Academic Needs and Family Factors in the Education of Southeast Asian American Students: Dismantling the Model Minority Myth

Abstract

The model minority myth is a powerful force in schools. Many teachers believe that Asian American students do not need academic interventions. The purpose of this study was to examine the student achievement of almost a million seventh-grade students from California. The research compared the performance of Southeast Asian Americans, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese students, on reading and math on the CAT/6 standardized assessment with African American and White American students. Cambodian American and Laotian American students performed significantly lower than their White American peers and compared similarly to their African American peers. Vietnamese American students also scored lower than their White American counterparts on reading. In addition, the study examined the influence of parent education levels, free/reduced lunch status, 1 Lee et al.: Academic Needs and Family Factors in the Education of Southeast Asian American Students Published by Purdue e-Pubs, 2017 and ethnicity on academic achievement. A huge achievement gap continues to plague many Southeast Asian American students.