谢宇最新研究揭示：亚裔美国学生为何比白人成绩好？
►谢宇（左）与柳皑然（右）
编者按：
亚裔美国学生为何总体上要比白人学生学习成绩好？就此普遍存在的现象，普林斯顿大学社会学和国际研究Bert G. Kerstetter '66大学教授、北京大学千人计划讲座教授和社会研究中心主任谢宇和密西根大学的研究生柳皑然，在7月出版的《社会科学研究》杂志（Social Science Research）上发表了最新研究工作，并就此接受普林斯顿大学官网的采访，深入探讨了经济因素和文化因素是如何交互作用而对亚裔学生的成绩优势产生影响。
撰文 | Michael Hotchkiss
翻译 | 柳皑然
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为什么亚裔美国学生总体上要比白人学生学习成绩好呢？
一直以来，研究人员认为亚裔美国学生比白人学生成绩好主要有两个原因：首先，美国社会中亚裔家庭大都具备更加优越的社会经济条件；其次，从价值理念上讲，亚裔家庭比起其它族裔更重视孩子们学业上的成功。
普利斯顿大学社会学系的谢宇教授和密西根大学的研究生柳皑然在他们最近的研究中更进一步探讨了这些经济因素和文化因素是如何交互作用而对亚裔学生的成绩优势产生影响的。谢宇是普林斯顿大学Bert G. Kerstetter '66 社会学和普林斯顿国际和区域研究所教授。
►家庭社会经济状况与学生成绩差异关系的四种可能
“如果你问亚裔学生和白人学生的成绩差异到底如何，实际上，如果白人学生和亚裔学生都来自具有较高社会经济地位和家长受过较好教育的家庭，那么他们的成绩并没有很明显的差异。”谢宇接着说，“但是，他们如果来自贫困的家庭，或者是家长没有接受过很高教育的家庭的话，亚裔学生和白人学生的成绩差别将会是很大的。在这部分低社会经济地位的群体中，族裔间的成绩差异十分明显。”
谢宇接着说：“所以，尽管在来自优越条件家庭的亚裔学生和白人学生之间成绩差异很小，然而来自较差家庭条件的亚裔学生，比起来自同等家庭条件的白人学生而言，在学校学习方面表现更优。这一部分亚裔学生在学校学习上的成功可以归结为他们自己和他们的家庭对于刻苦努力和教育成就的强调和重视。”
►社会心理及家庭的社会经济状况等因素对学生成绩的影响
这个名为“为什么亚裔学生比白人学生学习成绩更高？——文化角度的重新考察”的研究详细探讨了这些差异，并发表于7月的《社会科学研究》杂志（Social Science Research）上。
谢宇和柳皑然使用了美国教育纵贯研究调查的数据，对其中9000个美国十年级的亚裔和白人学生做了分析。这个调查是美国国家教育统计数据中心自2002年起开始所做的具有全美代表性的调查。调查中不仅收集了学生们的学习成绩信息，还收集了他们的学习态度、学生自身以及家长的教育期望、学生在学校的行为等信息。
在他们的研究中，谢宇和柳皑然使用了调查中的数学测试、语文测试以及在校总平均成绩（GPA）来衡量学生的教育成就。他们发现亚裔学生的家庭社会经济条件实际上比白人学生要差，但是亚裔学生学习成绩却比白人学生更好。并且，相比起白人学生，亚裔学生在自评的努力程度以及接受优良教育的重要性这两方面得分更高。总体上，社会经济地位和学习成绩之间的联系在亚裔学生中间更弱。
正如文章中所写，研究的结果“支持了我们的论点：比起白人学生，亚裔美国学生的学习态度和行为更不易受到家庭社会经济地位的影响。这种族裔间的差别某种程度上导致了亚裔学生在学业上的优势，尤其是在来自低社会经济地位家庭的这部分学生中亚裔学生的优势。”
纽约城市大学皇后学院的社会学系助理教授Amy Hsin 说：“这个新的研究很重要。之前的研究显示亚裔学生在学业上的成就大部分可以归结于他们家庭优越的经济条件，然而柳和谢的研究却提供了有力的证据证明之前的这个论点是有问题的。如他们研究中所示，事实上，亚裔学生相对于白人学生的整体成绩优势主要源于低社会经济水平学生群体中亚裔学生相对于白人学生的成绩优势。”Amy之前和谢宇也在这个领域有过其他的合作研究。Hsin接着说，“柳和谢的研究凸显了社会因素对于更好地理解低社会经济水平亚裔学生学业成功的重要性。”
谢宇说，这个研究说明学生的学业成就不一定完全归结为学生家庭的经济背景，“如果孩子们认为他们能通过教育摆脱贫困的束缚，这将是一个很好的事情”。
在未来的研究中，谢宇希望能够更加细致地研究亚裔群体的内部差异，并且希望能够找到更好的测量变量去衡量诸如个人抱负、抗打击力和自觉性等非智力能力。
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英文原文报道
Economics, culture intersect to shape
Asian Americans' academic advantage
Michael Hotchkiss
Why do Asian American students, on average, outperform their white classmates?
Researchers have long pointed to two explanations: Asian Americans families are comparatively well-off and they place a stronger emphasis on academic success for their children.
New research by Princeton sociologist Yu Xie and University of Michigan graduate student Airan Liu paints a more complicated picture of how these economic and cultural forces interact.
"If you ask the question of how Asians differ from whites, they actually don't differ much if they're all from high socio-economic, well-educated families," said Xie, the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor of Sociology and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. "They differ a lot if they come from families that are poor or uneducated. For children from those families, racial differences are pronounced."
So while the gap in academic achievement between white students from well-off and well-educated families and similar Asian American students is small, Xie said, Asian American students from poor families are much more likely to perform well academically than their white counterparts. The success of these Asian American students can be traced to the premium they and their families place on hard work and academic achievement, he said.
The research is detailed in an article titled "Why do Asian Americans academically outperform Whites? — The cultural explanation revisited," published this month in the journal Social Science Research.
Xie and Liu examined data on roughly 9,000 white and Asian American 10th-grade students from the Educational Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative survey that began in 2002. The survey, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, collected information about the students' academic performance as well as their work ethic, the educational expectations of the students and their parents, and the students' behavior in school.
The researchers found that Asian American students had lower socio-economic status (SES) than the white students in the survey but enjoyed greater academic achievement, as measured by math scores, reading scores and GPA. Asian American students rated higher on self-reported hard work and importance placed on a good education. Overall, the link between socio-economic status and academic achievement was weaker for Asian American students than for white students.
The findings "support our argument that Asian Americans' behaviors and attitudes are less influenced by family SES than those of whites are and this difference helps generate Asians' premium in achievement — as is especially evident at lower levels of SES," the researchers write in the article.
The new research is important because some previous work has suggested that the relative wealth of Asian Americans is responsible for their academic success, said Amy Hsin, an assistant professor of sociology at Queens College, City University of New York, who collaborated with Xie on prior research in this area.
"Liu and Xie offer compelling evidence that the opposite is true, namely, that it is the success of the most disadvantaged Asian Americans that drives Asian American achievement," Hsin said. "Their findings highlight the importance of better understanding the social conditions that facilitate the academic success of disadvantaged Asian Americans."
Xie said the research offers evidence that academic success need not be linked exclusively to a student's economic background.
"If children believe they can escape the traps of poverty by education, that's a good thing," he said.
In future research, Xie said he hopes to examine differences among Asian American groups more closely and to find better measures of noncognitive skills — such as ambition, resilience and conscientiousness — that lead to academic success.
英文原文报道发表在普林斯顿大学网站，点击文末“阅读原文”可见。
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