Course description:
Chinese Americans have their own set of stereotypes when it comes to education. Asians are smart. Asians are hardworking. Asians are great at math. This course aims to discuss how Chinese culture play a role in Chinese American education and how Chinese culture might be seen to encapsulate the model minority stereotype. It will look at how the history of Chinese students in American educational systems as well as how filial piety based family structure effects how Chinese students are brought up. Is is where model minority stereotype comes from? The course aims to dissect this identity and discuss if this identity helps Chinese American students succeed or does it actually put them at a disadvantages and the ramifications of the “myth of Asian American success”
Week 1 Topic: The history of Chinese American education
- The Asian American Educational Experience: A Sourcebook for Teachers and Students/ Edited By Don T. Nakanishi and Tina Yamano Nishida 1995 “Yellow Peril, Book 1” By Charles M Wollenberg
This article discusses the early periods of Chinese American students being told they were not allowed to be educated along side American students for fear of “immorality and debauchery.” How did we “successfully”assimilate into the educational community?
- The Asian American Educational Experience: A Sourcebook for Teachers and Students/ Edited By Don T. Nakanishi and Tina Yamano Nishida 1995 “Lau v. Nichols ‘History of a Struggle for Equal and Quality Education”
Lau v. Nichols (1974), was a civil rights case that was brought by Chinese American students living in San Francisco, California who only speak limited English. The students claimed that they were not receiving special help in school due to their inability to speak English which was against their rights as based on educational discrimination on the basis of national origin. But more than that, this case opened the eyes on a national scale and gave voice to the whole of the Asian American Community.
- Leadership and Culture in Chinese Education By Tony Bush & Qiang Haiyan
This article discusses the leaders and the effect of culture in Chinese education. By exploring the history and culture of Chinese students we can develop an idea of how Chinese American students are influence by family and why education becomes a focal point in Chinese American families.
Week 2 Topic: What are model minorities and why is this important?
- The Asian American Educational Experience: A Sourcebook for Teachers and Students/ Edited By Don T. Nakanishi and Tina Yamano Nishida 1995 pg 113-133 “Education and Socialization of Asian Americans : A revisionist Analysis of the ‘Model Minority’ Thesis” By Bob H. Suzuki
- From model minorities to disposable models: the de-legitimization of educational success through discourses of authenticity. By Alice Bradbury
These two sources will discuss in depth about what the model minority identity consist of. We must dissect this identity if we are to discuss whether or not it is a disadvantage or advantage to Asian American students.
Week 3 Topic: What the advantages and disadvantages of this identity for Chinese
American students
- Beyond Black and White: The Model Minority Myth and the Invisibility of Asian American Students By Wing, Jean Yonemura. The Urban Review39.4 (Nov 2007): 455-487
We will use this short article that takes a case student on students of Berkeley High School and discuss how Yonemura takes apart a this case student and shows us how the model minority myth is deeply ingrained to a point where Asian American students were given less attention to because they were expected to succeed compared to Black or Latino students.
- The Asian American Educational Experience: A Sourcebook for Teachers and Students/ Edited By Don T. Nakanishi and Tina Yamano Nishida 1995 pg 95-113 “The Myth of Asia American Success and Its Educational Ramifications “ By Ki- Taek Chun
This source by Chun was combined with other journal articles written about the Asian American Experience and was placed closer to the beginning of the book for a good reason. The word “myth” has appeared several times in different articles and these authors believe that the myth of Asian American success can explain a lot about the education experience. Chun breaks down how teachers and students play into this identity and discusses the advantages and disadvantages.
Week 4 Topic: Chinese culture in American education
- Culture, family and Chinese and Korean American student achievement: An examination of student factors that affect student outcomes. BY Braxton, Richard J.
This study takes a in-depth look into of that western individualism and Chinese collectivism and these were considered in the discussion the ‘problems’ that face Chinese students– classroom silence and segregation – are often understood in cultural terms, and we describe cultural values that might influence such behavior. Popular perceptions of Chinese student engagement are sometimes over simplified and this article takes a case study to help explain how to make our analysis more complex.
Week 5
- “Education and the Socialization of Asian Americans: A Revisionist Analysis of the ‘Model Minority’ Thesis” (Bob Suzuki, 1977)
This article dives into an increasingly pervasive stereotype emerging at a time where Asian Americans were thought as a phenomenally successful, “problem-free” minority group. At one point, this phenomenon was called “outwhiting whites” (“Success Story,” 1971). Suzuki, skeptical of the motives behind the image of Asian Americans suddenly being projected by the media in the mid-1960s as extremely successful when only in late 1800s and well into the 1940s, Asian Americans were generally portrayed as an invading “yellow peril, uncivilized people who threatened to undermine the American way of life. Asian American social activists who “charged that Asian Americans were being promoted as the model minority to discredit the protests and demands for social justice of other minority groups.”
Week 6
- Revisiting the Model Minority Stereotype: Implications for Student Affairs Practice and Higher Education (Bob H. Suzuki 2002)
Suzuki revisits his earlier analysis of the model minority stereotype through the perspective of the past twenty-five years, discussing what its impact has been and continues to be in higher education. A major change Suzuki has witnessed is that in recent years, non–Asian American social scientists have been more hesitant about invoking the model minority stereotype in studies on Asian Americans, and the media have been less prone to promoting the stereotype. He believes this is “due in part to the steady stream of publications by Asian American social scientists whose research has strongly validated the earlier findings that challenged the model minority myth.” However, despite these findings, the perception is still widespread that Asian Americans have overcome all barriers of racial discrimination and are more successful even than other races.
Week 7
- Asian-American educational achievements: A phenomenon in search of an explanation. By Sue, Stanley; Okazaki, Sumie “The Myth of Asia American Success and Its Educational Ramifications “ By Ki- Taek Chun
There have been considerable amounts of research done in trying to explain the achievement patterns of Asian Americans. Two large school of thoughts based research on “(a) hereditary differences in intelligence between Asians and Whites and (b) Asian cultural values that promote educational endeavors.” Yet researchers have failed to find strong empirical evidence for either hereditary difference or cultural values. While Asian Americans face problems with upward social mobility that has more to do with than just education, why Asian Americans and researchers they place such importance in education?
Week 8
- A Quota on Excellence?: The Asian American Admissions Debate by Don T. Nakanishi “The Myth of Asia American Success and Its Educational Ramifications “ By Ki- Taek Chun
A rise in allegations of limitations or quotas being placed on the admissions for Asian Americans to some of the most prestigious public and private schools. This raises the question of is this a fair policy? What is the reasoning for placing a limit on the acceptance of Asian Americans?
- Do Colleges Set Asian Quotas?.” Newsweek6 (1987): 60
Many of the nation’s most competitive schools have experienced huge increases in Asian-American enrollments. But Asian Americans say they should be doing better and accuse colleges of imposing ceilings to keep them out. Recent admission patterns raise troubling questions, but colleges deny setting ceilings. In fact, according to the complaint, data show Asian Americans must score, on average, “approximately 140 point[s] higher than a White student, 270 points higher than a Hispanic student and 450 points higher than a Black student on the SAT, in order to have the same chance of admission.”
