Gender, Culture, and the Educational Choices of Second Generation Hmong American Girls

Abstract

Research on the educational achievement of racialized minorities and immigrants have largely discussed culture as either a deficit or an advantage for academic success. This paper explores gender differences in educational achievement and how the educational choices of second-generation Hmong American girls are impacted by racially constructed gender norms. In response to hegemonic and subordinated femininities, second-generation Hmong American girls pursue education to enter mainstream America and reject Asian ethnic culture and femininity. Gender equality is normalized and equated with White femininity and American mainstream culture while Asian femininity and ethnic culture is constructed and subordinated as “other.” This research complicates the salience of culture in scholarship on minority student achievement and considers how the educational choices of second-generation Hmong American girls draw ideologically on a racial discourse that reinforces White dominance.