http://www.mathwizz.com/papers/parentreport.htm
http://starbulletin.com/2004/01/18/news/story2.html
Would you like another?
To add to Gobear’s comments: traditional Asian education relies heavily on rote memorization; useful for things like mathematical formulas.
Additionally, there is a difference between “intelligence” and “doing well in school,” and Asians do well in school for cultural reasons such as Gobear listed, even if they are no smarter than the anglo kid next to them.
And why is this in the Pit?
What do you think is an apt measurement of intelligence if not GPA? SAT scores?
I have a MS in Engineering. Part of the way that I put myself through grad school was by being a TA. I had a dumbass housemate who made the same claim as the OP. I honestly never noticed one way or the other. After I finished grading a pile of tests, I sorted them by ethnicity. Guess what? No one group did better than any other.
Haj
Statistically speaking, your representative sample is too small. I’m talking state-wide, nationally, those sorts of numbers.
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind93/chap1/doc/1c8b93.htm
http://www.weac.org/News/2003-04/aug03/SAT2003.pdf
Asians lead national math SAT scores and percentage of ethnic group that take precalc and calc in HS through 2003.
So the stereotype of Asian-Americans has a basis in fact, anecdotes of stupidheads and math disabled Asians notwithstanding. No one seems to claim that this is based on “racial” factors, just interested in whether or not it is a selection bias or a result of family values and pressures or cultural expectations or difficulty in achieving in language-based venues so focusing intellectual energy in math related ones or what.
I’m pureblood Asian :rolleyes: and I got my calculus midterm back yesterday. 21/40. Passed by a hairline. I did better in high school, but not that much better.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in Canada and all my life have rejected my parents’ pressure to act “more Asian” (like my brother, oh the horror), or because it’s a stupid stereotype that doesn’t apply to anyone I know.
I have been teaching mathematics at various universities in North America
over the past 8 years and have never noticed this difference amongst undergraduates.
Some plausible reasons have already been given. Another factor to consider is that when it comes to graduate school the better US born students will go to places like Harvard, Princeton, etc. Life is more competitive for foreign students, and many very good students end up in your local state university. This causes a disparity in the abilities of foreign and US born students at some colleges.
The person who gave you this impression about mathematics has done you a great
disservice.
I think Gobear’s post is very smack dab, dead-on. I have colleagues from other Asian nations who say that their parents pressured them heavily when it came to maths and sciences – they were expected to get no less than a solid A. For “arts” stuff, including languages, social sciences, there was not so much pressure. There was still a huge expectation to do well, but nothing like parental demands of math and science achievement.
In the U.S. there is a lot of hero worship for outstanding athletes - hence you get the soccer mom’s and dad’s who put tremendous pressure on their kids to be “winners”. Or coaches who make kids practice, practice, practice – trying to get them to be the very best they can be in their sport.
It’s a very similar phenomenon.
My colleague was pressured in a very similar way to excel in math and science. His parents didn’t want him to be the star quaterback, he was supposed to be the star physicist. You think Soccer Mom’s are scary, just wait 'til you meet a Science Mom!
MAFA don’t forget, GPA doesn’t necessarily reflect “natural aptitude.” I completley suck at math, but was able to get A’s purely as a result of insane dilligence and tremendous discipline. I scored quite decently on the math component of the SAT’s not because I was inherently good at math (I mean, I really suck!) but because I invested much, much more time and effort into it than most other students.
I was also pressured by imposed standards, luckily I was the one who imposed them on myself (I had As in everything else, so I took it personally that I sucked at math).
If there are cultural influences for standards of “achievement”, you’re going to have people working extremely hard to meet the expectations of their family – whether if it’s training 8 hours a day to be the football hero, or locking yourself away doing homework so you can be the math champ.
<<Insert sound of Cartman cackling hysterically>>
:smack: Sorry DSeid didn’t give you proper credit. I meant that Gobear’s post AND yours seemed (IMHO) to be on target.
Maybe this makes me a bigot. I hope not, but you never know when you’re commenting on someone else’s ethnic group. Eye of the beholder, and all that.
I think that that many Asian kids excel at math and science for the same reason that many Jewish kids grow up to be doctors, lawyers, scientists, CPAs, and… talmudic scholars.
I think both sets of kids come from a culture that traditionally and historically places a high value on education, scholarship, learning.
They may get teased by people outide their own group for being nerds, etc. But good grades are rewarded with approval within their own ethnic group. By their parents, mostly, but by the rest of their support group as well. Their community as a whole.
I’ve seen more than one TV news special about kids who try to get good grades being accused by their peers of “acting white”. None of these kids were Asian or Jewish.
The first link is good enough for me: students educated in China outperform Chinese-Canadian students outperform non-Chinese Canadians. In the article, it is attributed to the students having memorized the most basic computations of the problem (14 divided by 2, for example) and being thus freed to consider the rest of the problem and proceed more quickly. The smaller but still significant percentage of Chinese-Canadian students who could outperform the non-Chinese group could quite easily be explained by the tutoring efforts of their parents, teaching them the same memorization system that they presumably learned in the same Chinese school system that educated the highest-performing group. Works for me.
Why is this in the Pit?
Perhaps because MAFA (say it out loud, folks ;)), our new friend, was expecting to, ah, provoke certain sorts of responses?
i’m guessing this may be the reason for some.
when your native language is not english, math would be way easier to understand (and to therefore concentrate your studies on) than a language which you would not use frequently. given a choice between english and maths, which would a non-native speaker find easier to study for? the foreign language with it’s varied rules and nuances that some people still cannot agree on; or mathematics, the science of numbers with it’s strict rules and clear concepts?
btw, i hear that they are adjusting the SAT to add in additional english language modules, presumably to balance out those who depend on maths to bring up their SAT scores. is this true?
Sorry, I just had to comment on this. I’m Jewish, and you’ve never seen anyone who is worse with money than me.
It was a joke. son, I say a joke.
All I know is, my parents made me memorize my multiplication tables at the tender age of eight and recite them by rote. To this day I can’t do 5 x 7 without slipping into Chinese…
So, what did the lesbian men get?