Why Some Races Outperform Others | Laurence Steinberg | Big Think

Why Some Races Outperform Others
New videos DAILY: bigth.ink/youtube
Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: bigth.ink/Edge
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A psychologist explains the latest research into education disparity.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAURENCE STEINBERG:
Laurence Steinberg is the Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at Temple University. An internationally renowned expert on psychological development during adolescence, he is the author of more than 250 articles and essays on growth and development during the teenage years, nd the author or editor of eleven books, including Adolescence the leading college textbook on adolescent development. A graduate of Vassar College and Cornell University, he was named as the first recipient of the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize in 2009, one of the largest prizes ever awarded to a social scientist, for his contributions to improving the lives of young people and their families.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPT:
Question: Can you explain your research into why students are becoming less engaged in academic pursuits?
Laurence Steinberg: And a couple things emerged from that study that I think are really important for understanding American education policy. The first is that a very significant proportion of kids tell us that they're just going through the motions when they're in school; I mean that they're not engaged, that they're not trying their hardest, that they're bored. And clearly we are not challenging kids in American schools as much as we should. And you see this if you do international comparisons. We didn't in this study, but if you look at how much time kids spend on homework, for example, the average in our study -- and this is a figure that you see in lots of different studies -- is about four to five hours a week for a typical high school student. In Japan it's four to five hours a day. And so you see the difference in magnitude of how hard we push kids here in America compared to other places.
The other thing that we found was that parents and peers have a huge impact on kids' engagement in school, independent of what's going on in the classroom. And so kids who are raised in households where their parents practice better parenting -- the kind of parenting that has been called authoritative parenting, where they're firm, but they're warm, and where their parents are involved in their schooling, where they go school conferences and so forth -- those kids do better in school. At the same time, it's not just the home, because we also found that there's significant peer pressure on kids that makes a difference, and unfortunately, more often than not it's peer pressure to do not as well as you might. So a very high proportion of kids told us that they refrained from raising their hand in class to answer a question because they're afraid that their peers will make fun of them. And so we need to do something to transform the culture that says it's okay to be smart. You can also be cool in other ways, but it's also okay to be smart.
Now, perhaps the most controversial finding that we came up with had to do with ethnic differences in achievement. Across all of the schools that we studied, Asian-American kids were doing significantly better than white kids, and white kids were doing significantly better than black and Latino kids. And that's controlling for family income, it's controlling for parental education, it's controlling for other factors that might be correlated with ethnicity and that might have played a role in this too. And when we look at why that is, we see several important things. The first is -- this is a great question that one of my collaborators said; we have to put this on a questionnaire -- and the question was, what's the lowest grade you could get without your parents getting angry, right? So the Asian kids, it's an A-minus, all right? For the white kids, you know, it's more like a B. And for the black and Latino kids, it's somewhere, you know, around a B-minus or C-plus. So clearly there are different expectations in these households.
The second thing is that when we ask kids about the importance of schooling, we see really different patterns in how kids from different ethnic groups answer the question. Asian kids tell us that they are sure that if they do poorly in school, something bad will happen to them. They won't get a good job in life, all right? Black and, to a certain extent, Latino kids don't have that belief. So every -- all ethnic groups share the belief that doing well in school has a payoff. It's how they think about doing poorly in school that makes a difference...
Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/videos/why-some-...

[@bigthink]

Want to get Smarter, Faster?

[@ZackMester]

The main problem with schools in America is the horrible cultivation of INTEREST in school subjects. We are so obsessed with grades and standardization that we end up cramming information down students' throats without ever teaching WHY it is fascinating or useful. If you can teach students to learn with passion and interest then you have succeeded.

[@SpaghettiToaster]

0:56

[@ForBreadAndFish]

Japan also has a huge suicide rate because of this..

[@coreycox2345]

Interesting and well spoken. I have an Asian friend whose son did not get into medical school. She said, at a social gathering "I guess he is just not smart enough." A marked cultural difference. My parents always contended that I was smart, even when my grades were abysmal.

[@archaeologistify]

I am white student of high school (civil engineering) in central Europe. My parrents don't give a damn about my grades, they barely know location of my school. Still I learn atleast hour/day and have A and sometimes B grades. I do it for my self because I understand that education will make you better, no matter what you study. More resistant against crowd control, more perspective, also you learn to learn better, which is very useful in life.

[@charnalking]

I'm not sure you want to break generation after generation in the Japanese way, high rates of youth suicide, falling birth rates and mass social dysfunction. you have to temper the drive to succeed and the need to produce productive social members with wanting to raise happy, high functioning children that have enjoyed there childhood and are equipped to find love, raise a family, maintain friend groups and be generally well balanced.

[@TheSpecialJ11]

I've found the way the classroom is setup really screws up my interest. I'm not bad at school. I'm in the top 1% of my class of 614. The only reason I actually care is because of the idea that I'll need to get into a good college for a well paid and enjoyable job so I can live life comfortably. I loved math in elementary school, and they'd send the "Academically Talented" kids out of the classroom for a special class on reading and math (the two were separate) I had lots of fun in that math class, solving logic puzzles, learning base 5, using some theoretical math. But once I got to Jr. High the typical classroom format and lesson planning made math boring for me. It all became really rigid and dry. This increased in high school. Currently, the only class I enjoy for the way it is taught is my AP Gov class. Yeah, there's set content that we have to learn. But there isn't Lesson 1.1 or 7.4. There's chapter 9 on political parties. It's centered around a topic, not a concept that needs to be lectured about. Math class is just super boring for me in high school, but because I'm good at focusing I pay attention and get past the boredom. I'd just like it if we made the structure of lessons not boring. (and started at

[@epochphilosophy]

This psychologists philosophy on education is fucking ridiculous. Implying more homework = better education. My god, what a joke. Lmao

[@legendarycondor]

Being Hispanic, I tell you. Growing up in a Hispanic country, you either did well in school or you got in trouble. Me and everyone else.

[@karandex]

i am from india and what he is saying is correct. we have parents pressure and higher standards . but sometimes that same thing stops who are not good at academics to progress. its considered that if you dont study nothing can good happen to your life, i agree in small manner that basic education trains your mind overall not in specific subjects. but if you are someone who wants to go in art or sports it is considered lower standard than someone who is going for higher education.

[@Voobus]

I got C's and D's in high school, and dropped out of college after a semester, but I hold a highly successful, high paying career. The education system is a pit of misery for anyone "different" like me.

[@geoffk777]

He nailed it when he compared Japan and America. My daughter in Japan spent a whole day in a challenging school and took home hours of homework. Then went to a cram school for hours where she got more homework. She would finally get to sleep around 11:00 pm or so after working through everything. But her friends were all doing the same thing and her family totally supported her. And she knew that she would face a very difficult college entrance exam (far harder than the SATs), where her knowledge and brains alone would allow her to get in or not.

[@unforgivn81]

I spent 0 hours per week doing homework and studying in high school. In fact, I didn't take a book home for the last 3.5 years I was in school, and I graduated with honors.

[@highdough2712]

There are a couple of problems I have, not with the study, but what seems to be implied. First of all, 4-5 hours of homework a day is FAR too much for a high school student. I don't think giving them more homework is an answer to anything except for the question, "how can we put more stress on children?".

[@daverigby23]

Helps if you read more than one book

[@MyplayLists4Y2Y]

Children should be encouraged to pursue their interests, not be tied to books for 10+ hours a day (unless studying books all day was their interest). Children are naturally curious, give them the resources to find the answers to their questions.

[@martinguila]

I think the failure is not about having low expectations it is about failing to inspire kids. You might be able to force kids to study hard and the school results might get higher but at a price of stressed out students who hates school. South korea have the best school results but not many nobelprizes. I believe creating geniuses and truly great scientists like for example Richard Feynman can only be done thrugh learning with passion and joy and inspiration. I dont know but thats my view.

[@RS-nb4sw]

My peers DID make fun of me for raising my hand in class. My answer to a teacher's question on the third day of ninth grade followed me for the entire year. People were quoting it at me in the halls to upset me. And it did, because at the time I wasn't aware of how little their opinions were worth.

[@korinoriz]

Then you have the Asian Americans like me who are "average". We get made fun of for being stupid, but downplayed when we do good. Thanks society! Thank god I don't have tiger parents.