Equity & Diversity

Teachers Expect More of Asian American Students. Is Bias the Reason?

By Ileana Najarro — October 18, 2022 4 min read
metamorworks/iStock/Getty
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Researchers have in the past examined whether teacher bias of Black and Latino students’ lower academic abilities manifests in less rigorous coursework for these students.

Now, a new study finds that bias seems to color teachers’ perceptions of Asian American students, too. Only in this case, the bias goes the other way: When it comes to Asian American students, teachers tend to hold higher academic expectations.

The new findings confirm what some researchers have known anecdotally for years, and supports longstanding concerns about a “model minority” stereotype.

Using nationally representative 2002 survey data of teachers from the National Center for Education Statistics, a wing of the U.S. Department of Education, Keitaro Okura, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at Yale University, found that teachers report more positive assessments of Asian American students’ attentiveness and performance in their classrooms compared to their white peers.

Those findings held up even when Okura controlled for factors such as students’ socioeconomic backgrounds and their academic achievement.

Teachers were also found to hold higher expectations for Asian American students’ future educational attainment, generally expecting they would seek out a college degree or more. And they were more likely to recommend Asian American students for Advanced Placement and honors courses.

“Even when I compare Asian students to otherwise academically comparable white students with similar test scores, similar amounts of academic effort, similar parents or backgrounds, similar parental expectations, attending the same schools, even when I account for all those potential plausible reasons, the advantage still persists,” Okura said.

Okura’s peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Sociology of Education, doesn’t provide causal evidence for why teachers have higher appraisals of Asian American students. But he and other researchers point to pervasive cultural stereotypes, including the model minority stereotype, that could lead teachers to assume Asian American students are a monolith of inherently smart, hard workers.

“A ‘good’ stereotype is still a racist stereotype that actually minimizes the actual experiences of those students and of the communities,” said Wayne Au, the interim dean of and professor in the School of Educational Studies at the University of Washington Bothell.

Stereotyping students creates a harmful educational environment for all

Okura used the 2002 Educational Longitudinal Study data for his study. Compared to newer NCES data sets, this collection had direct survey results from teachers that assessed their perceptions of students’ academic abilities, and how they would act on these perceptions, such as recommending students for advanced courses, he said.

He controlled for factors like the students’ higher standardized math scores and data showing that the students reported spending more time doing homework to avoid skewing the results. Even with those controls, the higher appraisals remained in place.

For instance, Okura found that math teachers assessed 42 percent of Asian American students in their class to be always attentive, compared to only 30 percent of white students, 17 percent of Black students, and 22 percent of Hispanic students.

Because the stereotype of Asian American students’ academic abilities still persists in the mainstream, Okura said there’s no particular reason to think that these findings have shifted since 2002.

The model minority stereotype, something Au in Washington state has studied, presents a possible explanation. It’s a construction of Asian Americans as a successful, monolithic group that overcame challenges such as racism. But the stereotype obscures the diversity of experience of Asian Americans and downplays key historical touchtones.

It wasn’t until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, for example, that Asian immigrants were more readily allowed into the United States, and even then those able to do so were more likely college educated with enough money to afford entering the country, Au said.

In the context of K-12 education, the stereotype hurts Asian American students and their peers.

Students can feel like they can’t live up to the stereotype. And because they are perceived to be a monolith, teachers could end up overlooking the unique life goals and pursuits students have especially in the areas of the arts and sports, Okura said. Their mental health needs may also be overlooked as a result of assuming that Asian American students aren’t stressed out by work.

And the racist stereotype pits Asian American students against their peers, with Black and Latino students measured against them as less successful minority groups. Some white peers resent Asian Americans, believing that they have an easier time getting high test scores and even go so far as to think these students are taking their spots at top universities, Au said.

Both Okura and Au recommend teachers take time to be more cognizant of their racialized assumptions and how they can manifest in the classroom, as well as learning more about the history of the racialization of Asian Americans.

“We need to really have critical self reflection and examine our own racism and biases around this kind of stuff because if we’re not aware of them, and if we’re not on top of them in a critical way … then that’s when we start operationalizing these things in real life in real concrete ways that have material impacts on students,” Au said.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Mathematics Webinar
Pave the Path to Excellence in Math
Empower your students' math journey with Sue O'Connell, author of “Math in Practice” and “Navigating Numeracy.”
Content provided by hand2mind
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Recruitment & Retention Webinar
Combatting Teacher Shortages: Strategies for Classroom Balance and Learning Success
Learn from leaders in education as they share insights and strategies to support teachers and students.
Content provided by DreamBox Learning
Classroom Technology K-12 Essentials Forum Reading Instruction and AI: New Strategies for the Big Education Challenges of Our Time
Join the conversation as experts in the field explore these instructional pain points and offer game-changing guidance for K-12 leaders and educators.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Equity & Diversity Opinion American Education Hurt Black Students. We Deserve Reparations
The value of the educational harm inflicted on my generation of Black students exceeds $2 trillion, writes Bettina L. Love.
5 min read
Illustration of a young black woman with missing pieces. Some of the slices are sliding back into place, making the figure whole again.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week + Madina Asileva/iStock
Equity & Diversity Schools Struggle to Properly Count Native Students. Some States Want Them to Try Harder
Michigan recently became the latest state to require the collection of data on Native K-12 students' tribal affiliations.
7 min read
Indigenous Navajo high school students in the hallway of a high school.
E+
Equity & Diversity Legacy of Native American Boarding Schools Comes Into View Through a New Interactive Map
The list of boarding schools that once sought to “civilize” Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians is getting longer.
1 min read
James Nells, of the Navaho Tribe, and a teacher at Riverside Indian School, leads the Riverside Indian School color guard during opening ceremonies on July 9, 2022, in Anadarko, Okla., for a meeting to allow U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, rear, to hear about the painful experiences of Native Americans who were sent to government-backed boarding schools designed to strip them of their cultural identities. The list of boarding schools in the U.S. that once sought to “civilize” Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians is getting longer. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition released a new interactive map on Aug. 30, 2023.
James Nells, of the Navaho Tribe, and a teacher at Riverside Indian School, leads the Riverside Indian School color guard during opening ceremonies on July 9, 2022, in Anadarko, Okla., for a meeting to allow U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, rear, to hear about the painful experiences of Native Americans who were sent to government-backed boarding schools designed to strip them of their cultural identities. The list of boarding schools in the U.S. that once sought to “civilize” Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians is getting longer. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition released a new interactive map on Aug. 30, 2023.
Sue Ogrocki/AP
Equity & Diversity School District's Anti-CRT Resolution Prompts Lawsuit From Teachers and Students
Teachers, parents, and students in a California district claim the resolution restricts their rights.
5 min read
Members of The Temecula Valley Educators Association, students and parents cheer in support of Temecula Valley Unified School District Superintendent Jodi McClay during a meeting at Temecula Valley High School on June 13, 2023.
Members of the Temecula Valley Educators Association, students, and parents cheer in support of Temecula Valley Unified School District Superintendent Jodi McClay during a meeting at Temecula Valley High School on June 13, 2023. The school board voted to fire McClay that day. TVEA and students are suing the district over its anti-critical race theory resolution.
Anjali Sharif-Paul/The Sun/SCNG via TNS