[blockquote]When it comes to involvement in their children’s education, Asian Americans have their own distinct style that often pays dividends when report cards arrive.
Pacific Standard The Science of Society
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[blockquote]In the latest report of scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, standardized tests administered to U.S. elementary and secondary students, finds Asian-American students have overtaken white students’ scores in reading at the high school senior level. Asian Americans had already topped white scores at the fourth-grade level in 2007 and the eighth-grade level in 2009.
Pacific Standard The Science of Society
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[blockquote]One study, for example, found that Asian-American 11th-graders studied six hours more per week than their white peers. Another found that in 2007, more than two-thirds of Asian-American high school students did homework five or more days a week, while only about 40 percent of white and Hispanic kids, and less than a third of African-American students, did so. According to other research, Asian-American kids devote less time to chores, part-time jobs and dating than other kids.
Pacific Standard The Science of Society
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[blockquote]One study, for example, found that Asian-American 11th-graders studied six hours more per week than their white peers. Another found that in 2007, more than two-thirds of Asian-American high school students did homework five or more days a week, while only about 40 percent of white and Hispanic kids, and less than a third of African-American students, did so. According to other research, Asian-American kids devote less time to chores, part-time jobs and dating than other kids.
Pacific Standard The Science of Society
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[blockquote]In these cultures, this goal of self-improvement still holds sway: While a majority of white college students surveyed by Li defined knowledge as facts, information, skill and understanding of the world, 79 percent of the Chinese college students defined it as “a way to self-perfection” and “spiritual enrichment.”
Transmitted down through the generations, this “moral mandate” for self-improvement “has tremendous motivational impact,” the Brown psychologist says.
Pacific Standard The Science of Society
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[blockquote]Even low-income Asian-American families provide a great deal of indirect, out-of-school support, Li found when she studied 32 Massachusetts ninth-graders whose Chinese immigrant parents worked as cooks, custodians, shelf stockers and nursing home aides.
While few of these parents checked their children’s homework or attended school meetings, they networked with co-workers and other parents, and relied on an older sibling or another relative for tutoring and academic advice. The parents also talked up role models, which Li found gave their kids a sense of confidence rather than creating jealousy or competitiveness. The students’ GPAs averaged 3.27.
Pacific Standard The Science of Society
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Photo Credit: ML_Duong via Compfight cc
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