The Analysis of Academic Success for Minorities

According to a peer-reviewed article written by Marc A.Garcia of Max Planck Institute, “Older Black and Hispanic adults are more likely to be [disadvantaged in educational achievement, when compared to] older White adults. (Garcia)” The disadvantages that these minorities suffer from are caused by numerous different factors, many of which are associated with their social footing. This lack of educational achievement has been demonstrated by several other studies, such as one study conducted by Powers and Pivovarova, authors of numerous academic journals regarding minorities, which stated the academic success of students was largely related to their race and socioeconomic background (Powers).

According to an article published by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, several minorities throughout the United States perform differently because of their linguistic backgrounds, local environment, and views towards education (Abreu).

According to Lindsey Bird, a former teacher for immigrant students, a major factor for the underachievement within education for minorities is the prevalence of language barriers (Bird). According to McManus, a former teacher with a Ph.

D. in Education Psychology with a specialization in Human Development and Culture, “[immigrants tend to] speak a language other than English at home. (McManus)” This lack of speaking of English doesn’t allow these immigrant students to fully develop their vocabulary, which, in turn, causes a lack of understanding of the language as a whole. This is supported by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, an organization who published an article stating, “[a]lthough the total vocabulary of the language-minority group exceeded their single language scores, it remained substantially lower than the lexical knowledge of their language-majority and monolingual peers.

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(Garcia)” Because of this lack of Lexile knowledge, many of these bilingual minorities fail to perform as well as their peers within standardized tests and school in general (Abreu).

The second factor preventing the educational achievement of minorities throughout the United States is their current local environment. Many of these minority students are densely populated within poor neighborhoods, and, as a result, achieve less (McManus). These neighborhoods tend to be centered around rural areas, which is detrimental, as Powers and Pivovarova, authors of numerous academic journals regarding minorities, find that “Principals reported that a shortage of teachers was not a problem in the schools attended by 60% of the first-generation students compared to 66% of second-generation students and 75% of third-plus generation students. (Powers)” This shows that first-generation students have the greatest amount of teacher shortages, in which these same immigrants have the greatest proportions of living in rural areas (Powers). Although these two factors don’t necessarily show a causation effect, there is most likely a strong relationship between them. These teacher shortages are significant, as, without teachers, there is less information a student can be taught, leading to less educational achievement. Because second-generation immigrants have the least amount of teacher shortages, “[s]econd-generation immigrants outperform first and third-plus generation students. (Powers)” As a result of the location these minorities live in, they are put at a disadvantage, as it severely limits the resources they have at their disposal.

The final influence on the educational achievement of minorities is their views towards achievement and school administration and the views that many have towards them. Even with all of the factors mentioned earlier, Powers found that first-generation Hispanic students perform better within school, as Powers stated, “While the achievement of White students who were third-plus generation was higher than Hispanic second- and third-generation students… the achievement gap was smaller for the immigrant students within these groups than their third-generation peers. (Powers)” One theory explaining this difference in achievement was that the first-generation immigrants’ parents “tend to have a positive view of their children’s schools and the opportunities for them and their children in the US, which pushes their children to do well in school. (Powers)“ This theory has proven true, as Powers explains that studies have shown a causation relationship between the two factors (Powers). The second influential view many immigrants have is that their predominantly white-ran schools look at them as inferior, as throughout history, African-Americans have been discriminated against and looked at as inferior by White Americans. These tensions may be contributing to this educational achievement issue, as a peer-reviewed article written by Patrice Pinder finds that, “[l]ower graduation rate among African American high school students may be associated with their negative view or negative attitude toward predominantly White-run U.S. institutions. (Pinder)” Throughout the study conducted by Pinder, she compared views of African-Americans to those of Afro-Caribbeans. She found that the higher graduation rate for these Afro-Caribbeans might be associated with their positive views towards the generally white-ran schools (Pinder). These views are certainly taking a toll on the African-Americans, as Jencks, a Professor of Social Policy at Harvard University and author of multiple books regarding race, finds that “African Americans score lower than European Americans on vocabulary, reading, and math tests, as well as on tests that claim to measure scholastic aptitude and intelligence. (Jencks)” Alongside their views towards the administrators, many teachers and staff view the immigrants negatively (McManus). This is harmful, as McManus stated, “[negative views have] a negative impact on the academic performance of immigrant students (McManus).” This can be changed, however, as Bird finds that, when given the right resources, immigrants can have academic success (Bird).

Although a trend of a lack of academic achievement was shown for both Hispanics and Africans, it was not demonstrated by the Asian-Americans. The success of Asian Americans is demonstrated by Yu Xie, a Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, as he states, “Asian Americans have higher grades and standardized test scores, are more likely to finish high school and attend college, and are more likely to attend the most elite colleges relative to whites. (Xie)“ The first theory many propose to explain this success is that Asian students’ parents tend to be better educated with better finances. This theory, however, is incorrect, as the Asian American population has higher poverty rates than the typical white, yet consistently excel (Xie). Many others believe that Asian American parents hold higher educational expectations, which then motivate their children to surpass the average student. This idea also lacks evidence to support it, however (Xie). Although the expectations of parents specifically aren’t causing their success, studies have found that students’ expectations for themselves explain their advancement. Xie finds that Asian Americans put in more academic effort when compared to white Americans. This effort is explained by the idea that Asians are supposed to surpass their educational expectations, which is a product of Asian success over many generations (Xie). This motivation isn’t, however, a product of the extremely high expectations set by parents. Alongside their own expectations, the expectations of their teachers play a role in their success, which motivates them to do well within that class, therefore increasing their achievement (Xie). Although this contradicts both the discrimination by teachers towards immigrants and the argument that immigrants are disadvantaged when it comes to educational achievement, both Hispanics and Africans outnumber the amount of Asian-Americans and follow the trend shown.

As a result of the constant social obstacles, such as living in a poor neighborhood, learning English as a second language, or having views that inhibit their academic growth,

many African-Americans and Hispanics fail to achieve the educational success that many white Americans obtain with ease.

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Works Consulted

Bird, Lindsey. “Advocating with Empathy for Immigrant Education.” TED, TEDx, 9AD,

Engel de Abreu, Pascale M.J., et al. “Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural effects on verbal working memory and vocabulary: testing language-minority children with an immigrant background.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, vol. 56, no. 2, 2013, p. 630+. Gale Academic Onefile, Accessed 11 Oct. 2019.

Garcia, Marc A., et al. “The role of education in the association between race/ethnicity/nativity, cognitive impairment, and dementia among older adults in the United States.” Demographic Research, vol. 38, 2018, p. 155+. Gale Academic Onefile, Accessed 12 Oct. 2019.

Hsin, Amy, and Yu Xie. “Explaining Asian Americans’ Academic Advantage over Whites.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, National Academy of Sciences, 10 June 2014,

Jencks, Christopher, and Meredith Phillips. “The Black-White Test Score Gap: Why It Persists and What Can Be Done.” Brookings, Brookings, 28 July 2016,

McManus, Molly. “Here’s Why Immigrant Students Perform Poorly.” The Conversation, 28 June 2019,

Pinder, Patrice Juliet. “Afro-Caribbean and African American students, family factors, and the influence on science performance in the United States: the untold story.” Education, vol. 132, no. 4, 2012, p. 725+. Gale Academic Onefile, Accessed 10 Oct. 2019.

Pivovarova, Margarita, and Jeanne M. Powers. “Generational status, immigrant concentration and academic achievement: comparing first and second-generation immigrants with third-plus generation students.” Large-scale Assessments in Education, vol. 7, no. 1, 2019. Gale Academic Onefile, Accessed 9 Oct. 2019.