non-Asian Students Research Articles

Study in China and ‘Agency in Mobility’: Insights from African International Students’ Narratives

This article addresses two under-theorised subjects in international student mobility (ISM) research: non-Asian students and students in non-traditional study destinations. Drawing upon the notion of ‘agency in mobility’, I explored African international students’ narratives of their enactment of four different forms of agency in China. The findings reveal that they are not ‘insufficient’, ‘lazy’ and dumb’ populations as essentialised in the existing literature, instead, the participants exhibited high level of agency in response to adversity, study needs and life issues, and their future aspirations. Notwithstanding the same forms of agency displayed in previous ‘agency in mobility’ research undertaken in the West, I argue that agency performance was entangled with scholarship status; scholarship recipients tended to navigate institutional and social structures with a softer approach. The findings have important implications for higher education institutions to change their practices to enhance China's higher education brand for global competitiveness.

Subjective well-being of international students

Students’ adjustment and well-being in a cross-cultural context have become important topics in international higher education studies. This study explored the psychological mechanism underlying the impact of perceived discrimination and perceived health status on the subjective well-being of international students. The responses of 358 international students were analyzed using the survey datasets. The results indicated that the perceived health status of international students had a significantly positive impact on their subjective well-being. Conversely, perceived discrimination had a negative impact on subjective well-being and community satisfaction. Notably, community satisfaction mediated the relationship between perceived discrimination and subjective well-being. Furthermore, the results revealed that the effect of community satisfaction on subjective well-being varied between the Asian and non-Asian students. These findings can assist higher education program providers in developing a community-oriented support system for students striving to adjust to cross-cultural environments.

The Influence Of Korean Dramas On The Perception Of Korean Girls' Beauty Standards Among International Students

Hallyu Wave, mainly known as Korean Wave from South Korea, has been spread out all over the world. This term is used to describe the popularity of Korean popular cultures in common. One of the Korean popular cultures that gain much attention in society around the world is their dramas. Korean dramas play an essential role in spreading the perception of girls' beauty standards. Therefore, this research aims to find out the influence of Korean dramas exposure that includes three variables, namely frequency, duration, and attention to the perception of Korean girls' beauty standards among international students. The population was from 8,275 international students pursuing bachelor's degrees in Sogang University, South Korea in Academic Year 2020/2021. According to the Slovin technique and purposive sampling, the research sample consisted of 100 international students that were divided into two different groups, Asian students and non-Asian students. Multiple linear regression was used to analyze the data. The results show that there was no individual influence between frequency, duration, and attention to Korean dramas exposure and the perception of Korean girls' beauty standards among Asian students. However, there was a negative influence between the duration of Korean dramas exposure and the perception of Korean girls' beauty standards among non-Asian students. Overall, the results show that frequency, duration, and attention to Korean dramas exposure did not influence the perception of Korean girls' beauty standards among Asian and non-Asian students.

Ethnic Differences in Response to COVID-19: A Study of American-Asian and Non-Asian College Students

Asian American students have experienced additional physical and emotional hardships associated with the COVID-19 pandemic due to increased xenophobic and anti-Asian discrimination. This study investigates different coping patterns and risk factors affecting Asian and non-Asian college students in response to COVID-19 challenges by studying the differences in their responses within four domains after the onset of the pandemic: academic adjustment, emotional adjustment, social support, and discriminatory impacts related to COVID-19. We first employed a machine learning approach to identify well-adjusted and poorly adjusted students in each of the four domains for the Asian and non-Asian groups, respectively. Next, we applied the SHAP method to study the principal risk factors associated with each classification task and analyzed the differences between the two groups. We based our study on a proprietary survey dataset collected from U.S. college students during the initial peak of the pandemic. Our findings provide insights into the risk factors and their directional impact affecting Asian and non-Asian students' well-being during the pandemic. The results could help universities establish customized strategies to support these two groups of students in this era of uncertainty. Applications for international communities are discussed.

White college students’ ethnocultural empathy toward Asians and Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic increase in racist acts against Asians and Asian Americans. Given this troubling reality, it is important to identify how non-Asians, such as White individuals, can better understand the racialized experiences of their Asian and Asian American peers during this time. As such, we set out to examine White college students' ethnocultural empathy toward Asians and Asian Americans during the pandemic. Specifically, based on theorizing on normative influence, we examined how peer support might be associated with increased ethnocultural empathy toward Asians and Asian Americans. Additionally, leadership support and gender were included as covariates. Participants were recruited from a predominantly White institution located in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Results based on hierarchical regression analyses indicated that ethnocultural empathy was predicted by gender and peer support. We also explored the moderating role of gender in the association between peer support and ethnocultural empathy, and we found that the positive association between peer support and ethnocultural empathy was greater for men compared to women. The findings of the present study have implications for advancing the research and practice around helping non-Asian students better understand and support their fellow Asian and Asian American students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) Impact Statement This study found that White students' empathy toward Asian and Asian American experiences of racism during COVID-19 was related to how their peers spoke about and responded to this issue, and this was especially true for White men compared to White women. The findings suggest some practical ways to help non-Asian individuals to better understand the experiences of racism among Asians and Asian Americans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

Investigating the relationship between mathematics anxiety, mathematical resilience and mathematics support engagement: an analysis of demographic and cohort factors

Engagement with mathematics support has been of interest for several years, particularly because some students who may benefit from using support do not avail themselves of it. It has been suggested that these students may be those who are mathematics anxious; they may have had previous negative learning experiences with mathematics and thus demonstrate avoidance behaviours such as procrastination and not seeking help. In this paper, the results of mathematical resilience (MR) and anxiety questionnaires (MA) will be investigated. This investigation is conducted at the level of the whole cohort of students and also broken down by a range of demographic features. Consideration is also given to whether there is any relationship between student mathematics anxiety and resilience on the one hand and whether or not they engage with mathematics and statistics support services on the other.The analysis reveals a weak negative correlation between MA and MR at whole cohort level. In terms of demographic characteristics, students on courses with no mathematics A-level entry requirement were significantly more mathematics anxious than those on courses with a mathematics A-level entry-requirement. They were also less mathematically resilient. Female students, non-Asian students, mature students and disabled students, on average, also had higher MA scores, whilst female students and mature students were also significantly less mathematically resilient.

Association of Preadmission Factors With Physician Assistant Student Diversity.

A new physician assistant (PA) program accreditation standard requires institutional support for PA student diversity. Therefore, preadmission factors associated with diversity should be identified to inform decision-making. The purpose of this study was to explore associations between preadmission factors of interest and percentages of underrepresented minority (URM) students in PA programs. Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) survey responses from 169 PA programs were analyzed by using simultaneous multiple regression. The variables included the standardized testing requirement of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), undergraduate preprofessional phase, public or private institution, writing sample requirement, mission statement inclusive of care for underserved populations, and local racial or ethnic demographics. GRE score requirements were found to be negatively associated with percentages of African American and total non-White, non-Asian students (p < .05). Local URM racial and ethnic population demographics were shown to be positively associated with African American, Hispanic, and total non-White, non-Asian students (p < .05). Undergraduate preprofessional phase, type of institution, writing sample requirement, and mission statement supportive of underserved populations did not show significant associations with URM diversity. Faculty and administration members who are involved in decision-making in PA admissions processes should consider the potentially negative impact of a GRE requirement as it relates to the percentages of African American and total non-White, non-Asian matriculants. Educational institutions might also consider exploring new PA program development in geographic areas with supportive local demographics as an approach to achieving more student diversity.

Equity in high school computer science: Beyond access

Little is known about the extent to which expansions of K-12 computer science (CS) have been equitable for students of different racial backgrounds and gender identities. Using longitudinal course-level data from all high schools in California between the 2003–2004 and 2018–2019 school years we find that 79% of high school students in California, including majorities of all racial groups, are enrolled in schools that offer CS, up from 45% in 2003. However, while male and female students are equally likely to attend schools that offer CS courses, CS courses represent a much smaller share of course enrollments for female students than for male students. Non-Asian students enroll in relatively few CS courses, and this is particularly true for Black, Hispanic, and Native American students. Race gaps in CS participation are to a substantial degree explicable in terms of access gaps, but gender gaps in CS participation are not. Different groups of students have access to CS teachers with similar observable qualifications, but CS teachers remain predominantly white and male. Consequently, white and male CS students are much more likely than other students to have same-race or same-gender instructors. Our findings and the implications we draw for practice will be of interest to administrators and policymakers who, over and above needing to ensure equitable access to CS courses for students, need to attend carefully to equity-related course participation and staffing considerations.

Beyond Black and White: The Impact of Asian Peers on Scholastic Achievement

This paper examines the effects of Asian peers on non-Asian student achievement in New York City public schools. We use exogenous variation in the share of Asian students across cohorts within schools stemming from a fertility shock among the Asian population in the Chinese year of the Dragon. Results show that a 10-percentage-point increase in the share of Asian students reduces non-Asian math and ELA scores by 0.14 and 0.16 standard deviations. The reduction in achievement is associated with an increase in the share of non-Asian students who fail to demonstrate the skills expected at the grade, especially in math.

Self-Orientalization in the East Asian Medical Community

Traditional medical practices have yielded to modern Western Allopathic Medicine in much of the world. However, Traditional East Asian Medicine (aka Traditional Chinese Medicine) which includes Acupuncture, Asian Herbalism, Asian Bodywork, and Meditative Breathing Practices (Taijiquan / Qigong) has grown in popularity around the world. In the United States, Traditional East Asian Medicine has entered mainstream culture, becoming licensed as a type of healthcare service. The development of this type of medicine in the United States began in the late nineteenth century with Asian immigration, but in the latter part of the twentieth century grew from a localized ethnic enclave based cultural practice into a larger social phenomenon reactive to socio cultural dynamics in the medical industrial complex. However, intrinsic in this rise and integration with majority culture has been the inculcation of Orientalized attitudinal poles that rely on stereotypical, trivialized, and racist interpretations of the very traditions that they seem to embrace. This paper examines the aspect of this Orientalizing process in the East Asian Medical community in the United States among immigrants, second generation, and non-Asian students and practitioners.

Crosscultural transitions in a bilingual context: the interplays between bilingual, individual and interpersonal factors and adaptation

ABSTRACT As a regional hub for education, Hong Kong has seen a growing population of international students. In contrast to existing conceptual models in acculturation literature that are typically devoted to studying long-term settlers such as migrants or refugees in English speaking countries, this study develops and tests a fine-grained model for degree-seeking mobile students in East Asia. A mixed-method study was conducted: a survey of 619 international students across six Hong Kong universities and focus group interviews with 22 Asian and nine non-Asian students. Bilingual competences were found to play significant roles in predicting sociocultural adaptation together with academic efficacy, social support, contact with locals, and psychological adaptation. This study offers practical and managerial insights for educational policymakers, university senior management and administrations, academicians, and research communities on how to manage the expansion and accommodate the needs of international students so that we can cater for a culturally diverse body of students. This research is significant because it extends the literature by examining sociocultural adjustment during crosscultural transitions in the increasingly globalised context of Hong Kong.

Asian Adolescents with Excess Weight are at Higher Risk for Insulin Resistance than Non-Asian Peers.

ObjectiveEvaluate whether Asian-American adolescents have higher metabolic risk from excess weight than non-Asians.Methods733 students, 14- to 19-years old, completed a school-based health screening. The 427 Asian and 306 non-Asian students were overall equivalent on age, sex, and family income. Height, weight, waist circumference, percent body fat, and blood pressure were measured. Fasting bloods measured triglycerides, high- and low-density lipoproteins, glucose, and insulin levels. Asian and non-Asians in lean or overweight/obese groups were contrasted on the 5 factors that make up the Metabolic Syndrome.ResultsAsian adolescents carrying excess weight had significantly higher insulin resistance (IR), triglyceride levels, and waist to height ratios (W/H), despite a significantly lower overall body mass index (BMI) than corresponding non-Asian. Similarly, Asians had a stronger relationship between W/H and the degree of IR than non-Asian counterparts; 35% and 18% of the variance were explained (R2=0.35, R2=0.18) respectively, resulting in a significant W/H by racial group interaction (Fchange(1,236) = 11.56, p<0.01).ConclusionsDespite lower overall BMIs, Asians have higher IR and triglyceride levels from excess weight than their non-Asian counterparts. One-size-fits-all public health policies targeting youth should be reconsidered and attention paid to Asian adolescents, including those with mild degrees of excess weight.

Race, Ideology, and Academic Ability: A Relational Analysis of Racial Narratives in Mathematics

Background/ContextThere is evidence that race affects students’ learning experiences in mathematics, a subject typically thought of as “race-neutral” and “culture-free.” Research in psychology and sociology has shown that racial narratives (e.g., “Asians are good at math”) are pervasive in U.S. culture and play a critical role in shaping people's lived experiences. However, racial narratives have received little explicit attention in the mathematics education literature.PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine the racial ideological context of mathematics education, specifically in terms of how students made sense of racial narratives about academic ability.ParticipantsThirty-five students identifying as Asian, Black or African American, Latinx, Polynesian, White, and mixed race were interviewed. These students were recruited from four mathematics classrooms observed by the author at a racially diverse high school in Northern California.Research DesignThis qualitative study employed an ethnographic research design to gather data on the meanings students constructed around issues of race in the context of mathematics.Data Collection and AnalysisA semistructured interview protocol was used to conduct individual interviews with each student participant. Field notes were taken during 130 hours of participant observation over the course of a school year. Interview transcripts and field notes were analyzed for instances in which participants invoked racial narratives. Each of these narratives was first coded by topic and by the racial group to which the narrative referred. Narrative clusters were then identified and analyzed in order to understand how the narratives were related to each other.FindingsStudents invoked a variety of racial narratives about both mathematical and nonmathematical topics (e.g., athletic ability, general intelligence, parenting practices). Importantly, students did not invoke these narratives in isolation. Instead, nearly all of these narratives were invoked in conjunction with at least one other narrative. This relationality among racial narratives shows how the academic abilities of learners from diverse racial backgrounds are constructed in relation to each other, often in ways that position non-Asian students of color as inferior in mathematics.Conclusions/RecommendationsThis article suggests the need for study designs and analytical approaches that theorize race as a relational construct that transcends the Black-White paradigm. Further, this article challenges researchers and practitioners to reconsider boundaries between what is deemed “mathematical” and “nonmathematical” in classroom discourse, specifically with respect to sociopolitical phenomena like race. Two African American boys, Will and Derrick, wait patiently as their math teacher circulates the room. She is passing back the results of the latest math test. Will receives his grade: He earned an ‘A.’ Derrick sees Will's grade and exclaims: “Oh you're hecka smart in math! You must have some Asian in you!”

The relationships among high school STEM learning experiences, expectations, and mathematics and science efficacy and the likelihood of majoring in STEM in college

ABSTRACTThis study examines college students’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) choices as they relate to high school experiences, parent, teacher, and self-expectations, and mathematics and science efficacy. Participants were 2246 graduates of a STEM-focused public Harmony Public Schools in Texas, Harmony Public Schools (HPS). Descriptive analyses indicated that the overall percentage of HPS graduates who chose a STEM major in college was greater than Texas state and national averages. Logistic regression analyses revealed that males and Asian students are more likely to choose a STEM major in college than females and non-Asian students, respectively. Moreover, students whose parents had a college degree in the U.S. are more likely to major in STEM fields than those who did not. Furthermore, males with higher mathematics efficacy and females with higher science efficacy are more likely to choose a STEM major than their counterparts with lower mathematics and science efficacy.

How Tinto’s Theory Differs for Asian and Non-Asian International Students: A Quantitative Study

Literature suggests that international students from Asian countries might differ in the way they can be supported in their efforts towards completing their degree. Using the 2004/09 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, the authors investigate how social and academic integration relate to the college persistence of Asian and non-Asian international undergraduate students at U.S. postsecondary institutions. Four logistic regression models revealed that Asian and non-Asian students differed in the way academic and social integration were related to persistence, depending on their year of undergraduate study. These findings signal the importance of year of study and cultural background in thinking about how to support student degree completion.

International Students in Asia: Travel Behaviors and Destination Perceptions

This study investigates the incidence of international student travel in Taiwan. It was found that Chinese, Asian and other international students behave somewhat differently from respondents in prior studies conducted in Western settings. Cultural background influenced the travel behaviors of international students as well as their perceptions of Taiwan as a tourism destination. The visiting friends and relatives (VFR) market induced by Asian respondents offers greater tourism-related potential than the travel activity that students themselves undertake. The contrary was found for non-Asian students where the student-induced VFR market is small and prospectively less attractive than the student market. The Chinese international student travel market and induced VFR market showed less potential than anticipated, perhaps because of the embryonic stage of diplomatic and commercial relations between Taiwan and mainland China.

Students with Varied Degrees of Asianness: Goldmine for Crosscultural Exchange

In many Australian universities, “Asian” students have become a prominent feature in Japanese language courses. Some experts in Japanese language education express concern that this popularity amongst Asian students may shake the perception of Japanese as a subject in which students from all backgrounds can compete fairly, and that this phenomena may be a disincentive for non-Asian students to learn the language. I argue that we should not dichotomize students into Asian and nonAsian, since the degree of Asianness in Asian students in fact varies greatly. We should make the most of what we have; students with varied backgrounds are a goldmine for crosscultural exchange. In this paper, I firstly examine students with different degrees of Asianness, and analyzes their motivations for learning the language, and their perceptions about the course. The study reveals that certain motivations and perceptions are affected by the degree of Asianness, but not as a binary mapping (Asian vs. non-Asian). Based on the findings, I make suggestions for turning the classroom environment into one more conducive to crosscultural learning, and thus beneficial to all students. Lastly, I present a pilot study built around the suggestions.

What do students know anyway? High school graduates’ examination of standards and the responses of expert educators for educational equity

The standards movement in the US has ballooned over the past generation of education reforms to the extent that standards have become a prominent feature of the educational architecture. Most curriculum planning is informed by local, state, and/or interstate content area standards. While the 1980s central focus on the international competitiveness of US education has waxed and waned somewhat, the practice of comparative analysis has persisted. As such, there has been a steady rise in the debates regarding the achievement gap between White and non-Asian minority students. Educational reformers, politicians, reformers, and pundits have all taken varied positions regarding the effectiveness of the standards movement to ameliorate the polarization of achievement among these groups. Yet the voices of those at the epicenter of the teaching and learning process have often gone ignored and not heard from. This article addresses these perspectives to reveal that a national sample of high school graduates holds a particular assessment of standards with regard to equity, student learning, and educational quality. Expert educators’ responses to graduates’ perceptions are found equally important for guiding educational policy and improvement.

Cultural differences in shame-focused attitudes towards mental health problems in Asian and Non-Asian student women

This study explored differences in shame-focused attitudes to mental health problems in Asian and non-Asian students. The ‘Attitudes Towards Mental Health Problems’ (ATMHP) is a self-report scale designed for this study to measure: external shame (beliefs that others will look down on self if one has mental health problems); internal shame (related to negative self-evaluations); and reflected shame (believing that one can bring shame to family/community). A second questionnaire was designed to measure concerns with confidentiality. Results suggest that Asian students have higher external shame and reflected shame, but not internal shame beliefs. Asian students were also more concerned with confidentiality when it comes to talking about personal feeling/anxieties.

Yes, I'm Asian

It's happened often enough to get slightly irksome. I meet someone new; I go through the formalities of small talk; and the question of what I study arises. I say that I'm a medical student. Then there it is-the smirk-followed by, “Oh, I should've guessed.” Why don't they smirk at him? This isn't because every time I meet someone I take their history. No, it's because I'm Asian. I'm not paranoid-press the irritant on their reasoning, and they'll honestly state that my ethnicity is the give away. The assumption that a lot of Asians study medicine, though somewhat unreasonable, should be expected. In 2003, 22% of medical students accepted were Asian-that is, originally from the Indian sub-continent-according to a 2004 BMA discussion paper. Talking to many medical students, it seems that the freedom to make the choice of medicine or not is race related. Non-Asian medical students normally say that their parents were happy for them to choose whatever course they wanted. The story is different for Asian medics. Those that I have spoken to state that it was medicine and nothing else for them-the consensus being that most courses are disapproved of while medicine is placed on a pedestal. “I wanted to be a teacher, but my parents said that wasn't good enough for me…….medicine would make me unique and better,” said a colleague, because “medicine gives you the respect of others; you'll have a job for life.” Job stability and respect are clearly valued in the Asian community. There is a perceived hierarchy of subjects that exists in Asians-at the bottom lie …