Date of Award

Spring 2024

Project Type

Dissertation

Program or Major

Education

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

First Advisor

Erin Hiley Sharp

Second Advisor

Andrew Coppens

Abstract

As ethnic Asians become a more prominent group in American life, some scholars have focused on exploring both the roles of ethnic Asians in American society and culture, and of how American society and culture impact and transform their lives. This study seeks to understand the types of messages that ethnic East Asian college students studying in the United States report receiving from their parents and other family members about academic success and their college education. It also seeks to understand if and how messages about ethnic identity (being Asian) and immigration timing get integrated into the students’ perceptions of their parents’ messages about academic success and college education. Moreover, it explores how perceived parental messages are associated with emerging adults’ own education experiences in terms of academic motivation and self-efficacy in the context of their college education.To accomplish this, it pursues three specific aims: understanding the types of messages that ethnic East Asian college students studying in the United States report receiving from their parents about academic success and their college education, understanding if and how participants’ ethnic identity and immigration timing get integrated into their perceptions of their parents’ messages about academic success and college education, and exploring how perceived parental messages are associated with emerging adults’ own education experiences in terms of academic motivation and self-efficacy. It also seeks to answer three research questions using a qualitative, semi-structured interview design with college students of ethnic East Asian descent. First, how do ethnic East Asian college students perceive the role of their ethnic identity in their academic lives? Second, what messages about academic expectations and post-study success do ethnic East Asian college and university students receive from family members, and how do these messages affect students’ educational decision-making? Third, how do ethnic East Asian college students describe how messages from their families relate to their own educational motivation, experiences of academic self-efficacy, and educational decision-making? It resulted in seven key findings. First, filial piety generally impacted both overseas-born and U.S.-born ethnic East Asian participants both negatively and positively. Second, American social and cultural values were generally external motivators on both first-generation and later-generation ethnic East Asian participants. Third, cultural expectations of family root culture and of American culture shaped both overseas-born and U.S.-born students’ orientation toward school, major choice, and expectation about grades and career success. Fourth, both overseas-born and U.S.-born participants had general flexibility in choice of college major. Fifth, the standard concept of academic self-efficacy was not present among either participant group, although three students negotiated in some way to harmonize personal academic interests with parents’ expected major choice. Sixth, satisfaction with choice of major was mixed but neither origin specific nor generation specific. Seventh, the sense that students had lived up to their parents’ or family’s expectations was also mixed but not origin specific.

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