The Other Side of the Model Minority Story: The Psychological and Social Adjustment of Chinese American Adolescents

Research on Asian origin children and adolescents in the U.S. has focused predominantly on their educational achievement. This emphasis, however, ignores not only the diversity of Asian students’ educational experiences but also their psychological and social well-being. A small but growing body of research suggests that while Asian American students may be doing well in school, they face many challenges in this psychological and social adjustment.

National data show that Asian American adolescent girls have the highest rates of depressive symptoms of all racial groups and have the highest suicide rate among all women between 15 and 24 years of age. Some studies on Asian American boys suggest that they tend to be more withdrawn and depressed compared to their peers from other ethnic groups. Mental health of children and adolescents is also become a rising concern in the Asian American community.

In this presentation, I will draw on my research with Chinese immigrant children and families as well as other research findings to examine the psychological and social adjustment of Chinese American children. I will explore family and school factors that may contribute to the struggles Chinese American adolescents face in their development. More specially, I will examine the issue of growing emotional alienation in many families and the issue of peer bullying and lack of adult support at school. To conclude, I hope to discuss with the audience what schools, families, and communities can do to address these challenges toward the goal of promoting healthy development of all Asian American children.

Author Bio

Presented By:

Desirée Baolian Qin received her doctoral degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education and is currently a Postdoc Fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on immigration, adolescent development, and education. Her dissertation study explored how gender interacts with home- and school-level factors in Chinese immigrant children’s educational and psychosocial adaptation. In her current research, she is examining the psychological adjustment of Chinese American adolescents, particularly the impact of parent-child relations and school factors, such as perceived support from teachers and peer relations. She is the author of “Gendered Expectations and Gendered Experiences: Immigrant Students’ Adaptation in Schools” (New Directions for Youth Development, 2004). She is co-editor (with Marcelo Suárez-Orozco and Carola Suárez-Orozco) of the six-volume series titled Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the New Immigration (Routledge, 2001) and co-editor (with Marcelo Suárez-Orozco) of Globalization: Education and Culture in the New Millennium (UC Press, 2004).