The Biracial Asian-American Advantage at School Entry

Benjamin G. Gibbs (), Jonathan A. Jarvis, Lance D. Erickson, Lear Burton, Can Cheng and Carol Ward
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Benjamin G. Gibbs: Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
Jonathan A. Jarvis: Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
Lance D. Erickson: Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
Lear Burton: Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Can Cheng: Independent Researcher, Beijing, China
Carol Ward: Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA

Social Sciences, 2024, vol. 13, issue 12, 1-23

Abstract: Asian-American students have some of the highest scores for standardized tests in American schools—a pattern that is commonly attributed to immigrant selectivity. We extend this line of inquiry by examining mixed-race couples and their children. Using both the ECLS-K cohorts of 1998 and 2010, we document the persistence of the Asian-American educational advantage over time by comparing the math and reading scores of white students (1998 n = 6700; 2010 n = 4500) with Asian-American (1998 n = 500; 2010 n = 600) and biracial Asian/white (1998 n = 150; 2010 n = 150) students at the start of elementary school. Surprisingly, in bivariate models, biracial Asian/white students have some of the highest math and reading scores. Socioeconomic factors are an important part of this advantage. When we examine parenting practices, we find that parenting works in opposite directions for biracial and monoracial Asian couples—decreasing the size of the biracial Asian/white educational advantage but increasing the size of the Asian-American advantage compared with their white kindergartener peers at school entry.

Keywords: achievement gaps; early childhood; Asian Americans; parenting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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