Title: "WHY DO ASIANS DO WELL AT SCHOOL?" by Setsuo Otsuka
Headings: "WHY DO ASIANS DO WELL AT SCHOOL?"
"WHY DO ASIANS DO WELL AT SCHOOL?"
Setsuo Otsuka
Education
Victoria University of Wellington
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONTENTS

Content: In the 1960's, in America the Japanese ranked first among all racial minorities in education, and they have continued to exhibit high achievement in school (Ueda, 1974). A study (Bachu, 1991, cited in Stewart, 1993) has suggested that Japanese immigrants (42.3%) are more likely to hold a highschool diploma than native Americans (39.9%). The study (Bachu, 1991) has also shown that 30.5% of Japanese immigrants have a university degree, as compared with 19.3% American born people who hold it. 42.8% of Chinese immigrants are university graduates. Lynn' s work (1988) has shown the international comparison. Japanese children in the United States have achieved the highest average mark on tests of science and mathematics (see the tables 1 & 2 in the appendix). " The average Japanese 12-year-old is approximately at the same academic level as the average 15-year-old in the West" (Lynn,1988, p.11). EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE IMMIGRANTS AND U.S. CITIZENS OF ASIAN DESCENT
The following figures suggest that educational achievement by American-born Asians is lower than that of young people from the same ethnic groups who are sent to the United States to study. Obviously, those ethnic immigrants are involved in their own home culture much more than those who were born in the United States, because of the difference of the process of their socialization. In this respect, it could be assumed that their home cultural background may play an important role in producing their high achievement in education.