Christina Ho - Aspiration and Anxiety: Asian Migrants and Australian Schooling

Aspiration and Anxiety is equal parts enlightening and frightening, but not for the reasons youd expect. Dr Hos depth of research in this book dissipates any pre-existing stereotypes about model minorities and tiger mothers, revealing deeper, sometimes uncomfortable, truths about our Australian education system and society at large.

ALICE PUNG

This book analyses Asian High Achievers in Australias schools from a multiplicity of perspectives. It puts to rest easy cultural stereotypes, and shows that the high achievers are as much about the particularities of their social backgrounds, as they are about the structure and culture of our school system and the nature of Australias migration policy. What this well researched, well argued, and well written book ends up giving us is nothing short of a compelling analysis of the neoliberal desires of Australian society itself. Everyone should read it.

GHASSAN HAGE

Drawing upon her years of scholarship, Christina Ho guides us through the educational realities of Australian multiculturalism. A vital, fascinating treatment of the relationship between education, aspiration and culture.

TIM SOUTPHOMMASANE

Asian migrants and Australian schooling

Christina Ho

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

Level 1, 715 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

www.mup.com.au

First published 2020

Text Christina Ho, 2020

Design and typography Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2020

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Text design and typesetting by J&M Typesetting

Cover design by Peter Long

Printed in Australia by OPUS Group

9780522874822 (hardback)

9780522874839 (paperback)

9780522874846 (ebook)

To my parents, Peggy and Peter Ho.

In north-western Sydney, Australia, an unassuming-looking suburban high school is about to make headlines, again. Its the day that results are released for the Higher School Certificate (HSC), the exam that caps thirteen years of schooling for high school graduates. James Ruse Agricultural High School tops the stateas it has done every year for more than twenty years. Again, no other school comes close. The vast majority of James Ruse exams score in the highest academic band. Located in an unremarkable suburban setting, and even surrounded by paddocks and vegetable gardens (a product of its curious status as an agricultural school), Ruse has become the unassailable educational powerhouse of Sydney.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the schools secret weapon is that its students are overwhelmingly of Asian origin.

James Ruse is a public selective high school, one of almost fifty (fully and partially selective) around New South Wales. Other Australian states also have selective schools, though in much smaller numbers. Victoria has four fully selective schools, Queensland three, and Western Australia one. Entry to these schools is determined by an extremely competitive test, for which students train for months, sometimes years. Designed for gifted students, the schools attract an elite student cohort. Its no surprise that they dominate the annual

Almost all the fully selective schools in NSW and Victoria are heavily dominated by Asian-Australian students, who typically comprise 80 or 90 per cent, or more, of the student population. Even in multicultural Sydney and Melbourne, there are no suburbs where residents from an Asian background form a majority. Yet virtually all the top selective schools in metropolitan Sydney, including James Ruse, North Sydney Girls and Boys High, Sydney Girls and Boys High and others, feature a majority Asian-Australian student cohort. The situation is echoed in Melbourne at Mac.Robertson Girls High, Melbourne High and the other selective schools.

The over-representation of Asian-Australians in selective schools is mirrored in their disproportionate success in standardised tests. In NSW and Victoria, Asian names are conspicuous in annual Year 12 merit lists. Students from East Asian backgrounds outperform others in tests such as NAPLAN (National Assessment PlanLiteracy and Numeracy) and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests.

The educational success of Asian migrant children is also evident in other Western countries such as the US and the UK, where they similarly outperform other groups in standardised tests, dominate high-achieving secondary schools, and have higher rates of university attendance.

In Australia, selective schools are distinguished not only by their ethnic profile, but also by their social class profile. Well-resourced families overwhelmingly dominate the top selective schools. James Ruse Agricultural High School is the third most socio-educationally advantaged high school in NSW, with more than 80 per cent of its students drawn from the top quartile of socio-educational advantage. Of the twenty most socio-educationally advantaged high schools in NSW, eleven are selective schools. Three of the four selective schools are located in suburbs with above-average incomes.

Australian public debates about the selective system have focused largely on ethnicity, the parenting styles of Asian migrants, and the consequences of these parenting styles for the education system, including increased competition and pressure on young people.