<p>And my whole point was to discuss the CULTURAL factors that shape the educational trajectories of different groups of people. So yes, I can compare the Hmong and the Chinese and Vietnamese and Haitians and Soviet Jews. It is not a political or even historical discussion. </p>
<p>It is about cultural inheritance and cultural expectations. In Britain, middle-class people go to museums, and working class people go to football games. Do you want to apply your analytical framework of victimhood to them? It might make you sound like a good Marxist. That would be an interesting development!</p>
<p>
[quote]
So yes, I can compare the Hmong and the Chinese and Vietnamese and Haitians and Soviet Jews
[/quote]
No, I don't understand how you can compare the Hmong with the Vietnamese in terms of their ability to merge immediately into the academic world, any more than you could compare the ability of any other pre-literate person with a more cultured person. It doesn't make sense.</p>
<p>"..we find that participation in some extracurricular activities in high school makes it much more likely that a student will go on to college...participation in a student hobby club makes a student much more likely..."</p>
<p>As Mikemac pointed out, the above statements are not supported by the evidence in the article. Indeed, such conclusions CANNOT be derived from data such as the authors used.</p>
<p>Frankly, the article disappoints me, as it gives none of the information we'd like to see in order to evaluate the authors observations, such as subsample size, statistical tests of significance, amount of variance accounted for by the variable, etc. </p>
<p>As background, the logical flaw with articles like these is as follows:</p>
<p>Does parental art museum attendance lead to Harvard? Or does some other quality exist that both leads parents to go to museums AND helps them raise kids more attractive to Harvard? We can't tell from after the fact surveys.</p>
<p>Driver, I think the Hmong, and the great hardships they have endured not only to assimilate but to reclaim their cultural heritage, exemplify the cultural bias of advantaged vs. disadvantaged posited by Bordieu and Passeron in their study of democratization and the ease in which certain people are able to enter into and adapt to the academic world. "Cultural heritage" does indeed shape, but I would hesitate to say, determine the educational future of individuals. Bordieu's whole point was that individuals do have cultural baggage and do integrate "dispositions" or ways of behaving, speaking, making judgements just to plain old get around in the world. </p>
<p>Are you arguing in favor of a deterministic historic trajectory that would indicate that elitism is indeed a closed off club in which tickets to the opera, or knowledge of impressionist painters proves to be the only way to gain entrance?</p>
<p>Your argumet continues to be beside the point.</p>
<p>Asteriskea: thank you for making the point of THIS thread clear.</p>
<p>NMD: Does museum-going by parents lead to Harvard? Or does some other quality exist that leads to both museum-going by parents and going to Harvard by children? Apart from the fact that there may be only some correlation between museum-going and being admitted to Harvard and no causal link, I think the authors argue that there is this "other quality" and it is cultural capital. Like all capital, it can be acquired; it is not innate. But some start with more and some with less. So, if people who have never before gone to museums start going, they will eventually be able to discuss art history with their children. </p>
<p>Some decades ago, few Asians listened to or played Western classical music. Nowadays, orchestras are full of Asians and Asian-Americans. Today's NYT has a review of a free Memorial Day Concert at the Cathedral of St John the Divine that was conducted by a Chinese, and a woman to boot.</p>
<p>As I tried to suggest in my example from living in Thatcherite Britian, it is not only a matter of money; it is really culture. And as EP Thompson showed, there is such a thing as working-class culture. Other scholars have explored bourgeois culture in Europe and elsewhere.</p>
<p>We spent next to nothing going to Covent Garden and nothing at all going to museums. Football fans, however, spent a small fortune each time they attended a game. In fact, while we were in Britain, there was a public discussion about whether the government should continue to subsidize middle-class culture given that the original intent was to make art more accessible to the working class.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Are you arguing in favor of a deterministic historic trajectory
[/quote]
This is the kind of formulation that would make me want to shoot myself, were I still an undergrad. Thank Heaven for small favors. Actually, I'm not sure that I'm arguing anything other than my initial response to Marite's post #7. There are advantages and disadvantages to colonization. The dominant castes of Indochina experienced many of the benefits of European rule. The outcasts did not. So, it's not reasonable to compare their respective outcomes as US immigrants.</p>
<p>Marite, as an edit: You seem to misapprehend the extreme lack of status of certain ethnic tribes in SE Asia, and as such, you are unable to comprehend the depth of the prejudice they deal with.</p>
<p>Thanks for clarfying that you were using the word caste "colloquially" in the middle of a history lesson.
But it is still irrelevant to a discussion of college going in the US. I have never ever claimed that the Hmong or other ethnic minorities have not suffered discrimination and downright oppression and repression (as is currently the case). You do not know enough about me to know what I know or do not know about the Hmong or other minorities in Vietnam or elsewhere, or what I feel or do not feel about them. So please spare me your moralisitic character analysis.</p>
<p>Want a good book to read instead of arguing on CC? Read Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. It's required reading in many medical schools.</p>
<p>Totally OT (and I don't plan to get on T), but I actually am in the middle of rereading that book, evaluating whether or not to use it in my fall writing class. It is indeed a wonderful book, Marite.</p>
<p>
[quote]
On Driver's point: European colonization may explain the success of Vietnamese (but the Hmong got colonized by the French, too) but not the Chinese. There certainly were treaty ports where European influence was strong, but there are plenty of Chinese who have succeeded and come from provinces not under such influence. In Asia, the two biggest success stories, Korea and Taiwan were under Japanese colonial rule.
[/quote]
Marite, as I've said repeatedly, my comment was in response to the above post by you, #7. If you think I'm off the mark--if you think that the Hmong tribesmen experienced the same benefits of French rule as the dominant groups in Indochina, feel free to enlighten me. My first use of the word "caste" was in response to Mini's post, #4, in which he conflated the Hmong with the "Dalits from India"--that's a caste, btw, often known as "untouchables." Live and learn, but don't talk down to me.</p>
<p>Anne Fadiman really can write! I was actually discussing this book earlier in the day (before getting engaged in this T, as you put it) with an anthropologist. We were talking about life histories that are constructed through illness. Arthur Kleinman, one of the two anthropologists discussed in the book wrote The Illness Narratives. He has another book just out, called Life Matters.</p>
<p>"...Or does some other quality exist that leads to both museum-going by parents and going to Harvard by children? Apart from the fact that there may be only some correlation between museum-going and being admitted to Harvard and no causal link, I think the authors argue that there is this "other quality" and it is cultural capital. "</p>
<p>Precisely. Thanks for staying On Topic. And the authors did not offer a causal link, for others who are arguing "against" that. (Let's hear it for Straw Men!)</p>
<p>And NMD, the article is not exhaustive. Most articles are not. Some articles in scientific journals are; some of those are even abbreviated, & the reader is referred to a fuller study. Perhaps if you took the time to contact the authors or otherwise researched their data, the questions you asked would be answered, including whether you approve of the study's design & scope.</p>
<p>Thanks for the correction, Marite. :) Although now that I think about it, there IS a group that's viewed education as the sole means to gain status and power in the community for close to 4000 years...Jews. And not coincidentally, they're just as overrepresented at top schools in the U.S. as East Asians.</p>
<p>I'm so sorry I forgot about Jews! Of course Jews have valued education for 4,000 years! It was the high stake test that led me to assume you were referring to East Asians and more specifically Chinese. There's a rather rollicking 18th-century novel called The Scholars which features a 60-year old man still attempting to pass the exam--and dropping dead of joy when he does pass (at least it is claimed that he died of joy and not merely old age). And the Taiping rebellion was launched by a man who failed the exams several times (he also believed himself to be God's younger son--see Jonathan Spence's book of the same title).
Maybe there is something to the cliche that Chinese are the Jews of East Asia. And of course, both have succeeded spectacularly in academia once they were allowed to.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Perhaps if you took the time to contact the authors or otherwise researched their data, the questions you asked would be answered, including whether you approve of the study's design & scope.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>epiphany, this comment is uncalled for IMHO. I commented on what the article said. You seem to want to go way beyond that. </p>
<p>Why? What does this add to the discussion? You may not like my message. That does not change the data, nor does it change logic, unless one inhabits some sort of parallel universe.</p>
<p>Hah, I love the title! I got two of the three (Chess (State Champs '06! ) and Chopin (I swear I'm a siamese twin with my piano)), but the Cheerleading? That might be a little awkward, being male ;)</p>
<p>"Frankly, the article disappoints me, as it gives none of the information we'd like to see in order to evaluate the authors observations, such as subsample size, statistical tests of significance, amount of variance accounted for by the variable, etc. </p>
<p>NMD:
In light of the above,I don't think my comment which you quoted was at all "uncalled for." It was an appropriate response to a complaint about the <em>article,</em> when articles often do not contain the kind of full disciplined scientific information which you claim you are seeking in that citation, above. Since you were seeking further data, it seems that getting it directly from The Source, or close to it, would be better than stating that CC posters have made claims to the study that some of us have not made (and then criticizing US). As you must know, articles are summaries & generalizations, or alternatively, teases. If this were a journal treatise, I could see the reason for your "disappointment."</p>
<p>Further, I think my suggestion that you take the time to do the research, rather than direct your annoyance inappropriately at me or any other poster not representing the researchers, is perfectly appropriate -- not to mention a lot less insulting and personal than your insinuation that I "inhabit some sort of parallel universe." This comment of yours springs from nowhere, except possibly some personal distaste and prejudice on your part, about whether I can or cannot argue logically. (I can & do, sir; you may not want to accept the eivdence of that; that's your problem.)</p>
<p>I have to agree with NMD that the article is written for a general audience and is skimpy on data analysis and exposition of methodological framework . So it is indeed difficult to evaluate the authors' interpretations of the data. We have largely been proceeding on the assumption that their data analysis is correct and focused on their interpretation.</p>
<p>It makes sense to me on the basis of my own empirical knowledge rather than because I was persuaded by the article itself.</p>
<p>Newmassdad/mikemac, the insidehighered article merely summarizes the basic points of the Gabler and Kaufman study. The opening lines are basically teasers that give the said article an edge that invites discussion of the topic. Indeed, the author repeatedly mentions that the study is open to criticism - that it is "limited" and "unusual". Unusual, indeed, that a Princeton Ph.D and Harvard Ph.D. candidate would spend so much time evaluating just how EC's figure into the elite admissions game. (Shades of CC!) :)</p>
<p>In any case, as you often posit, life isn't fair and many people have the deck stacked against them. Exactly the point of this article. This is where the Bordieu paradigm comes in. Some people have reading impediments. Some students do badly or well on the SAT (which is supposed to be a social/economic leveler hence the counterpoint of democratization and meritocracy to any real or perceived tip factor related to ECs embedded in this issue of elite admissions. The article does make the clear point that the study in question indicates that EC participation in most areas, including varsity team sports, does not affect elite admissions that much if at all - except for the mention of positions on the yearbook or school newspaper. A contentious position- given the high interest in ECs as tip factors- that most people on this forum would not readily agree upon.</p>
<p>Obviously, this study is linked to statistical data from the NELS - we are merely commenting on the story, not conducting a treatise on methodology or attempting to critique the research behind it.</p>