Asian American students have been getting the strongest academic support from their parents, teachers and friends, but a study suggests that they may not find it very beneficial. This is attributed to the tension and high expectations of their parents about their academic performance.
According to the study by NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, published in the Asian American Journal of Psychology, Asian American student might instead be feeling pressure and tension from the support that they have been receiving, Science Daily reported.
Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, assistant professor of international education at NYU Steinhardt and author of the study, said that the tension produced from the immigrants' parents high expectations of their children may be the reason why second generation Asian-Americans feel the pressure. While the kind of support that students get from their parents, friends, and teachers are very important in their journey to success, these contribute to how they form their academic expectations.
The high academic expectations and the support they get from others are reasons for why they also expect too much of themselves to get good grades and achieve better outcomes in academics.
However, the effects of academic social support are not the same for all students, according to NYU. The researchers have found that academic social support is an important factor in the formation of the expectations of those going to college and that second-generation Asian Americans are the ones who have received the strongest social support. They also found that the social support coming from parents, teachers and friends are not uniform and second-generation Asian American don't really receive so much benefits from the support they are getting.
The study aims to show that more efforts should be taken in order to acknowledge and address the issue.
