The role of parents' perception of empowerment and Asian American students’ college enrollment

May is Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month, and it is important to acknowledge the diverse experiences represented in this one group. The term, “Asian American,” alone, refers to people whose families originated from over 20 countries in East and Southeast Asia and India. In this article, authors Kim et al. note that treating Asian Americans as a monolithic group can have negative impacts as a result of “masking wide income and education disparities.” For instance, the “model minority” stereotype assumes all Asian students perform equally well academically. This puts students from backgrounds with less education and income at risk of being overlooked by teachers and counselors. These students’ families also may feel marginalized and “experience powerlessness in helping their children with their education due to language barriers, long working hours, and little knowledge of the education system.”

In their recent article, authors Kim et al. looked at disparities in college enrollment among different Asian American ethnic groups and whether parents’ perceptions of their empowerment in their children’s schooling has a relationship to their children’s college enrollment. For their analysis, Kim et al. used data available from the High School Longitudinal Study, 2009-2013 [United States] (ICPSR 36423). Known as the HSLS:09, this nationally representative longitudinal study was conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, and the public-use files for the base-year and first follow-up waves are distributed by the National Archive of Data on Arts & Culture. The base wave took place in the 2009-2010 school year, with a randomly selected sample of 23,503 fall-term 9th-graders in more than 900 public and private high schools. In addition to survey and assessment information gathered from students, their parents, principals, and math and science teachers and the school’s lead counselor also completed surveys. The first follow-up of HSLS:09 took place in the spring of 2012, when most sample members were completing 11th grade. An update took place in the summer of 2013, to learn about the cohort’s postsecondary plans and decisions. High school transcripts were collected in the fall of 2013.

Kim et al. specifically looked at a sample of 357 parents whose ethnicity could be categorized as Chinese, Filipino, Southeast Asian, South Asian, or East Asian, and who were surveyed along with their children. For the dependent variable, college enrollment, Kim et al. evaluated the types of postsecondary education programs that students reported they enrolled in after high school graduation. Multiple variables present in the HSLS:09 parent interviews helped the authors measure parents’ sense of both individual and community empowerment. And the control variables they used were parents’ occupation, education, and level of family income, as well as students’ academic achievement as indicated by their 9th grade GPA, and whether their school was public or private, and rural or urban. Kim et al. found that disparities in college enrollment exist among Asian ethnic subgroups, and parent empowerment plays a crucial role in reducing these disparities, although its impact varies depending on factors like income, school type, and community participation. For instance, just one of multiple findings indicated that parent empowerment played a significant role in eliminating disparities in college enrollment between Filipino or Southeast Asian students and their South Asian and Chinese peers. Kim et al. emphasized the importance of recognizing and addressing these disparities to ensure equal access to higher education for all Asian American students.