Academic success stereotypes in Asian-American and Jewish communities

¶ … Asian-Americans and Asian Jews and their reputation for academic success. The writer examines classroom, family and societal contributors to that reputation's development. There were six sources used to complete this paper.

Racial Reputations for Academic Excellence Explored

Society has dealt with stereotypes since the beginning of time. Whether those stereotypes were racially, ethnically or otherwise motivated they have continued to pervade the mindset of those who coexist on earth. One prevalent stereotype in America is the idea that Asian-Americans and American Jews have a reputation for academic excellence. It is such a strong believe in American society that one highly desirable magnet high school in the nation required Asian applicants to score higher on entrance exams than any other race to obtain a space in the school. While stereotypes are often wrong or founded in untruths, the reputation of Asian-Americans and American Jews for academic excellence can be traced to cultural beliefs and tradition within the race.

Class Effort

In looking at academic success many people have the idea that the greater the effort in the classroom the greater the academic success, however, recent studies have concluded that this is not necessarily the case (Cheo, 46).

Class participation incurs a personal cost in terms of time and effort and once information is revealed it becomes common property, on which any member in the class can free-ride. A common example would be if every student writes the same analysis in an exam, on which only the original contributor of the idea actually spent time and effort to formulate the argument, and all members of the class still get the same grade (Cheo, 46)."

The question then becomes what happens to that knowledge or idea as it leaves the classroom and is taken home for study. Do different ethnic groups approach academics differently?

From research results in the past it appears that parental involvement plays an important part in academic success, and culturally parents of Asian and Jewish descent traditionally place a high value on education.

Family Rules

While studies have shown that discussion about school, family social connections and parental contact with the school have little impact on academic performance, they also found that the rules and expectations at home with regard to study and homework were more strict and monitored in Asian families than in Hispanic and Caucasian families, which may help to illuminate how the Asian-American family has the reputation for academic excellence.

When examining racial and ethnic differences, Sui-Chu and Willms (1996) found that Asians and Hispanics tended to have more family rules and restrictions than did Caucasians (Lin, 174)."

In a recent study by Dr. Tamara Ho it was discovered that Asian-Americans have a higher rate of college completion than any other race with 64% of those enrolled obtaining their degrees (Ho, pp).

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the educational success of Asian-Americans as compared with Whites, including innate intelligence differences, cultural determinism, and relative functionalism (see S. Sue & Okazaki, 1990, for a review of these theories) (Ho, pp)."

Cho's study included 160 Asian-American undergraduates from which 75% received financial support from parents and the remainder used scholarships and grants. When questioned about parental education, almost half of participant parents had college degrees and 88% of the participants reported that their parents strongly encouraged them to obtain college degrees (Ho, pp).

The study used a survey method with nine scales for students to complete.

Examining six different Asian-American undergraduate groups, this study investigated the relationships of three variable sets: comfort in the university environment, social support, and self-beliefs (Ho, pp)."

The study also found that success at college was tied to the student's self-esteem and that Asian-American students of Filipino, Japanese and Vietnamese descent were encouraged highly by parents and extended family as they were growing up and their college experience was more successful because they had a strong self-esteem when they entered the environment which carried them through to the end (Ho, pp).

Further studies have shown that American Asian and American Jewish parents have a culturally higher expectation for their children's education than their AA. Hispanic or White counterparts do (Schulenberg, 269). This may be the strongest influence on why American Asians and American Jews have a reputation for being academically successful.

The question then becomes, why do the parents of these two races have such strong beliefs about education and the importance of their children excelling in the academic field?

The Wars

For one to fully understand the roots in American Jewish and American Asian students having the reputation for being academically advanced one only has to turn attention to the history of those races within the context of recent wars.

Anyone who is living in a civilized nation is aware of the Holocaust and the horrors that it visited upon the Jewish population.

Millions of Jews were rounded up, put into concentration camps and then subsequently killed. Those who did not die had to witness the murder of their family members, and then be worked almost to death to be able to stay alive.

Jewish residents during that time in Germany were treated worse than animals. The children in the camps were deprived not only of their childhood carefree years but also of the chance to obtain a viable and solid education.

When those years were over and the Jewish were no longer being persecuted they developed a strong sense of education importance to protect future generations from ever having to experience such horrors again.

While the concentration camps were in force, those that did have doctor, engineering and other degrees had a better chance for survival because their skills and knowledge were useful at the campsites. Those who were uneducated ran a higher risk of being shot to death, or gassed with hundreds of others each day.

The end of the war left the Jewish population with the belief that education and wealth were key factors to survival and today, that belief still resonates within the community, though it is no longer tied to physical survival. It is an underlying cultural strength that was born of survival and now is mixed with self pride and the desire to succeed and show the world exactly how wrong it was to condone the treatment it allowed the Nazi's to visit upon their culture during the war.

The Asians had similar experiences following the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, during that time Japan also became occupied by American troops and one of the changes the occupation instituted was mandatory education. The ability to build strong military forces have been stripped from several Asian populations in recent years. Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines are all areas in which military occupation and rule have removed the ability to become military powers, which in turn caused the residents to turn to educational strength from which to build their reputations.

From those years the generations have passed down the strong family belief that education was a key element to success.

One only has to look at the technological advances Japan has provided the world to understand the importance the race as a whole places on advanced educational goals.

Conclusion

Throughout recent history the Asian cultures have been periodically stripped of their military abilities, however, their educational goals have always been supported. This provides a viable explanation why, today, several generations later, American Asian families place such importance on education which translates to the academic excellence their children display, which in turn leads to the reputation the culture has for academic excellence.

The American Jewish community is only three generations away from the horrors of the Holocaust and the concentration camps. This memory, still fresh, has spurred the parents to insist their children do well academically so that they can have careers and professions that are valued by society.