The Myth of the Model Minority

Discrediting the "Model Minority" Stereotype

Study finds that while Chinese American adults are twice as likely as U.S.average to hold college degrees, Chinese Americans graduate from high school at lower rate than other youth.

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'The Myth of the Model Minority', July 18
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/11/13/chinese

November 13, 2008

Discrediting the "Model Minority" Stereotype

Chinese Americans are not as homogeneous as they are sometimes portrayed ?br> this is particularly apparent in their college-going rates and enrollment
patterns ?according to a new study from the Asian American Studies Program
at University of Maryland at College Park and the Organization of Chinese
Americans.

"Some of the popular beliefs about Chinese Americans simply don't withstand
our findings, as you might expect with most stereotypes," Larry H.
Shinegawa, director of the Asian American Studies Program at Maryland and
co-author of the study, said in a press release.

More than half ?51.7 percent ?of Chinese Americans 25 or older have earned
some sort of college degree. This is, proportionally, nearly twice as much
as the rest of the U.S. population, 27 percent of whom have a college
degree. In contrast, 18.5 percent of Chinese Americans have not graduated
from high school, compared to 15.9 percent of the general population. Among
Asian Americans, they have the second highest proportion of individuals
without a high school degree. Only Vietnamese Americans, at 27.8 percent,
are less likely to graduate high school.

Shinegawa said there could be any number of reasons for this disparity. He
chalks some of these figures up to generational differences among Chinese
Americans. Newer immigrants to the United States, he noted, contribute
greatly to the number of individuals without high school diplomas. Moreover,
he said, as immigrant families reunite, those who are more recent immigrants
may not have the educational attainment of their relatives who immigrated
earlier.

Shinegawa said he expects the number of Chinese Americans with a college
degree to decline in the future, considering the high percentage of those
without a high school diploma currently. Additionally, he said the college
graduation rates for those beyond the first generation will also probably
fall as the percentages regress toward the mean of the rest of the U.S.
population.

The study also finds that Chinese Americans cluster at a small number of
colleges and universities in the United States. Shinegawa said about 85
percent of all Chinese Americans attend only three percent of all the higher
education institutions in the United States. While data are not available
now on the specific institutions Chinese Americans are most likely to attend
?Maryland's Asian Studies Program plans to release a follow-up study on
this phenomenon next year ?Shinegawa said a map pinpointing these
institutions would have institutions almost entirely marked along the
coasts, with a few scattered throughout the rest of the country.

He added that ?contributing to this phenomenon ?the children of
working-class parents tend to attend public institutions near their homes,
while children of middle-class parents tend to attend more prestigious
institutions that might not necessarily be near their homes.

Socioeconomic status further diversifies the quality of educational
attainment. Working-class and middle-class Chinese Americans, the study
finds, not only live in different places but send their children to
different types of postsecondary institutions, if they do at all.
Working-class Chinese Americans typically live in "ethnic enclaves" in urban
areas and are more likely to send their children to "lower-tier public
colleges and universities." By contrast, middle-class Chinese Americans live
in "suburbs and ethnoburbs" ?suburban areas with a high concentration of a
certain ethnic minority ?and are more likely to send their children to
"top-tier public universities and select Ivy League institutions."

Lin said when looking at more prestigious institutions, first-generation
Chinese American are overrepresented and those within U.S.-born generations
tend to be either slightly underrepresented or proportionally represented.
This, he said, is probably because of "selective migration" ?the notion
that many first-generation immigrants, who have the means to immigrate, are
likely to achieve greater educational success.

After Chinese Americans graduate from college, the study finds that they
earn less than non-Hispanic whites in every group of educational attainment
?those who did not graduate from high school, high school graduates, those
with some college, college graduates and advanced-degree graduates. For
example, Chinese Americans with bachelors degrees have an average income of
$55,571, while non-Hispanic Whites with the same credentials earn $62,285.
The average income for those with a bachelors degree in the general
population is $59,344.

Additionally, Lin noted overall disparities and inequities exist for Chinese
American faculty members in higher education. He said Chinese Americans are
overrepresented in entry-level and pre-tenure positions ?especially when
considering the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
?but underrepresented in tenured and administrative positions. He said the
lack of Chinese American leaders and mentors in the professional world is
likely to blame for the both the ethnic group's lower average income than
non-Hispanic whites and underrepresentation in upper-level positions in
higher education

David Moltz