Aspiration and Anxiety

Asian Migrants and Australian Schooling

Christina Ho

• Publisher: Melbourne University Press Digital
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780522874846
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The children of Asian migrants are often perceived to be perfect students: ambitious, studious and compliant. They are remarkably successful—routinely outperforming other students in exams, dominating selective school intakes, and disproportionately winning places at prestigious universities. While their hard work and success have been praised, their achievements have ignited fierce debates about whether their migrant parents are 'pushing too hard', or whether they ought to be lauded for their commitment to education. Critics see a dark side, symbolised by the 'tiger mother' who is obsessed with producing overachieving 'dragon children'. What is often missing in these debates is an understanding of what drives Asian migrant parents' approaches to education. This book explores how aspirations for their children's future reinforce their anxieties about being newcomers in an unequal society.

Chapter 1

‘Asians always do well’

How successful are Asian-Australian school students?

Across many migrant-receiving nations, Asian migrants have become the ‘model minority’—hardworking, self-reliant, compliant, aspirational. Their children have been similarly stereotyped as quiet achievers, an educational success story that contrasts with the traditional association between ethnic minorities and underachievement. The stereotype is partly based on reality. Children of Asian migrants are disproportionately successful in education in Australia, and in other countries such as the US, Canada and UK. They outperform others in standardised tests, are over-represented in high-performing schools and classes, and have higher rates of admission to university. This chapter provides some evidence of the educational success of Asian-Australian students.

It’s not just in education that Asianness is associated with ‘smartness’ and technical prowess. This stereotype is evident in popular culture—for example, in aphorisms such as ‘Skill level: Asian’, which describe seemingly impossible feats accomplished by individuals of Asian descent (often relating to gaming, physical stunts or musical virtuosity). Other pop culture references include the common line about Asians being ‘better than you’ at any task. Examples include memes (‘Roses are red, violets are blue, there’s always an Asian better than you’), videos (‘Asians do everything better’, ‘Whatever you do, there’s always an Asian better than you’) and online discussion forums (‘What was your “There’s always an Asian better than you” moment?’). While seemingly positive, it should be noted that these references often contain expressions of both admiration and resentment. And often the identity of an individual as a musician, gamer or whatever is overshadowed by observations of their Asianness, even when ethnic identity is not directly relevant to the activity.

In such racialised settings, being ‘better’ than others may be seen as threatening.

This is certainly often the case in the field of education, which, more than any other, symbolises ‘Asian success’. Educational success has become synonymous with being ‘Asian’ in many migrant societies. The stereotype has in no small part been pushed along by Asian migrants themselves. This is epitomised in Amy Chua’s 2011 memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which purported to reveal the strategies of ‘Chinese’ parents able to raise such overachieving children. Other titles, such as DJ Chung’s Build Like an Ant: How My Mom Helped Me Become Valedictorian, and Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers—and How You Can Too, by Korean-American sisters Soo Kim Abboud and Jane Kim, also provided ‘secrets’ of Asian parenting that create straight A students and Ivy League graduates.

Of course, the stereotype of the Asian model minority does not capture the diversity of experiences of such a heterogeneous group. In Australia and elsewhere, many Asian migrants are found in disadvantaged communities and in underperforming schools. Students from Asian backgrounds confront the full range of educational problems faced by other students, including disengagement, underachievement, delinquency and parental neglect. The model minority stereotype can be dangerous in that it hides disadvantage among Asian migrants, who may need further support to achieve their potential.

The stereotype can also be destructive in pitting a model minority against other ‘non’-model minorities. Particularly in the US, the notion of the model minority has been used, since the civil rights era, against calls for reform. The stereotype of the ‘successful’ Asian migrant has been used as proof of the openness and fairness of US society, implying that others only have themselves to blame for their ‘failure’.

This chapter documents experiences of both educationally advantaged and educationally disadvantaged Asian-Australian students. While the model minority image has been applied to both groups, the chapter unpacks the role of social class in shaping educational outcomes. This is most evident in the highly advantaged profile of top-performing selective school students and, conversely, the poorer performance of disadvantaged refugee communities in south-western Sydney. While the effects of social class are mediated by the model minority stereotype, as well as by the ethnic capital available within migrant communities, the chapter shows that Asians do not always ‘do well’ and that the image of the ‘successful Asian student’ can have damaging social consequences. Nevertheless, the stereotype, based on the experiences of an elite group of students, endures.

From ‘yellow peril’ to ‘model minority’: The evolving status of Asian migrants in the West

Historically, Asian migrants in Western nations were viewed as alien races, culturally incompatible at best and socially and politically threatening at worst. The Chinese, for example, were feared as the ‘yellow peril’ ready for invasion, despised as coolie labourers and gold-rush miners, and shunned as opium-smoking degenerates in Chinatown ghettos. In many countries, Asians were excluded from citizenship, epitomised in laws such as the White Australia policy, enacted shortly after the formation of Australia as a modern nation. In the US, prior to the mid-twentieth century, Asians were viewed as ‘unassimilable aliens unfit for membership in the nation’. Subject to the regime of Asiatic Exclusion, they were barred from naturalisation and property ownership, and were the target of occupational discrimination and residential segregation.¹

In the second half of the twentieth century, perceptions of Asians began to change. Asian migrants were first characterised as a model minority in the US in the 1960s, with the publication of William Petersen’s 1966 article in the New York Times Magazine, ‘Success story, Japanese-American style’. In December 1970, the New York Times front page declared that both Japanese-and Chinese-Americans were ‘an American success story’, having achieved ‘assimilation into the mainstream of American life’, a situation that would have been ‘unthinkable twenty years ago’. The Times documented the stellar achievements of Asian-Americans who were now corporate directors, distinguished scientists and college presidents.

Wu documents how during World War II, liberals in the US fought for the social inclusion of migrants, not least because practices of racial exclusion threatened the democratic values undergirding American aspirations to world leadership. Additionally, in the civil rights era, Asian-Americans’ elevation to ‘model minority’ served a conservative political agenda, legitimating American society as open and meritocratic and offering opportunities to minorities, if they were willing to assimilate and work hard. Direct contrasts were made between upwardly mobile, politically moderate Asian-Americans, and African-Americans trapped in a ‘culture of poverty’.²

In Australia, the lifting of the White Australia policy in the 1970s saw the beginning of large-scale immigration from Asia. The emphasis on the economic credentials of migrants from the 1990s ushered in the current era of the migration of highly educated and well-resourced Asians, as the next chapter details. As in the US, Asian migrants in Australia gradually became the model minority—educated, industrious and economically successful.

In recent decades, the rapid economic development and increasing geopolitical significance of Asian nations, particularly China, has also lifted the profile of Asian migrants in the West. No longer seen as fleeing poverty and conflict, they are now viewed as links to the world’s fastest-growing power-houses, vital for Western nations’ reorienting towards Asia.

Asian education systems and their students have been part of this growing interest in Asia. International tests such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), run by the OECD since 2000, have generated a new awareness of the achievements of Asian students. The dominance of countries such as China, South Korea and Singapore, and the declining performance of countries such as Australia, have led to some anxious investigation into the secrets of ‘their’ success. In the UK, for instance, thousands of schools have been part of a program to implement a ‘Shanghai maths’ teaching method, initiated after Shanghai students were ranked first in the 2012 maths PISA test, and were found to be three years ahead of their English peers.³ Meanwhile, the decline in the PISA results of US students was characterised as a ‘Sputnik moment’ by President Barack Obama, a ‘wake-up call to America to rethink its approach to education’.⁴

In this context, Asian migrants and their children have cemented their reputation as education-focused and success-oriented. Their ‘success frame’ includes earning top grades throughout school, getting into a top university, and then working in a prestigious profession, namely, medicine, law, science or engineering.⁵ The image of the top-performing bespectacled Asian maths genius is now an entrenched part of our popular culture. How accurate is this stereotype? The next section examines the evidence on the educational performance of Asian-Australian students.

‘Skill level: Asian’: Asian-Australian educational success

The children of migrants were traditionally viewed as educationally disadvantaged. In the post–World War II period, migrants arriving in Australia tended to be from working-class backgrounds, without high levels of education. Their children, concentrated in disadvantaged schools in low-income areas, tended to underachieve in school and have lower rates of admission to university.⁶

Since the mid-1990s, Australia’s migration program has been dominated by skilled migrants, many from Asian countries. Their children have reversed the traditional association between ethnic minority status and educational underachievement. Since the 1990s, studies have shown that second-generation migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds have higher school and university completion rates than native English speakers.⁷

Students from East Asian backgrounds in Australia have outperformed their Anglo-Australian peers in various standardised tests. According to Jerrim, the gap between the two groups in PISA tests is approximately 100 test points, equivalent to two-and-a-half years of schooling. Moreover, the results of students from East Asian backgrounds have improved despite overall Australian PISA scores declining.⁸ The OECD reports that first- and second-generation migrant students from China, India and the Philippines are more likely to achieve baseline academic proficiency than native Australian students.⁹ Research by the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria shows that students from Asian migrant backgrounds perform better in NAPLAN than other students, especially in numeracy. NAPLAN scores are highest for Chinese-background students, followe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 ‘Asians always do well’: How successful are Asian-Australian school students?
• 2 Choosing the best: How neoliberal immigration and education policies help create the successful Asian-Australian student
• 3 Aspiration: Tiger mothers, dragon children and ‘hothousing’
• 4 Anxiety: ‘Migrants can’t afford to be relaxed parents’
• 5 Selective schools: The culture of achievement, competition and hard work
• 6 Intercultural relations in selective schools: Racialisation, safe spaces and segregation
• 7 ‘It’s just their culture’: Anglo-Australian responses to Asian success
• Conclusion: What does Asian-Australian educational success say about Australian society?
• References
• Notes
• Index