The Academic Achievement of Vietnamese American Students: Ethnicity as Social Capital

Abstract

In this study, we investigate whether ethnicity, understood as a set of social relations among ethnic group members and not simply as a social category, may be seen as a source of unequal educational outcomes. We focus on Vietnamese youth in a particular U.S. community. Using data from an achievement test taken by public high school students in Louisiana, we investigate whether or not there are differences in test scores among Vietnamese, black and white students in two schools where there are large numbers of Vietnamese students. We find that the Vietnamese outperform the other groups, and that white students do somewhat better than black students. We consider whether these differences can be attributed to socioeconomic differences or differences in family structure among the groups and find that once we control for socioeconomic factors, the Vietnamese do even better relative to the other groups. We then look at data from a survey administered to Vietnamese students in these schools and find that the strongest predictors of achievement are the racial / ethnic identities of these students' friends. We conclude that Vietnamese achievement is not attributable to socioeconomic or family structure, but to social relations among members of the ethnic group. We suggest that this can be interpreted by viewing ethnicity as a form of social capital.