Whether you admit it or not, being raised in America, we all know the racial stereotypes that have traversed through our colorful history. For Asian Americans, we are all good at math right? It’s a stereotype, but a good stereotype right? Despite my frequent ramblings, political correctness concerns me little. Instead, I am interested in the roots and explanations to social phenomenon that we humans, out of ignorance, simplify with racial stereotypes.
What do people really think about the Asians-good-at-math stereotype? Oh, I know, it’s because they’re smarter. Well, no, if we accept Asians are good at math because Asians are smarter, we fall into the same whirlpool of ignorance the Conquistadors used to justify their dominance over Meso-Americans or 19th century American slave owners who believed African slaves could only become civilized through hard work. Fortunately, Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent book, Outliers, has shed some light on the Asian math stereotype.
First, what we know. American grade school students have always trailed continental Asia in math. Some claim Asian students are better because they spend more hours in school. But comparing school systems fails to account for Asian-American success. Asians in America go through the same education system yet in the 2003 SAT exam, Asian-Americans averaged 575 in Math while White’s averaged 534, American Indian’s 482, Hispanics 464, and African Americans at 426.
So if it’s not the schools, what accounts for Asians succeeding in math across different education systems? As English speakers, we may be unaware, but the English language is perhaps the most odd and irrational language around. Particularly with numbers, in English, after ten the teens each have an unique name and each tenth following that gets their own name. In fact, one would need to learn 28 unique words to count up to 100 in English while in any Chinese dialect, Japanese, or Korean, one only needs to learn 11 – one through ten and one hundred.
In Asian languages like Chinese, numbers after ten follow a precise logic. Eleven in Mandarin is shi yi or ten-one, twelve is ten-two, thirteen is ten-three, and so forth. When we get to fifty-nine, the logic continues, five-ten-nine. Five tens and a nine, 59. The internal logic in counting numbers with Asian languages results in kids who speak Asian languages are able to count beyond a hundred before English speakers can even count to 40. But the Asian language advantage doesn’t stop in counting. Remember those dreaded fractions? In English we would read 3/4 as three-fourths. But for languages like Chinese, 3/4 is literally translated, “out of 4 parts, take 3″.
When you think how much more sense math makes for Asian-language speakers and considering how many frustrated 3rd graders go home with there hands crossed because multiplication doesn’t make sense. How much fun would math had been if it did make sense? Wouldn’t you do more homework? In turn wouldn’t you pick up new concepts – in which case math heavily depends on learning piece by piece – easier. Quite simply,
The much-storied disenchantment with mathematics among western children starts in the third and fourth grade, [...] perhaps a part of that disenchantment is due to the fact that math doesn’t seem to make sense; its linguistic structure is clumsy; its basic rules seem arbitrary and complicated.
Asian children, by contrast, don’t face nearly that same sense of bafflement. They can hold more numbers in their head, and do calculations faster, and the way fractions are expressed in their language corresponds exactly to the way a fraction actually is—and maybe that makes them a little more likely to enjoy math, and maybe because they enjoy math a little more they try a little harder and take more math classes and are more willing to do their homework, and on and on, in a kind of virtuous circle.
When it comes to math, in other words, Asians have built-in advantage. . .
And as a child, you’re not discouraged at math, it’s likely you’ll continue to take math classes growing up and continuing to do homework because it just all makes sense.
While extensive study on languages affect on math, Gladwell’s assertions shed light away from simplistic racial explanations for which I personally rejoice over.
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I’m Chinese.The math problems in the photo are very easy for Chinese kids. Even kids in kindergarten, they can also do that right and quickly.Because we practice a lot.
I’m asian and i dun think asian americans r that good at math bc wat american skuls teach them only basic math
and math in sat only basic math too easy to say…
WhaT’S the name of this author?
You put up a good argument, but I’m not convinced. You said the asian-americans are scoring higher than other ethnicities in the AMERICAN SATs, so presumably these students would be learning the curriculum in english? Which would render the whole mandarin-english argument invalid.
Personally I just think it is the cultural approach to education, passed on from their parents (who emigrated from, e.g. china in their own lifetime) . In china, particular emphasis is put on maths. The population in china is so high, and the schools are too few and too under-funded, the competition is very high and only the strongest survive, and thus the student will have to spend more time trying to learn and practice, also pressured by their parents, so standards increase. This is then carried overseas. When asians are met with the american education system, where many fellow american students have been handed everything on a plate (and at a much more leisurely place), they find the work far easier. This is carried on to the next generation, via the parents putting far more pressure on the child to do well, as their parents would have done to them.
As for chinese students in china having better results than americans in america, it wouldn’t surprise me if the results where biased towards china; being a communist government and all that entails, many lower achieving schools and grades probably aren’t even counted.
I wouldn’t completely rule out the racial superiority/inferiority idea completely; despite what we may be led to believe, we aren’t all created equally. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, starting genetically, and then furthermore differentiated via external factors. It is a possible explanation as to why asian people are good at maths, or why african people are better sprinters. or why scottish people have invented everything in the world.
They are all valid reasons and I think you’ll find that I’m definitely right and that, no matter how much incorrect information I have used or how many times i’ve contradicted myself, my opinion is definitely better than yours. Thank you for reading.
An alternate theory; awaiting Harvard approval, is that, seeing as asians (well orientals are least) are the shortest, smallest (especially where the penis is concerned), most generic, least sporty and [insert anything you feel like here] people on the planet, that, by converse of pythagoras, they have to have something going for them.
Or not. I’m open to suggestions.
Anyway, these are all valid reasons and I think you’ll find that I’m definitely right and that, no matter how much incorrect information I have used or how many times i’ve contradicted myself, my opinion is definitely better than yours. Thank you for reading.
I’m Asian, but I also don’t think all Asians are good at math. That pretty much applies to me. I have struggled in math all my life. My father once told me that my family has always been very good mathematicians. I see that in him since he deals with foreign currency trading and enjoys it.
It seems that I never inherited those genes at all because I’m not majoring in anything heavily involving math. I’m majoring in law enforcement, but I’m now leaning more on a military career (The Navy or the Marine Corps for me).
I’m Asian-American, I’m good at math, enough to get into grad school for it, and I speak not a wit of any Asian language; I can barely translate my Chinese name into English (my native and only tongue) and I mispronounce it every time I try to say it.
To “Generic Commenter:
African claim : we are the people who run fastest in the world, so we are the top.
American and Chinese: wrong, because of the modern inventions.
Chinese claim: we are good at math, we are the top.
Africans and American: wrong, math theory is hardly anything to do with the social issues, and china is having so many social issues at the moment.
American claim: we are the top, because we have invented almost everything.
Africans and Chinese: That is true, but you invents have polluted everything as well. if you call that is the “top”, how long that “top” will last ?
I think the argument is BS. In Spanish, the numbers are prescribed the same way (at least for 16+). Does that mean they are good at math too? This an irrational theory.
Yeah the theory has lots of faults here and there and it isn’t exactly a scientific explanation.
I just don’t see the “asians” work harder and “asians” place greater emphasis on math doing it for me.
But thanks for posting your opinions, race and ability is always a tricky topic.