Unraveling the "Model Minority" Stereotype

The second edition of Unraveling the "Model Minority" Stereotype: Listening to Asian American Youth extends Stacey Lee’s groundbreaking research on the educational experiences and achievement of Asian American youth. Lee provides a comprehensive update of social science research to reveal the ways in which the larger structures of race and class play out in the lives of Asian American high school students, especially regarding presumptions that the educational experiences of Koreans, Chinese, and Hmong youth are all largely the same. In her detailed and probing ethnography, Lee presents the experiences of these students in their own words, providing an authentic insider perspective on identity and interethnic relations in an often misunderstood American community. This second edition is essential reading for anyone interested in Asian American youth and their experiences in U.S. schools.

Praise for the First Edition!

"Sure to stimulate further research in this area and will be of interest to teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and students alike." — Teachers College Record

"A must read for those interested in a different approach in understanding our racial experience beyond the stale and repetitious polemics that so often dominate the public debate." — The Journal of Asian Studies

“Well written and jargon-free, this book…documents genuinely candid views from Asian-American students, often laden with their own prejudices and ethnocentrism.” —MultiCultural Review

Stacey J. Lee is Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is the author of Up Against Whiteness: Race, School, and Immigrant Youth.

“Lee’s second edition offers an additional paradigm to explain the barriers to educating young Asian Americans in the 21st century.”
—Xue Lan Rong, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“This revised edition is a must read for anyone interested in race/ethnicity and processes of transnational migration in the 21st century.”
—Lois Weis, State University of New York Distinguished Professor

“Clear, accessible, and significantly updated…. The book’s core lesson is as relevant today as it was when the first edition was published, presenting an urgent call to dismantle the dangerous stereotypes that continue to structure inequality in 21st century America.”
—Teresa L. McCarty, Alice Wiley Snell Professor of Education Policy Studies, Arizona State University