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Macleans suggests Canadian universities are " 'Too Asian'? "
December 3, 2010 - 7:43pm
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A recent article in Maclean's suggests that top Canadian universities are "Too Asian." The Chinese-Canadian Council has rightly criticized the article for its racist fear-mongering.
From the article:
'[A]n “Asian” school has come to mean one that is so academically focused that some students feel they can no longer compete or have fun. Indeed, Rachel, Alexandra and her brother belong to a growing cohort of student that’s eschewing some big-name schools over perceptions that they’re “too Asian.”'
Holy model minority stereotypes Batman.
More red meat for the meritless...
I didn't read the article that way.
I know that discussing "race" makes me just a little uncomfortable. Because I always want to know who's racing and how much the tickets are going to cost? What's the weather forecast? Details-details.
The article struck me as legitimating the racism and unchallenged circulation of stereotypes of Asian-Canadian students (and disavowal thereof) of the interviewed students, which read to me as making the suggestion by ventriloquy.
Notably, the article was pulled and heavily re-edited last night evidently after some complaints. Original is viewable here.
A quote from the article, for instance:
"That Asian students work harder is a fact born out by hard data. They tend to be strivers, high achievers and single-minded in their approach to university.... White students, by contrast, are more likely to choose universities and build their school lives around social interaction, athletics and self-actualization—and, yes, alcohol."
Jane Jacobs, in her portentous Dark Age Ahead, claims that universities are all about "credentialing" (something that 60s students rebelled against, and lost). Now that that's a fait accompli, and if credentials are in any way meaningful, who would you want performing your quadruple bypass?
ha! the students were upset that school is "academically focused"....
Can't their daddies just buy them a degree so they can get on with their privileged lives? Why should they have to spend part of their lives trying to achieve. Once they get into the boardroom it will be meetings on the golf links at 2:00.
The author does give ample data to at least support the claim that (East) Asian and (East) Asian-Canadian students are, by and large, achieving more highly though. Perhaps what's dubious is the unsupported (or at least poorly supported) claim that they are 'single-minded'. While the generalization about white students is not supported by much, it also doesn't seem wildly unrealistic, given my experience.
What's most shocking about the article to me is the information that elite American schools are apparently actually discriminating against Asian or Asian-American students in order to protect white students!
American discrimination is hardly new, and it will likely get worse rather than better in the next few years. I hear rumblings about repealing pretty much every piece of socially progressive legislation since 1960. But so what? Is it so terrible if we get the academic cream they can't cope with?
Have you ever read the honour roll in the foyer of a Toronto high school? You can tell by the names what group was the latest wave of immigrants in any given year. New kids try harder - their kids slack off.
The article's main problem seems to be that students choose schools where they think they'll fit in. Astonishing! The ones who want to study hard will go to one school; the ones who want to party will go to another. There are plenty of schools to choose from. So the class photo won't look like a gov.ca advertisement, with a carefully-selected colour-mix.... This year, lots of bright-eyed Chinese graduates. In 2020, maybe lots of beautiful Tamil faces. What's the fuss?
The first and second generation young immigrants have traditionally been far more motivated to achieve. That family success was the goal of immigration. As well people who immigrate to Canada are generally well educated and expect their children to also be well educated. I think kids of professionals are also generally more represented in university although I don't know for sure. I would be really interested in looking at stats comparing educational outcomes for refugee and immigrant populations in our big cities.
It is insane to address this by race-- it is not race. There is a question of different cultural values. You can sort those who know what they are talking about from those who don't by how they address the differences in part by considering this.
It is a fact that culturally Chinese parents are likely to push their kids hard towards academics and insist on good study habits early. Many Chinese kids will do a tremendous amount of homework without complaint because they have been trained to do so.This is a cultural value-- the academics are emphasized over the social.
And it is important to note this is not just about "Asians" -- it is something many first generation immigrant families will share where parents want their children to succeed and push them harder than the average Canadian to do so.
The idea that this is racial is deeply offensive. Of course the persistence that the idea of race exists in reality is itself offensive.
Race presumes physical attributes/differences are a play. Culture acknowledges that these are all cultural constructs nothing to do with what you look like but the cultural context you have been socialized in.
The use of names for example underscores this problem. A Chinese name does not tell you anything about the person's background or culture.
While I agree with the rest of your post this is just more stereotyping. IMO Class and immigrant status of the parents are the main characteristics. I live in a city where about 50% of the population is "asian." Saying Chinese culture is a really large generalization. I know pre-confederation "chinese" and people who immigrated only a few years ago. There is no one culture it is like saying native culture with no reference to any specific First Nations history or culture.
The dilemma is only in the mind of that article's author. There should be no dilemma at the universities: you are smart and you work hard, you get in. You are stupid and lazy, you don't get it. Period. Now making a racial issue out of this actually implies that white students are lazy and stupid. Is this what the article try to imply?
p.s. BTW someone who would not choose UoT because of the asians there, obviously fits in the stupid category. No need to check her marks!
On the bright side, you're never too young to start learning about things like "work/life balance". Whether "Asian" or not, we're talking about those students who are the equivalent of the young, single employee at the office who begs for work to take home on the weekend and thinks a 70 hour week is a vacation. Those of us who don't want to have to keep up with that are likely to try to push back a little. Why should university be different?
Or perhaps the Asian culture has already solved the work/life balance problem in a more efficient way than western society. I don't see Asians complaining about life/work balance.
I can't keep up with musicians who practice six to eight hours a day or scientists who are so engrossed with their work they hardly sleep or athletes who train 50 hours a week and do a university course load. Snert go ahead and push back against our best and brightest in a plea for mediocrity. Who can compete in a job market against an "asian" Olympic medalist with a straight A average?
I know there are some people who have a better work ethic and know how to apply themselves better than others. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it is strictly cultural, or that anyone has the problem "solved". Aside from the fact that out-of-province and non-Canadians have to pay a lot more for their education than our citizens do, some people grow up in an environment that makes them realize that hard work is necessary for their survival and that of their families.
On the other side of things, South Korea and Japan have among the highest suicide rates in the world. And although the official suicide rate in China is half of ours in Canada there are areas of that country (the Yangtse Basin) where the rate is higher, and if some reports are at least in part true, things are evidently not all roses:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/5907368/Wave-of-sui...
Plus (assuming I take your point, which I don't entirely), not everyone sees the need to complain and burden others with their problems, especially since complaining alone doesn't change much.
I think the criticism here is of the Confucian rote-learning learning culture. This does not encourage critical thinking, which leads to problems for students in real-world situations. Confucianism permeates East Asian cultures, from China to Korea. Confucian education may have been useful for cranking out scribes and drones for the Imperial and Communist Chinese governments, but it doesn't prepare people for doing more than regurgitating information committed to memory.
This, IMO, is also why so many Chinese immigrants can read and write English, but can't converse intelligibly in the language. Conversational language is not as esteemed in Confucian doctrine as the written word. This may be because written Chinese is so different from regional dialects and even standard, spoken Putonghua. Yet paying attention to the spoken language is important, especially with a language with as complex and irregular a phonotactic system as English.
But isn't it generally easier to learn to read and write a second language than to learn to speak it if you are not learning it at a fairly young age, especially when the sound set of Chinese languages is so different from English? I can translate scholarly articles that are written in French but it would be harder for me to give a lecture in French.
"Our best and brightest"??
Or just "those willing to sacrifice everything else for work"?
I'm sure that with only 80-90 hours of study per week, any student can be one of "the best and brightest". Is that what we really want, though?? Is it mediocrity to want to do something other than press your nose to the grindstone? Like maybe hang out with friends (or see your children grow up)?
Nah, the Canadian students are too stupid. they can't do that. See the MacLeans' article.
(hope I don't have to put the sarcasm tag in plain view this time)
I think the average student could stand to shift his or her work/life balance slightly in the direction of "work", though, while still having time for socializing etc.
Is there a source available for this nonsense?
So I guess that's the explanation for Asian students amazing success in fields that does require problem solving and critical thinking skills; such as math, science and engineering, and for white Canadians all specializing in commerce and English literature and other memorizing subjects?
Hi CYS, your post at #20 is highly problematic and largely based on North American myths and prejudices about Asian culture. To be specific, it is not based on concrete evidence or true in any universe but imaginary ones. Please keep in mind when posting on issues of race and colour that Canada operates in the throes of white privilege, and most of our assumptions about marginalized cultures are as firm as vapour.
I don't know about the Cunfucian connection, but there was a complaint in an early (maybe the first, even?) response to that article by a Canadian who went to Waterloo with high-achieving Chinese students, that the TA's were unhelpful, because their spoken English was unintelligible. I have experienced a little of this problem myself, with foreign students. Perhaps a little more socializing would develop better communication skills.
This doesn't really have much to do with lifestyle or social skills. Most TAs are graduate students, and an absolute majority of graduate students in science and engineering are international students who have been in this country for 1-2 years max (I typically don't have more than 1-2 Canadian students out of 20-30 in my graduate classes). I can assure you that if you move to another non-English speaking country, you will be hardly intelligible in the first couple of years.
Alternatively, we can encourage the "Canadian" students to do a little less partying and drinking and "socializing", and instead get better marks that would allow them into the graduate school. But that's probably too much to ask.
Couching racist discourse in cultural essentialisms is no less racist than old-school biological racism.
The Asian students in question here are Asian-Canadian students. Not international students. Asian-Canadian students are also not exclusively Chinese students.
For historical reference, this is not the first time Asian-Canadian students have been scapegoated as "perpetual foreigners." Famously, the W5 "Campus Giveaway" incident of 1979 was a moment of fear-mongering that Canadian universities were being taken over by "foreign students." The so-called foreign students were Asian-Canadians.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS-PBKXJbhs (summary and rebuttal of W5 program narrated by Stephen Lewis)