Yellow and Brown: Emerging Asian American Immigrant Populations and Residential Segregation

This study is an examination of how the ethnic enclaves of Hmong and Vietnamese Americans in California exist as social structures through which patterns of relationships shape postsecondary aspirations and outcomes. Results indicate that Hmong and Vietnamese students faced a number of challenges related to language, linguistic discrimination, poverty, and cultural clashes within and between family and school. Many of the students in this study were forced to use home and school as a dual frame of reference to negotiate expectations at home and at school. The results suggest that the impact of racial and ethnic segregation needs to be examined in the context of language, culture, immigration status, and socioeconomic situations that vary for different subpopulations among Asian Americans.     

Parental influences on the high school students' academic achievement: A comparison of Asian immigrants,Asian Americans,and White Americans

This study investigates the differences in parental influence on academic achievement of Asian immigrants, Asian Americans, and White Americans. The sample consisted of a nationally representative sample of 10th grade students obtained from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 88, first follow-up, sponsored by the National Center for Educational Statistics. Results indicate that both Asian immigrants and Asian Americans spent significantly more time on homework and perceived higher parental educational expectation than did White American students. White American students, on the other hand, reported more parental involvement in school activities. A negative relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement was found for the Asian immigrant and Asian American students. Implications of the findings on academic achievement are discussed based on cultural perspectives. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Academic Expectations of Australian Students from Aboriginal,Asian and Anglo Backgrounds: Perspectives of Teachers,Trainee-teachers and Students

There are ethnic group differences in academic achievement among Australian students, with Aboriginal students performing substantially below and Asian students above their peers. One factor that may contribute to these effects is societal stereotypes of Australian Asian and Aboriginal students, which may bias teachers’ evaluations and influence student outcomes. A questionnaire assessing academic expectancies for hypothetical students from different ethnic groups was administered to 55 experienced teachers and 144 training teachers. A measure of self-expectancies and group expectancies was administered to 516 school students. The findings revealed that Asian students were expected to perform better in mathematics and expend greater effort than Aboriginal and Anglo-Australian students. In turn, there were higher expectancies for mathematics performance for Anglo-Australian students compared with Aboriginal students. We discuss the potential implications of these stereotypes for students’ school achievement, particularly the risk that negative implicit stereotypes might result in these students being directed to special education.     

Homework and students' achievement in math and science: A 30-year meta-analysis, 1986–2015

In the current investigation, research conducted since 1986 were synthesized to examine the homework – achievement relationship in math/science, and to examine a range of factors that could have moderated this relationship. Our investigation revealed that there was an overall small and positive relationship between homework and academic achievement in math/science. Our investigation further revealed that the homework – achievement relationship in math/science was stronger for elementary and high school students than for middle school students. In addition, the homework – achievement relationship in math/science was shown to be the strongest in the studies involving US students, whereas it was the weakest in the studies involving Asian students. We discussed possible explanations for these and other findings, and the implications for future research directions.     

The Relationship Between IQ,Homework, Aspirations and Academic Achievement for Chinese,Vietnamese and Anglo-Celtic Australian School Children

Flynn (1991) proposed that students from Asian cultural backgrounds typically achieve at higher levels than non-Asian students with the same IQs. This study investigated relationships between IQ, study time, educational and occupational aspirations, and academic achievement among Australian school children ( n = 160) from Chinese, Vietnamese and Anglo-Celtic backgrounds. Mathematics grades for Chinese and Vietnamese Australian children were higher. They spent more time studying and were more likely to desire an occupation requiring tertiary qualifications than Anglo-Celtic Australian peers. Consistent with Flynn's hypothesis, students from Asian backgrounds obtained higher mathematics grades than their Anglo-Celtic Australian peers with the same IQ. However, study and occupational aspirations formed only part of a more complex socio-cultural package that contributed to group achievement differences. Parents' support for studying and aspirations may interact with these factors to produce high achievement.     

A Longitudinal Study of School Belonging and Academic Motivation Across High School

This longitudinal study examined how school belonging changes over the years of high school, and how it is associated with academic achievement and motivation. Students from Latin American, Asian, and European backgrounds participated (N = 572; age span = 13.94–19.15 years). In ninth grade, girls' school belonging was higher than boys'. Over the course of high school, however, girls' school belonging declined, whereas boys' remained stable. Within‐person longitudinal analyses indicated that years in which students had higher school belonging were also years in which they felt that school was more enjoyable and more useful, above and beyond their actual level of achievement. Results highlight the importance of belonging for maintaining students' academic engagement during the teenage years.     

School desegregation in Hong Kong: non-Chinese linguistic minority students' challenges to learning Chinese in mainstream schools

The enactment of the revised School Places Allocation Systems at the compulsory stage in 2004 had the aim of desegregating Hong Kong's non-Chinese linguistic minority (NCLM) students by including them into ethnic Chinese-dominated mainstream primary and secondary schools. Because of the presumed cause-consequence relationship between “desegregated” school participation and academic achievement, in specific second language Chinese (CSL) acquisition, the challenges that such students face in participating in mainstream education and learning Chinese, no doubt, deserve to be examined. This qualitative study conducted in-depth interviews with 18 secondary students of South Asian/Southeast Asian minority backgrounds enrolled in mainstream schools. Drawing on both cultural and institutional paradigms of explanation for educational achievement, we argue that the reasons inhibiting the minority students' academic involvement are not simply their linguistic challenges but also the institutional constraints in the mainstream education system unique to this population. This study calls for a shift in school desegregation arrangement from one focusing narrowly on physical desegregation to a more comprehensive set of policies that embrace the institutional factors including teacher expectation, resource availability, and bilingual support, crucial to reduce racial differences in achievement.     

A Cross-grade Comparison to Examine the Context Effect on the Relationships Among Family Resources,School Climate,Learning Participation,Science Attitude,and Science Achievement Based on TIMSS 2003 in Taiwan

This study aimed to examine whether the relationships among family resources, school climate, learning participation, science attitude, and science achievement are different between primary school students and junior high school students within one educational system. The subjects included 4,181 Grade 4 students and 5,074 Grade 8 students who participated in TIMSS 2003 in Taiwan. Using structural equation modeling, the results showed that family resources had significant positive effects for both groups of learners. Furthermore, a context effect for the structural relationship between school climate, learning participation, and science achievement was revealed. In the primary school context, Grade 4 students who perceived positive school climate participated in school activities more actively, and had better science performance. However, in the secondary school context, learning participation had a negative impact and led to lower science achievement. The implications about this result in relation to the characteristics of the two educational contexts in Taiwan were further discussed.     

Relationship Between Educational Resources and School Achievement: A Mixed Method Intra-District Analysis

This study examines the relationship between educational resources (fiscal, personnel and facilities) and school achievement within a large urban/suburban elementary school district. A sequential mixed methods approach reveals inequitable resource allocation trends and patterns between schools within a school district by producing different student outcomes. The educational resources positively correlated to higher school achievement are: higher teacher salaries, newer schools, more multi-purpose space per pupil and less portable classrooms. Without question, White students receive more of these resources than Latino students, low-income students and English Language learners. This study also conducts a multiple comparative case study analysis comparing between Title I and non-Title I schools, within Title I schools and within non-Title I schools. The study contains policy and practice implications to improve opportunity and school achievement in urban/suburban school districts.     

Burden of Acting Neither White Nor Black: Asian American Identities and Achievement in Urban Schools

Ogbu’s theory of “burden of acting white” has been one of the most frequently cited studies to explain black and white achievement gap. However, emerging studies have argued that Ogbu’s theory may be limited when examining variability of school achievement among black and white students. Research shows that in addition to culture, other social forces, such as class, peer networks, and school context may play a significant role when accounting for minority students’ academic aspirations and achievement. In the midst of this on-going debate, however, there is a limited understanding of how, if at all, theory of “acting white” plays a role for racial groups other than black and white students. By extending the discussion beyond a black-and-white discourse, this research examines how Asian American students in two different social and economic contexts, negotiate their race and ethnic identities. Framed by a prevalent model minority stereotype that conflates Asian Americans with whiteness, the findings show that portrayal of Asian “success” much like black “failure” cannot be explained solely on their cultural orientation. By comparing experiences of two groups of Korean American students—both high- and low-achieving—in different economic and school contexts, this study illustrates how the two groups of Korean American students adopt different racial strategies depending on their socioeconomic backgrounds, peer networks, and school contexts. Using Korean American students in urban schools as a case study, this research complicates and challenges our understanding of the role of culture in school achievement and illustrates how culture intersects with class, race, and schools. Jamie Lew is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Education, Rutgers University-Newark, 110 Warren Street, Newark, NY, 07102-1814, USA     

Beyond Black and White: The Model Minority Myth and the Invisibility of Asian American Students

This study of diverse Asian American students at a racially integrated public high school illustrates that the achievement gap is a multi-racial problem that cannot be well understood solely in terms of the trajectories of Black and white students. Asian American students demonstrated a high academic profile on average, but faced difficulties and failure in ways rendered invisible by widespread acceptance of the “Model Minority Myth,” which says that Asians comprise the racial minority group that has “made it” in America through hard work and education, and therefore serve as a model for other racial minorities to follow. Findings point to policy implications for teachers, counselors, school staff, social services and government.     

Is working one job better than many? Assessing the impact of multiple school jobs on teacher performance in Rio de Janeiro

Multiple school jobs are more common in developing countries and among teachers who teach specific subject areas. This paper examines whether student achievement is affected when teachers work in more than one school. We use longitudinal data from Rio de Janeiro and exploit within teacher-school-grade variation in the number of school jobs over time. We found that an increase in the number of school jobs leads to a decrease in student achievement. Our results suggest that multiple school jobs are more detrimental for female teachers, probably because women take on more responsibilities outside of work. We also found that the negative impact of multiple school jobs is particularly larger for poorer students who participate in conditional cash transfer programs. Lastly, our results show that an increase in the number of school jobs is associated with an increase in teachers’ workload as measured by the number of teaching hours and the number of unique subject-areas, grade-levels, and students taught.     

Can High School Achievement Tests Serve to Select College Students?

Postsecondary schools have traditionally relied on admissions tests such as the SAT and ACT to select students. With high school achievement assessments in place in many states, it is important to ascertain whether scores from those exams can either supplement or supplant conventional admissions tests. In this study we examined whether the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) high school tests could serve as a useful predictor of college performance. Stepwise regression analyses with a predetermined order of variable entry revealed that AIMS generally did not account for additional performance variation when added to high school grade-point average (HSGPA) and SAT. However, in a cohort of students that took the test for graduation purposes, AIMS did account for about the same proportion of variance as SAT when added to a model that included HSGPA. The predictive value of both SAT and AIMS was generally the same for Caucasian, Hispanic, and Asian American students. The ramifications of universities using high school achievement exams as predictors of college success, in addition to or in lieu of traditional measures, are discussed.     

Timely graduation in the lower vocational track

In this article, we study the impact of the so‐called non‐meritocratic factors gender, immigrant origin and social origin, and the meritocratic factors ability and achievement, on timely graduation within a specific high school type. Furthermore, the possible influence of teacher assessments of students in elementary school is investigated. Although the group of graduated students contains more girls, fewer students from immigrant origin and more students of higher social origin, multivariate analyses show that only grade point average during high school significantly affects the chances of graduating. Teachers’ assessments that distinguished between graduation chances of students did not affect graduation when controlled for the non‐meritocratic and meritocratic factors in the multivariate model.     

Gender equity in mathematical achievement: the case of China

Gender differences in achievement in mathematics, a traditionally male-stereotyped subject, have long been a concern for many educators around the world. Gender differences in mathematical achievement have decreased in recent decades, especially in Western countries, and become small or insignificant in large-scale tests, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The situation in China has not yet been studied. The recent PISA report lists China B-S-J-G (representing Beijing–Shanghai–Jiangsu–Guangdong) as an educational system with no significant gender difference in mathematical achievement. Based on a secondary analysis of PISA 2015 mathematics data from China B-S-J-G, this study more deeply scrutinized gender differences in Chinese students’ mathematical performance, emphasizing societal factors, namely students’ socioeconomic status, school level, school type, school location, and socioeconomic status at school level. This analysis revealed important differences within the overall picture. Most importantly, significantly more boys than girls scored in the top tier of mathematics achievement. At the lower- and upper-secondary school levels, boys performed significantly better than girls, with the achievement difference increasing at the upper-secondary level. Furthermore, this study found that, on average, Chinese (B-S-J-G) girls achieved significantly lower average scores on the PISA 2015 mathematics test than boys in the same school. Overall, students’ individual characteristics and school characteristics need to be separated and both taken into account to examine the role of gender in mathematical achievement, which has not been thoroughly investigated in the past.     

Soziale Ungleichheiten in der Kompetenzentwicklung in der Grundschule und der Sekundarstufe I

The article focuses on the question how competencies of students with different social backgrounds develop during elementary and secondary school. In particular, it addresses if achievement disparities which exist before school entrance increase, remain stable, or even diminish during schooling. The article draws on both national and international studies with longitudinal designs examining the achievement development of students of different social backgrounds during primary or secondary school. Although the results are mixed to some extent, a large part indicates that differences in achievement increase during the time of schooling. The evidence seems more consistent for achievement development during elementary school. Additionally, there is some indication that schools and features of the educational system contribute to increasing achievement disparities between students of different social backgrounds.     

The effects of dialect awareness instruction on nonmainstream American English speakers

The achievement gaps between poor and more affluent students are persistent and chronic, as many students living in poverty are also members of more isolated communities where dialects such as African American English and Southern Vernacular English are often spoken. Non-mainstream dialect use is associated with weaker literacy achievement. The principal aims of the two experiments described in this paper were to examine whether second through fourth graders, who use home English in contexts where more formal school English is expected, can be taught to dialect shift between home and school English depending on context; and whether this leads to stronger writing and literacy outcomes. The results of two randomized controlled trials with students within classrooms randomly assigned to DAWS (Dialect Awareness, a program to explicitly teach dialect shifting), editing instruction, or a business as usual group revealed (1) that DAWS was more effective in promoting dialect shifting than instruction that did not explicitly contrast home and school English; and (2) that students in both studies who participated in DAWS were significantly more likely to use school English in contexts where it was expected on proximal and distal outcomes including narrative writing, morphosyntactic awareness, and reading comprehension. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

School Efficiency and Student Subgroups: Is a Good School Good for Everyone?

State and federal accountability reforms are putting considerable pressure on schools to increase the achievement of historically low-performing groups of students and to close test score gaps. In this article, we exploit the differences among the large number of elementary schools in New York City to examine how much schools vary in the efficiency of the education they provide to subgroups. In addition, we examine the extent to which observable school characteristics can account for the variation that exists. We find that New York City elementary schools vary in how well they educate poor students compared to nonpoor students and Asian and White students compared to Black and Hispanic students. The disparities in school efficiency measures between boys and girls are lower than for the other subgroups. There is no conclusive evidence about which school resources and characteristics are associated with more or less efficient education across all subgroups.     

What drives US competitiveness in mathematics and science?

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) shows that US school students have a lower level of achievement than students from many East Asian countries. Therefore, media, researchers and policy‐makers in the United States have often argued that US competitiveness in mathematics and science will decline. This paper aims at verifying this conclusion by analysing data on medallists at the International Olympiads for high school students. The analysis suggests that US competitiveness may not be endangered.     

Beyond Black and White: The Impact of Asian Peers on Scholastic Achievement

This paper examines the effects of Asian peers on non-Asian student achievement in New York City public schools. We use exogenous variation in the share of Asian students across cohorts within schools stemming from a fertility shock among the Asian population in the Chinese year of the Dragon. Results show that a 10-percentage-point increase in the share of Asian students reduces non-Asian math and ELA scores by 0.14 and 0.16 standard deviations. The reduction in achievement is associated with an increase in the share of non-Asian students who fail to demonstrate the skills expected at the grade, especially in math.