Sibling Cooperation and Scholastic Performance among Vietnamese-American Secondary School Students: An Ethnic Social Relations Theory

Abstract

This study examines why some Vietnamese American young people appear to be doing extraordinarily well in school American schools, and how relations within families are related to school achievement. It argues that sibling cooperation is significantly associated with Vietnamese academic achievement, and that cooperation among siblings should be understood as a product of ethnic normative expectations regarding family relations. The study employs ethnographic data from observations and interviews to describe how ethnic social relations may contribute to cooperation within families. Using data from Vietnamese American students in Louisiana public high schools, it finds that family relations, in the form of cooperation among siblings, do make an important contribution to academic achievement, but that cooperative relations within families are sustained by close ties of family members to a surrounding ethnic network.