,
this perceptual homogeneity and confusing flip-flop signals of others affect
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98 Yee
their identity and self-worth, (i.e., their being ingroup at times vs. their
being outgroup at other times creates frustrations over who they are and
what they represent [Tajfel, 1970; Wilder, 1985]). Inconsistency between
attitude and behavior regarding Asians was found in the famous study by
LaPiere (1934) that Atkinson et al. (1990, p. 706) called a classic. In that
study, a white professor and a young Chinese couple stopped and were
served at over 200 cafes, hotels, and motels as they traveled 10,000 miles
across the U.S. They were refused service on only one occasion. When the
same establishments were sent letters later asking if they would accept a
Chinese couple as guests, 92% of the 128 replies were negative.
Today's model minority and whiz kid stereotypes contrast sharply with
racism that began before the Chinese reached the U.S. in the mid-nine
teenth century. The flip-flopping (e.g., positive-negative valence), homoge
neity (i.e., perceiving all as one and the same), and attitude-behavior
contradictions (as in LaPiere, 1934) are reminiscent of observations by
Isaacs (1962, pp. 70-71) who wrote: "American images of the Chinese are
seen as a superior people and an inferior people: devilishly exasperating
heathens and wonderful humanists; wise sages and sadistic execution
ers .. . ." AA playwright, David H. Hwang (M. Butterfly) interprets the
racial dualism (Horn, 1988, p. 52) as:
. . . the Western view of the Asian is remarkably like sexist stereotypes of the
female: She is a lady—but also a dragon. And the racist attacks that Asians en
dure . . . likewise parallel the harassment of women: Such attacks are designed to
reduce women to sex objects . . . "and to make me feel like a pair of slanted eyes."
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Asian Students 99
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100 Yee
dence in America the Chinese suffered one of the most outrageous attacks
on a people that has ever been perpetrated. Designed to end Chinese com
petition by barring immigration, and extended later to include other Asians,
the exclusion laws were overthrown by the U.S. Supreme Court or by leg
islation decades later; but the human damage the laws brought can never
be overcome. However, open-minded individuals countered the public
mood by defending the Chinese and by attacking discrimination on the
basis of a people's ability and willingness to work effectively. As Mark
Twain (Clemens, 1880, p. 391) wrote:
Of course there was a large Chinese population ... it is the case with every town
and city on the Pacific coast. They are a harmless race when white men either let
them alone or treat them no worse than dogs; in fact, they are almost entirely
harmless anyhow, for they seldom think of resenting the vilest insults or the cruelest
injuries. They are quiet, peaceable, tractable, free from drunkenness, and they are
as industrious as the day is long. A disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one
does not exist. So long as a Chinaman has strength to use his hand he needs no
support from anybody; white men often complain of want of work, but a Chinaman
offers no such complaint; he always manages to find something to do. He is a great
convenience to everybody—even to the worst class of white men, for he bears the
most of their sins, suffering fines for their petty thefts, imprisonment for their rob
beries, and death for their murders. Any white man can swear a Chinaman's life
away in the courts, but no Chinaman can testify against a white man.
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Asian Students 101
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102 Yee
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Asian Students 103
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104 Yee
tiplexity, and are resistant to change (i.e., are not conducive to education
and assimilation). Attitudes that prejudiciously treat (censor) Asians as ho
mogeneous, foreign, different, and hardworking could create stereotypes
with alternating positive and negative contrasts. I see gyrating polarization
affecting AAs that occur with shifts in U.S. sociopolitical and economic
developments (e.g., recession) and in U.S. relations with and developments
in Asian societies (e.g., Tiananmen massacre and Japan's Gulf War role).
Research by Lee and Ottati (in press) on Sino-American stereotypes found
that perceptions of homogeneity vs. heterogeneity in target groups, such
as Asians, are "evaluatively consistent with their overall attitude . . . .The
overall picture to emerge from this study is one that stresses the multifaced
nature of stereotypic inferences" (p. 27). Lee and Ottati's work, therefore,
refutes the notion (e.g., Brigham, 1971) that stereotypes are simple, unob
trusive phenomena.
Turning these speculations back to the preceding review of how
Asians have been stereotyped, I sense that American attitudes toward
Asians are heavily loaded with assessments of them as aliens and competi
tors. Asians have been treated as and have, in response, perceived them
selves as distinct from the assimilative, "melting pot" immigrants from
Europe. In work and other competitive arenas, reactions to outsiders are
typically adversarial, which racial and ethnic prejudice can prolong. AA
history shows that prejudice toward Asians has become hardened and per
petuated through stereotyping which can be related to fears of them as
foreign rivals. This view relates well with research on the "Marginal Man"
caught between cultures (Krech et al., 1962, pp. 498-500) and on AA eco
nomic coping behavior (Nee and Sanders, 1985). Therefore, it is hypothesized
that American attitudes toward Asians carry strong evaluations of Asians as
alien competitors, perhaps of two forms—exemplary and pernicious. In the
latter form, the actors' self-worth and self-gain, whether in manufacturing
autos or in education, are seen to be threatened by outsiders who show
signs of surpassing them and usurping their well-being or access to such.
In the former, the actors probably do not feel threatened by Asians as
competitors. This would explain why the media and public leaders will
praise AA students on merit, whereas many non-Asian students and their
parents probably act differently. One example is the Central Pacific execu
tives who valued the Chinese rail workers and the Union Pacific workers
who disdained competition with the Asians. Another is the very positive
attitudes of American workers at Japanese auto plants in Kentucky as com
pared to the anti-Japanese attitudes of workers and executives at U.S.
owned plants in Michigan. I postulate that this working hypothesis identifies
the chief feature of the basic Asian stereotype and serves to explain and
perhaps predict how it works.
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Asian Students 105
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106 Yee
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Asian Students 107
Table I. Compar
Verbal Quantitative
M SD M SD
GRE
Asian Americans 483 125 596 129
(N = 2715)
Whites 514 110 542 125
(N = 117,686)
SAT
Asian Americans 398 130 519 127
Whites 445 103 487 114
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108 Yee
reasoning in Chinese and English were nearly identical, the verbal mean
was 68.7 in English and 85.85 in Chinese. Support is also gained from analy
ses by the National Center for Education Statistics showing that although
the verbal ability of AAs with 5 or fewer years in the U.S. was low, AAs
with 6 or more years of residency had higher verbal and math scores than
whites (Hsia, 1988, p. 62).
Inherited IQ Advantages. Does superior intelligence explain the
Asian difference in quantitative reasoning? Are Asians as a "race" endowed
with IQ advantages? Lynn (1982) of Ulster University and his associates
(e.g., Lynn and Hampson, 1986) have claimed that the mean IQ score of
Asians is superior to whites. Lynn's references show that his view is not
new. Though differences did not exceed 1 SD, Lynn and Dziobon (1980)
suggested their results significantly showed:
the apparent robustness of the intelligence of the Japanese and Chinese across a
wide range of cultures. Whether they come from California or mainland Japan,
from Singapore, Hong Kong or the Hawaiian islands, samples of these populations
invariably obtain mean IQs either at or above the Caucasian mean (p. 96).
Some ridiculed Lynn when inspection of his work revealed that his con
clusions were based on nonstatistically significant differences, inconsisten
cies with translated tests, and so forth (Flynn, 1987; Sue and Okasaki,
1991).
Rushton (1991) rekindled the controversy at the 1989 annual meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science with a paper
on the IQ superiority of Asians. Though his views have been widely criti
cized (e.g., Mealey, 1990), Rushton claims that Asians comprise the "most
intelligent race, with whites next and blacks last" (Wheeler, 1989). Rushton
argues that superiority in IQ arises from Asians: (a) having evolved more
recently than whites, (b) being more sexually restrained than other races,
(c) being slower to mature physically, (d) having a more "quiescent tem
perament" and being more law-abiding than others, and (e) having a more
advanced evolutionary strategy because Asians lived farther north.
The fundamental case for or against the assessment of multifaceted
behavior by racial groups pivots on the question of race as a valid construct
and scientific perspective. Unfortunately, psychological societies have
dodged this issue. Steps, however, are underway to overcome this problem
by establishing a profession-wide policy standard on race (Yee, 1991).
Treating this crucial point superficially in their rush to assess
Asian/black/white differences, race adherents in psychology are highly vul
nerable to criticism, such as by Fairchild (1991) and Weizmann et al. (1990).
More than 50 years ago, Anastasi (1937) discussed the dangers of over
generalizing test results. She used examples of studies which purported the
IQ superiority of Japanese children over whites. Such thinking falsely im
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Asian Students 109
plies, she wrote, "that one group is consistently poorer than another in
mental traits, or that certain behavioral processes are universally more
nificant, more valuable, or even more 'mental' than others" (p. 508).
Arguing against the genetic hypothesis regarding black/white IQ d
ferences, geneticists Bodmer and Cavalli-Sforza (1970) stated that minim
ing environmental effects was not justified and that many of the argument
for racial differences contradicted and exceeded genetic knowledge. A
leading advocate for the hypothesis, Jensen (1973) dismissed social dis
vantage as an explanation for the lesser achievement of blacks by argui
that the Chinese, Japanese, and Jews achieved at high rates despite bi
and social disadvantages. In fact, Jensen argued strongly that Asians poss
genetic IQ advantages. He wrote: "It is also interesting that Orientals (Ch
nese-Americans) who, as school age children, equal or exceed the white
population in the most heavily g loaded intelligence tests and in the mo
abstract scholastic subjects, ..." (p. 289). I believe that Jensen's (196
views would have been more helpful to educational psychology if he h
been more circumspect regarding demographics and nature/nurture int
actions. When discussing black/white differences, he did not include Asi
comparisons which would have helped to minimize polarization, at least
readers of his work. However, I should emphasize that Jensen has stat
his views in more probabilistic terms than have either Lynn or Rushton
Reviewing the 1970s dispute over racial effects on IQ, Yee (198
found that definitive research in genetics proves "that gene differences
tween individuals i/ifra-racially are far greater than gene differences b
tween races" (p. 16), and that while we can say "genetic differences
mental functions between individuals of the same and different groups exist
we have no biological evidence to support the notion of such differenc
between groups ..." (p. 18). Reviewing studies on a variety of variables,
such as temperament and personality disorders, Zuckerman (1990) c
cluded that the "scientific premises for looking for statistical differenc
between groups designated as races (on somewhat arbitrary grounds) a
questionable" (p. 1297). Extensive research by Stevenson and Lee (19
p. 4) found "no evidence that Chinese and Japanese children are mo
intelligent than American children."
The myth of race, as indisputedly evidenced by genetics for many d
ades (Yee, 1983, 1991), serves stereotyping when used to account for th
achievement of Asians. Since many confuse race with other issues, whic
in itself reflects how powerful the race schema is in the U.S. (Horn, 198
this author should say that he does not dispute nature/nurture concern
Human behavior varies in complex interactions between biological and
vironmental factors. Inasmuch as geneticists say that race is a pseudo-
entific concept, its application to IQ differences and to explain human
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110 Yee
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Asian Students 111
half of the SAT. A score of 700 (out of 800 maximum) would be 1.6 SD
above the average male 12th-grader taking the same test. These childr
would have exceeded the scores of at least 94% of the high-school seni
and would have gone very far beyond math expectations for sixth-grade
Stanley estimates (personal communication, 1987) that no more than abo
1 in 10,000 12-year-olds can score 700+ on the SAT-M.
Moore and Stanley (1988) reported that they had identified 292 suc
700+ children across the U.S. Of those 292, 68 were AA, which is high
disproportionate to the AA share of the nation's population, i.e., 23%
about an expected 2-3%. The 68 include, with rounded percent figures,
Chinese (62%), 14 Koreans (20%), eight Asian Indians (12%), two Ja
nese (3%), and two Filipinos (3%). With about 1 million or 0.42% of the
U.S. population of 240 million, the number of Chinese 700+s is remark
able. Instead of the 42 found, there should have been fewer than two, which
in probability terms by chi-square is possible by chance about 1 time
200,000. Therefore, besides the question of why AAs are so overrep
sented among the 700+s SAT-M group, one must wonder why the Chine
were found to excel at such a high rate. One possible explanation is th
the research included unexplained sampling bias. That most of the Chin
700+ students were immigrants also suggests sociocultural influence, wh
will be dealt with in the next section.
It is this writer's observation that the Chinese value and stress indi
vidual cultural attainment instead of standing on innate qualities, such as
race. In fact, they tend to deprecate their shortcomings and successes (e.g.,
Bo, 1985). Asians take special interest in math acuity as a mark of intelli
gence and are well-schooled in math. Numbers also play a large symbolic
role in their language and customs. Miura and Kim (1987) claim that Asian
languages facilitate math achievement by their direct use of Base 10 and
other numerical concepts. For example, compared to "fifteen" in English,
Asians use "ten-five," and "one hundred ten thousand" for "one million"
with one-syllable words for 10, 5, 100, and 10,000.
The genetic deficit hypothesis has detoured many educational psy
chologists and others into dead ends, which this review is intended to help
correct. As Sue and Okazaki (1991) replied to Lynn (1991), problems are
"inherent in drawing conclusions concerning genetic-racial differences in
intelligence" and include "controversies regarding the nature of intelli
gence, the meaning of IQ tests, equivalence of cognitive measures across
different cultures, comparable and representative samples of the various
racial groups, [and] definition of 'race' ..." (p. 879). In light of the nu
merous related problems involved, those who assert that Asian students
excel because of greater IQ and cognitive abilities must consider sociocul
tural factors. In sum, I do not find much justification to support the notion
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112 Yee
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Asian Students 113
on math concepts, and required greater pupil attention span and applica
tion to studies.
Asian parental concern has been related to traditional values that em
phasize educational attainment and that place the young in subservient,
respectful posture to parents and teachers (Gibson, 1987; Lin, 1984). Ac
cording to Liu (1986,1991), the traditional rules that Chinese children have
learned are: (a) obey superiors, (b) memorize lessons, and (c) practice
skills. Such acculturation clearly enhances serious application to learning
and receptivity to instruction. Interestingly, much of the research, such as
that by Stevenson and his associates (1985, 1986, 1990), has made use of
Chinese Ss in China and Taiwan, where family and school relations remain
fairly traditional.
A Telling Exception
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114 Yec
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Asian Students 115
Do Asians Exert Greater Work Ethic and Drive for Educational Status?
Reischauer also observed that the Japanese are "often quite unrealisticall
ambitious" and remarked that this drive to achieve and succeed has broug
the Japanese Americans, despite discrimination, language, and other cu
tural handicaps, "within two or three generations ... to levels of educa
tion, income, and status that are at or near the top of all ethnic group
including WASPs and Jews" (p. 155). On the other hand, as hypothesize
earlier, the achievement motivation of Asians has been viewed negativel
by others, particularly by working-class peoples (Fredrickson, 1981; Rena
1986); that is, AAs are seen to be tough competitors who make it hard
for others. Greene (1987) and Takaki (1989, p. 479) reported negative at
titudes against Asians as "grade-busters" and curve-raising "nerds" to b
common on U.S. campuses.
Today as well as in the 19th century, Westerners misperceive the cu
tural work ethic of Asians. They judge the efforts of Asians to provide f
their families and to be loyal to employers through their own societie
perspectives. Unlike the West, most Asians have not enjoyed nor sough
social welfare; until recent times, Asian governments cared little about their
people's social condition (Yee, 1989a). Also, mandatory retirement come
early in Asia (e.g., at 55 in Japan) which induces employees to earn and
save while they can. Visitors can see that workers in modern Japan, Si
gapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong operate with work-driven
ferocity seldom seen outside of Asia. A Psychology Today survey on str
found that "Hong Kong is gaining a reputation among psychiatrists as o
of the most stressful places in the world, exceeded only by cities at w
like Beirut" (James, 1988, p. 1). A world study of 52 cities in 1988 by th
Union Bank of Switzerland (Chan, 1988) found that Asians work the lo
est per day and annually. Working an average 9.16 hours per day and 26
hours per year, Hong Kong's workers topped the list. Tokyo's average hou
worked a year were 2103 as compared to New York's 1867. According t
the Education Commission of the States, the school year in the U.S. is 18
days per year as compared to 243 days in Japan (Allis, 1991).
Japan, however, is becoming more conscious of the mental and phys
cal health problems of unrelenting stress and work. Karoshi or "death fro
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116 Yee
overwork" is under study by the Japanese Labour Ministry. Sony and other
corporations are mandating that workers take vacations instead of skipping
them. Karoshi hotlines field hundreds of calls daily, many from widows of
deceased workers (New York Times News Service, 1990b). Facts such as
these illustrate what work means in Asian societies; Asians generally work
harder but work for fewer years than most Americans because of differ
ences in social norms. Yet despite Karoshi, the Japanese enjoy the world's
highest life expectancy rates with men averaging 74 years and women 83
years.
Harrell (1985) concluded that the work habits of the Chinese people
arise from a cultural ethic. Examining conditions when the Chinese will
and will not work, Harrell wrote: "Chinese will work hard when they see
possible long-term benefits, in terms of improved material conditions
and/or security, for a group with which they identify" (p. 217). Advance
ment through education surely fits Harrell's conditions.
Applying the Work Ethic to Education and Learners. Americans tend
to believe that math is esoteric and that one's innate or natural ability in
math is crucial to performance (Stevenson and Lee, 1990), If one dislikes
or does not do well in math or other studies, the rationalization is that
one is untalented in it. Reflecting socialization that promotes individualistic
and permissive attitudes, Americans typically sympathize with children's
poor showing. For Asians originating from Confucian societies, however,
excuses are not tolerated by traditions which hold effort, discipline, and
concentration in education to be the keys to success.
In separate, exhaustive reviews of empirical studies of achievement
motivation in Chinese subjects, often including American and other over
seas Chinese, Ho (1986) and Yang (1986) found a strong "collectivist ori
entation" (concern for the welfare of others) rooted in the drive of Chinese
to excel. In other words, the Chinese are socialized to feel that the success
of significant others depends on their achievement. Studies with personality
inventories, such as Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) and the
California Psychological Inventory (CPI) found that Chinese Ss in America,
Southeast Asia, and Taiwan were highly similar.
Stevenson et al. (1986) found that the motivation attitudes of the
Japanese fall between the polar extremes of natural ability (American) and
diligent effort (Chinese), through a perceived balance of both. On the other
hand, what Matute-Bianchi (1986, p. 247) found with Japanese American
(JA) high schoolers differs from Stevenson et al.'s elementary pupils in Ja
pan. Her findings place the JAs at the extreme effort pole along with the
Chinese: "Belief in diligence, persistence, and hard work—as opposed to
inherent ability—as the keys to academic success is the single most com
monly shared perception among the Japanese."
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Asian Students 117
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118 Yee
effort. Matute-Bianchi (1986, p. 246) made this clear in a study that con
trasted Japanese and Mexican students and families in rural California. Ac
cording to her results, Japanese American students receive more support
from their extended families. She said successful Japanese and Mexican
students differed most in the former having "more detailed and intimate
knowledge of adult occupations and opportunities . . . [and] detailed
knowledge of the high school curriculum and its link to [higher education]."
In traditional Confucian society, learning and achievement as merited
by civil service exam success were the highest personal hallmarks. Such an
cient values related to modern Asian meritocracy beliefs and to the social
psychological complex Yee (1989a) has defined as the Chinese
stepping-stone syndrome which involves, in part, a powerful drive for ad
vancement and status through education. With little equivalency in the
West, these values toward educational achievement and status transcend
socioeconomic status. As Reischauer (1977, p. 167) put it: "Formal educa
tion and examinations have taken the place of class and birth in determin
ing which organizations and career patterns one qualifies for—in other
words, one's function and status in Japan's modern meritocracy."
Asian academic achievement matches what the Coleman report
(1966) found to be the most vital factors in determining academic achieve
ment, even more crucial than social class: the student's sense of self-di
rected competence and the conviction that one is in command of his or
her fate. Analyses of the Coleman achievement scores of 1324 AA 12th
graders (Boardman et al., 1978) found that the better achieving AA seniors:
(a) believed that they were able to determine their own destiny, (b) enrolled
in a college preparatory program, (c) viewed the process and opportunities
of education in a mature, logical way that took into account academic self
concept based on past performance, teachers' evaluations of their potential,
and parental expectations and attitudes, and (d) were taught by inexperi
enced female teachers with high verbal aptitude. Should the data had in
cluded it, one could have expected AA seniors' causal attributions (Weiner,
1985) in regard to education to have been internal, stable, and controllable,
most likely to further success as well as overachievement.
Mental Health and Other Costs. As Asian students apply dedicated
drive to studies, what are the consequences of such painstaking effort be
sides achievement? What is known about adverse effects? Sue and Mor
ishima (1982) found that AA university students face many more academic
and socio-emotional problems than do non-Asian students. They argued
that the problems of AA students outweigh the successes of those who do
advance. Sue and Zane (1985) found significant differences between Chi
nese UCLA students who were either (a) recent immigrants, (b) born in
America, or (c) were immigrants in the U.S. for 6 or more years. These
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Asian Students 119
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120 Yee
Asian students is borne out by the records of the Asian Community Health
Services in Oakland, California which provides clinical and counseling serv
ices to a large AA population. According to Chen (1987) and Ng (1991b),
depression and suicide are far greater problems for AAs in general and
Asian students in particular than for non-Asians. Others have found that
Hong Kong students have serious emotional problems due to achievement
and adjustment pressures (Mickle and Chan, 1986; Singer, 1985).
Examining how the factors of parental concern and work ethic inter
relate and function for Asian students, one begins to realize that the Asian
student stereotype ignores an undetermined but real degree of negative
effects. In a study of overachieving students in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan,
Taiwan, and Singapore, Lin (1984) defined a sociocultural process that he
termed the narrow gate syndrome. According to Lin, the syndrome operates
as follows: Constantly pressing their children to excel academically, Chinese
parents sacrifice whatever is necessary to further their children's educa
tional opportunities and to infuse the young with the drive to excel, which
is typically overly ambitious and unrealistic. Teachers also play a strong
role in children's intense competition during entrance examinations.
Lin further asserts that the syndrome produces mindless, rote learning
rather than problem-solving, creativity, or original thinking. The syndrome,
therefore, epitomizes how a worthy sociocultural factor, such as work ethic,
can be overdone with possible mind-stifling side effects. Gow et al. (1989)
also showed how overloaded-curriculum demands and anxiety produce
counterproductive results among higher education students in Hong Kong.
Despite the criticism given its educational system, America provides abun
dant avenues for advancement, and rewards dedicated students. For immi
grants, and for those who are native-born of Asian descent, the educational
system in America reinforces their traditional approach to learning and
school achievement. Distinguishing between "voluntary" and "involuntary
immigrant" differences, Ogbu (1987, 1990a,b) accords motivating factors
to the former and defensiveness and hinderance to the latter. Immigrants
voluntarily coming to a new society, such as Asians and Jews coming to
America, would be adaptive minorities; whereas those who were introduced
into a society through slavery or other involuntary force, such as through
imperialism and warfare, differ greatly in cultural adaptation. "Cultural in
version" (i.e., resistance to dominant cultural behaviors, symbols, etc.)
strongly influences the involuntary-type minorities. In this light, the excep
tion of Hong Kong to the positive stereotype of Asian students becomes
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Asian Students 121
clearer when one recalls HK's Opium War annexation and 150-year colo
nial heritage which will end in 1997 when HK is returned to China (Yee,
1989a).
Ogbu (1990b) and Gibson (1987) made it clear that parents play the
leading role in developing their children's attitudes toward education and
achievement. With voluntary immigrants from China, for example, family
attitudes lean heavily toward educational achievement and cultural adapt
ability. Cultural parallels help explain differences between the academic
achievement rates of America's many voluntary immigrant groups. As vol
untary immigrants, Chinese and Japanese, as well as Jews, find that their
cultural emphases upon and trust in education as a key mechanism for
advancement are highly compatible with American cultural values. They
also find an educational system that satisfies individual goals and needs,
such as overcoming language deficiencies. Reinforced by cultural parallels,
the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans (as voluntary immigrants) find an edu
cational system that rewards dedicated effort. Educational psychologists
with interest in the social psychology of education might take note.
It is interesting to observe Hong Kong Chinese who harbor resent
ment toward English as the language of their colonial masters, yet com
pletely reverse their attitude once they immigrate to Canada or the U.S.A.
Perhaps it is the difference between British English in the colony and Ca
nadian or American English in their new home. Whereas American tradi
tions reward competitive sports, Asian traditions stress academic
achievement. I also believe that AAs continue to display adaptive behaviors
because they, unlike other voluntary immigrants, remain "racially" visible
and are often perceived by others, themselves, and family members as such
(i.e., perennial immigrants). This would, of course, reinforce family and
community social support through identity cohesiveness.
Although Asian students typically express strong, family-reinforced
work ethic and drive, the Asian student stereotype does not consider other
consequences: socio-emotional stress and mental health problems, counter
productive effects on learning and intellectual values, and rote learning
styles. The excessive expectations of Asian parents, as discussed, often place
unreasonable demands on youth. This is especially hard on youth from
lower-class families where parents cannot provide assistance with studies
but will punish their children when they do not excel. It is common knowl
edge among Asians that their parents will chastise and, in many cases, pun
ish children for one "B" in an otherwise straight "A" record. In Hong Kong,
university students told me of their intense test phobia that came from
beatings their parents gave them as youngsters for getting less than top
scores.
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122 Yee
CONCLUSIONS
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Asian Students 123
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124 Yee
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Asian Students 125
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126 Yee
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