What drives Asian American youth to pursue excellence in higher education so relentlessly? This volume investigates the motivations, abilities, and achievements of the so called educational "model minority" from native born, fourth generation Japanese Americans to newly arrived Southeast Asian refugees. The educational performance of Asian Americans is one of today's fastest growing minority groups enrolled in higher education programs. This unique resource integrates empirical data from national testing programs, longitudinal studies and academic and extracurricular records along with the higher educational and career aspirations reported by Asian American students. It is the definitive guide for social scientists and educators by informing them of the reliability and validity of standard admissions tests for assessing the potential of Asian Americans students and their subgroups for success in higher education and careers.

Asian American Students in Higher Education offers the first comprehensive analysis and synthesis of existing theory and research related to Asian American students’ experiences in postsecondary education. Providing practical and insightful recommendations, this sourcebook covers a range of topics including critical historical and demographic contexts, the complexity of Asian American student identities, and factors that facilitate and hinder Asian American students’ success in college. The time has come for institutions of higher education to develop more holistic and authentic understandings of this significant and rapidly growing population, and this volume will help educators acquire deeper and more intricate knowledge of Asian American college students’ experiences. This resource is vital for college educators interested in better serving Asian American students in their institutions.

Asian Americans are often stereotyped as the “model minority.” Their sizeable presence at elite universities and high household incomes have helped construct the narrative of Asian American “exceptionalism.” While many scholars and activists characterize this as a myth, pundits claim that Asian Americans’ educational attainment is the result of unique cultural values. In The Asian American Achievement Paradox, sociologists Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou offer a compelling account of the academic achievement of the children of Asian immigrants. Drawing on in-depth interviews with the adult children of Chinese immigrants and Vietnamese refugees and survey data, Lee and Zhou bridge sociology and social psychology to explain how immigration laws, institutions, and culture interact to foster high achievement among certain Asian American groups. For the Chinese and Vietnamese in Los Angeles, Lee and Zhou find that the educational attainment of the second generation is strikingly similar, despite the vastly different socioeconomic profiles of their immigrant parents. Because immigration policies after 1965 favor individuals with higher levels of education and professional skills, many Asian immigrants are highly educated when they arrive in the United States. They bring a specific “success frame,” which is strictly defined as earning a degree from an elite university and working in a high-status field. This success frame is reinforced in many local Asian communities, which make resources such as college preparation courses and tutoring available to group members, including their low-income members. While the success frame accounts for part of Asian Americans’ high rates of achievement, Lee and Zhou also find that institutions, such as public schools, are crucial in supporting the cycle of Asian American achievement. Teachers and guidance counselors, for example, who presume that Asian American students are smart, disciplined, and studious, provide them with extra help and steer them toward competitive academic programs. These institutional advantages, in turn, lead to better academic performance and outcomes among Asian American students. Yet the expectations of high achievement come with a cost: the notion of Asian American success creates an “achievement paradox” in which Asian Americans who do not fit the success frame feel like failures or racial outliers. While pundits ascribe Asian American success to the assumed superior traits intrinsic to Asian culture, Lee and Zhou show how historical, cultural, and institutional elements work together to confer advantages to specific populations. An insightful counter to notions of culture based on stereotypes, The Asian American Achievement Paradox offers a deft and nuanced understanding how and why certain immigrant groups succeed.

Throughout the history of the United States, fluctuations in cultural diversity, immigration, and ethnic group status have been closely linked to shifts in the economy and labor market. Over three decades after the beginning of the civil rights movement, and in the midst of significant socioeconomic change at the end of this century, scholars search for new ways to describe the persistent roadblocks to upward mobility that women and people of color still encounter in the workforce. In Glass Ceilings and Asian Americans, Deborah Woo analyzes current scholarship and controversies on the glass ceiling and labor market discrimination in conjunction with the specific labor histories of Asian American ethnic groups. She then presents unique, in-depth studies of two current sites-a high tech firm and higher education-to argue that a glass ceiling does in fact exist for Asian Americans, both according to quantifiable data and to Asian American workers' own perceptions of their workplace experiences. Woo's studies make an important contribution to understanding the increasingly complex and subtle interactions between ethnicity and organizational cultures in today's economic institutions and labor markets.

The contributions to The Asian American Educationalexperience examine the most significant issues and concerns in the education of Asian Americans. Contributors, all leading experts in their fields, provide theoretical discussions, practical insights and recommendations, historical perspectives and an analytical context for the many issues crucial to the education of this diverse population--controversies in higher education over alleged admissions quotas, stereotypes of Asian American students as "whiz kids", Asian Americans as the "model minority", bilingual education, education of refugee and immigrant populations, educational quality and equity. Special emphasis is given to both the historic debates which have shaped the field, and the concerns and challenges facing educators of Asian American students at both the K-12 and university level.

Voices of Asian Americans in Higher Education: Unheard Voices is a unique and historical book. Asian Americans are often portrayed as “model minority,” yet their personal and educational experiences are often unheard. In this book, 10 Asian American educators and scholars present realistic pictures of America’s higher education using personal narratives. The contributors in this book come from different regions and teach in different colleges and universities; and coincidentally, they all endure the “outsider” category formerly as students and now as professors and leaders. This “outsider” status can be emotionally overwhelming and psychologically unnerving. This status hampers opportunities for Asian Americans to grow and maximize their fullest potential. Though they develop different strategies to address their “outsider” label, it does not make it comfortable. But, time and time again, they have proven that they can succeed! In this technological age, we must value unending truths as we educate ourselves and others. We hope that this book will be an educational and informational resource for students, administrators, and faculty in higher education and also educational policy makers and stakeholders.