A review of the model minority myth: understanding the social, educational and health impacts

ABSTRACT

As shown by the recent increase in anti-Asian racism and violence worldwide, the label of “model minority” is flawed and fails to capture the breadth and depth of the experiences of Asian people. Our paper is the first to provide a scoping review of empirical research (ninety-seven studies) that examine the social, educational and health and wellbeing impacts of the model minority myth (MMM) for people of Asian descent in white-majority countries. Key findings indicate that the MMM is complex and contradictory and is present across multiple sectors. Therefore, the MMM needs to be understood holistically as a structural issue that has implications for reinforcing racial inequities. Future research should adopt multilevel frameworks and methods to further understand community and structural impacts of the MMM on people of Asian descent internationally and consider how the MMM contributes to a white racial grammar that normalizes racial stratification and racist structures.

KEYWORDS:

• Asian
• model minority
• racism
• racial grammar
• stereotype
• whiteness

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Wurundjeri and Bunurong Peoples of the Kulin Nation as the traditional owners of the unceded lands on which we work, and respectfully recognize Elders past and present. We thank Damien Chua, Laura Finlayson-Short and Mienah Sharif for their valuable assistance with screening and data extraction of articles.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 According to the UK Census 2011, the proportion of the population that consists of Asian ethnic groups is approximately 7.0% (4,373,339 people) (Office for National Statistics 2011). In the U.S., the proportion of Asian Americans is 5.9% and this is growing rapidly (Budiman and Ruiz 2021; US Census 2019b). This compares with 15% in Canada where the categorization is related to “Asian visible minorities” (i.e. South Asian, Chinese, Filipino, Southeast Asian, West Asian, Korean and Japanese) (Statistics Canada 2016). In the Australian Census 2016, approx. 12.2% of people nominated their ancestry from an Asian geographic category (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016) and 15.1% in New Zealand (Stats NZ 2019). Trends indicate that these proportions are rising among all these countries.

2 “Asian cultural values” has been conceptualized to refer to: collectivism, emotional self-control, conformity to norms, filial piety, humility, academic excellence (Kim, Li, and Ng 2005; Yoon et al. 2017).

Additional information

Funding

Jessica Walton is supported by funding from the Australian Research Council [DE160100922].