Abstract
Educational attainment is widely assumed to be positively correlated with civic participation in the United States. Yet Asian immigrants represent a civic paradox because they often report low rates of civic participation despite having relatively high educational attainment. This study investigates how educational place mediates civic participation among six Asian immigrant groups in the United States. We use the concept of simultaneity to examine the extent to which foreign and domestic educational environments mediate Asian immigrant proclivities for civic participation. Using survey data from the 2016 National Asian American Survey pre-election survey, we find exposure to foreign educational place decreases civic participation for all Asian immigrants; and educational place mediates subgroup group-level proclivities for civic participation. We conclude by discussing the significance of educational contexts relative to collective transnational simultaneity.
- © 2021 Russell Sage Foundation. Chaudhary, Ali R., and Quan D. Mai. 2021. “Educational Place, Simultaneity, and Civic Participation in Asian America.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 7(2): 111–28. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2021.7.2.06. We thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. The article also benefited from generous comments provided by Janelle Wong, Luis Eduardo Guarnizo, and participants at the 2019 symposium on Asian Americans held at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City. Finally, we thank Jennifer Lee and Karthick Ramakrishnan, for their vision and efforts in assembling this issue, and Suzanne Nichols, for keep us on track and sorted. Direct correspondence to: Ali R. Chaudhary at arc249{at}sociology.rutgers.edu, Department of Sociology, Rutgers University, Davison Hall, Office 132B, 26 Nichol Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08901, United States.
Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.