The myth of academic tolerance: the stigmatisation of East Asian students in Western higher education

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the stigmatisation of East Asian students within Western universities. This is necessary because East Asian students are often overlooked in existing literature about racism in Western academia. It is argued that East Asian students may be generalised as undesirable students in ways that resonate with more broadly held prejudices about East Asian people. To illustrate this, academic publications about East Asian students are critiqued. This involves identifying, analysing and deconstructing the stereotypes of East Asian students which inadvertently totalise them as homogenous, inadequate and deficient. More specifically, it is argued that East Asian students are often unfairly depicted as: a) lacking critical thinking skills; b) being prone to plagiarism; and c) harming the educational environment. This article introduces the notion of ‘the myth of academic tolerance’ and calls upon academics and universities to actively resist the stigmatisation of East Asian students.

KEYWORDS:

• East Asian students
• Western universities
• internationalisation
• international students
• higher education
• stereotyping
• prejudice
• racism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, 8.

2. ‘East Asia’ typically includes Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, the Korean peninsula and at least some ASEAN countries. This region is often amalgamated into one bloc on the basis that it is supposedly characterised by a ‘Confucian heritage culture’. I reluctantly utilise the term within this article given that it is common for ‘East Asians’ to be imagined as a monolithic group in Western contexts. At the same time, I recognise that ‘East Asia’ and ‘East Asian’ are vague categories which ignore the diversity of East Asian identities (See Takeda, ‘Weblog Narratives of Japanese Migrant Women in Australia’, 417). Although future research may wish to compare perceptions of East Asian students from specific East Asian countries or ethnicities, in this study, it was found that East Asian students are represented in similar terms regardless of which East Asian country or ethnic group they are from.

3. See Ahn, ‘Statistics Prof. Asked Asian students to use “Western Convention” When Writing Their Names’.

4. In Western contexts, ‘East Asian’ and ‘Chinese’ are regularly used interchangeably which reflects the tendency to conflate all East Asians as Chinese. In the academic context, this is partly because the majority of East Asian students come from China. The consequence of this is that the stereotypes of Chinese students are routinely extended to all East Asian students, as is apparent in the literature that is analysed in this article, which often focuses on Chinese students but is generalised to all East Asian students.

5. See Zuo, ‘Racism Row’.

6. See Geanous, ‘Professor Quits After Asking Chinese Students to Speak English on Campus’.

7. In this article, my use of ‘the West’ and ‘Western’ broadly refers to North America, Western Europe and Australasia. I recognise that ‘the West’ and ‘Western’ are nebulous categories which do not capture the uniqueness of different Western contexts. In this regard, there may be variations in how East Asian students are perceived and treated in different Western countries, and even further, there may even be variations between universities within the same Western country (See EHRC, Racial Harassment Inquiry). While future studies may wish to explore the specificities of different Western contexts, this study found a consistency in representations of East Asian students across multiple Western contexts (See Fong, Paradise Redefined, 6–10).

8. See Arday et al., ‘Attempting to Break the Chain’; Doharty et al., ‘The University Went to “Decolonise” And All They Brought Back Was Lousy Diversity Double-Speak!’; Moosavi, ‘Decolonising Criminology’; and Moosavi, ‘The Decolonial Bandwagon and the Dangers of Intellectual Decolonisation’.

9. Kwon et al., ‘Racial Segregation and the Limits of International Undergraduate Student Diversity’.

10. Fong, Paradise Redefined.

11. See Brooks, ‘Representations of East Asian Students in the UK Media’; and Collins, ‘Making Asian Students, Making Students Asian’.

12. See Walker-DeVose et al., ‘Southern Assumptions’.

13. See EHRC, Racial Harassment Inquiry.

14. See Christian ‘From Liverpool to New York City’; Johnson & Joseph-Salisbury, ‘“Are you Supposed to Be in Here?”’; and Yao et al. ‘Exploring the Intersection of Transnationalism and Critical Race Theory’.

15. Lander & Santoro, ‘Invisible and Hypervisible Academics’.

16. See Preston, Whiteness in Academia.

17. See Walters et al., ‘“Before They Kill My Spirit Entirely”’, 626–628.

18. Lander & Santoro, ‘Invisible and Hypervisible Academics’, 1017.

19. See Christian, ‘From Liverpool to New York City’, 424–425.

20. There is a glaring lack of publications about the experiences of non-academic staff in relation to racism in Western universities – the focus tends to be on academic staff members (See Arday, ‘Dismantling Power and Privilege Through Reflexivity’; Doharty et al., ‘The University Went to “Decolonise” And All They Brought Back Was Lousy Diversity Double-Speak!’; and Lander & Santoro, ‘Invisible and Hypervisible Academics’).

21. See Arday et al., ‘Attempting to Break the Chain’; Kwon et al., ‘Racial Segregation and the Limits of International Undergraduate Student Diversity’; and Walker-DeVose et al., ‘Southern Assumptions’.

22. See Christian, ‘From Liverpool to New York City’; and Grant, ‘An Autoethnography’.

23. See Mohamed & Beagan, ‘“Strange Faces” in the Academy’; and Walters et al., ‘“Before They Kill My Spirit Entirely”’.

24. Kim, ‘Aspiration for Global Cultural Capital in the Stratified Realm of Global Higher Education’, 122.

25. See Chen & Buell, ‘Of Models and Myths’; and Mayuzumi, ‘Navigating Orientalism’, 286

26. See Weale, ‘Chinese Students Flee UK After “Maskaphobia” Triggered Racist Attacks’; and Wong, ‘Sinophobia’.

27. See Iqbal, ‘“They Yelled Coronavirus”’; and Poggio, Parascandola & Annese, ‘“When I Go Out, I’m Afraid of People Attacking Me”, Says Victim in Bronx Anti-Chinese Coronavirus Assault’.

28. See Decome, ‘The Rise of the Chinese Villain’; and Mayuzumi, ‘Navigating Orientalism’, 280–281.

29. See Takeda, ‘Weblog Narratives of Japanese Migrant Women in Australia’, 419; and Wong et al., ‘Asian American Male College Students’ Perceptions of People’s Stereotypes About Asian American Men’, 77–84

30. Kawai, ‘Stereotyping Asian Americans’, 110–112.

31. See Decome, ‘The Rise of the Chinese Villain’.

32. Kawai, “Stereotyping Asian Americans.

33. See Abelmann, The Intimate University; Fong, Paradise Redefined; and Xu, ‘“Diaspora at Home”’.

34. Ryan, ‘“The Chinese Learner”’, 37.

35. See Moosavi, ‘“Can East Asian Students Think?”’.

36. Preston, Whiteness in Academia, 3.

37. Said, Orientalism, 245.

38. Song, ‘“Chinese Students Syndrome” in Australia’, 615.

39. Alatas, ‘Intellectual Imperialism’, 25.

40. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies.

41. Clark & Gieve, ‘On the Discursive Construction of “The Chinese Learner”’, 57.

42. Edwards et al., ‘Uneven Playing Field or Falling Standards?’, 391.

43. Nield, ‘Questioning the Myth of the Chinese Learner’, 189.

44. See Yang, ‘The PRC “Foreign Talent” Scholars and Their Singaporean “Other”’.

45. See Clark & Gieve, ‘On the Discursive Construction of “The Chinese Learner”’, 59.

46. See Peng, ‘From Migrant Student to Migrant Employee’; Xu, ‘Transborder Habitus in a Within-Country Mobility Context’; and Xu, ‘“Diaspora at Home”’.

47. See Ryan, ‘“The Chinese Learner”’, 40–41.

48. Xu, ‘Transborder Habitus in a Within-Country Mobility Context’, 1132–1136.

49. See Astarita et al., ‘Chinese Students in Australia’.

50. See Abelmann, The Intimate University.

51. Song & McCarthy, ‘Governing Asian International Students’, 359.

52. See above 41., 55.

53. See above 43., 195.

54. See Ryan & Louie, ‘False Dichotomy?’.

55. See Pu & Evans, ‘Critical Thinking in the Context of Chinese Postgraduate Students’ Thesis Writing’.

56. Moosavi, ‘“Can East Asian Students Think?”’.

57. See Grant, ‘An Autoethnography’; and Johnson & Joseph-Salisbury, ‘“Are you Supposed to Be in Here?”’.

58. See Durkin, ‘The Adaptation of East Asian Masters Students to Western Norms of Critical Thinking and Argumentation in the UK’; Egege & Kutieleh, ‘Critical Thinking’; Hammersley-Fletcher & Hanley, ‘The Use of Critical Thinking in Higher Education in Relation to the International Student’; and Zhang, ‘Why Do Chinese Postgraduates Struggle with Critical Thinking?’.

59. See Chiu, ‘Facilitating Asian Students’ Critical Thinking in Online Discussions’; Okada, ‘Conflict between Critical Thinking and Cultural Values’; Zhang, ‘Why Do Chinese Postgraduates Struggle with Critical Thinking?’; and Zhang & Kim, ‘Critical Thinking Cultivation in Chinese College English Classes’.

60. Astarita et al., ‘Chinese Students in Australia’, 331.

61. Pu & Evans, ‘Critical Thinking in the Context of Chinese Postgraduate Students’ Thesis Writing’, 50.

62. See Pu & Evans, ‘Critical Thinking in the Context of Chinese Postgraduate Students’ Thesis Writing’; Rear, ‘International Comparisons of Critical Thinking’; and Song & McCarthy, ‘Governing Asian International Students’.

63. See Hammersley-Fletcher & Hanley, ‘The Use of Critical Thinking in Higher Education in Relation to the International Student’, 981–982.

64. Atkinson, ‘A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL’.

65. Atkinson, ‘A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL’, 72.

66. Atkinson, ‘A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL’, 75.

67. Atkinson, ‘A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL’, 89.

68. Atkinson, ‘The Author Responds … ’, 135.

69. Atkinson, ‘A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL’, 87–88.

70. Ehrich et al., ‘A Comparison of Chinese and Australian University Students’ Attitudes Towards Plagiarism’.

71. Ehrich et al., ‘A Comparison of Chinese and Australian University Students’ Attitudes Towards Plagiarism’, 242.

72. Sowden, ‘Plagiarism and the Culture of Multilingual Students in Higher Education Abroad’.

73. Sowden, ‘Plagiarism and the Culture of Multilingual Students in Higher Education Abroad’, 232.

74. Phan, ‘Plagiarism and Overseas Students’.

75. See Maxwell et al., ‘Plagiarism among Local and Asian Students in Australia’; and Wheeler, ‘Culture of Minimal Influence’.

76. See Feng, ‘FBI Urges Universities to Monitor Some Chinese Students and Scholars in the U.S.’.

77. See Song, ‘“Chinese Students Syndrome” in Australia’.

78. Harryba, S. A., ‘Challenges Faced by University Staff Members when Providing Services to International Students’.

79. Astarita et al., ‘Chinese Students in Australia’.

80. See above 60., 331.

81. McGowan and Potter, ‘The Implications of the Chinese Learner for the Internationalization of the Curriculum’.

82. This is not the only time that the notion of ‘dumbing down’ has been associated with East Asian students in an academic publication (see Edwards et al., ‘Uneven Playing Field or Falling Standards?’, 392–393).

83. See Astarita et al., ‘Chinese Students in Australia’, 330–331; and Kim, ‘Aspiration for Global Cultural Capital in the Stratified Realm of Global Higher Education’.

84. See above 10.

85. McGowan and Potter, ‘The Implications of the Chinese Learner for the Internationalization of the Curriculum’, 185.

86. See Yao et al., ‘Exploring the Intersection of Transnationalism and Critical Race Theory’.

87. Foster, ‘The Impact of International Students on Measured Learning and Standards in Australian Higher Education’.

88. Foster, ‘The Impact of International Students on Measured Learning and Standards in Australian Higher Education’, 594.

89. Ibid., 588.

90. See Collins, ‘Making Asian Students, Making Students Asian’, 217–218; and Fong, Paradise Redefined, 27.

91. See above 50.

92. Ryan & Louie, ‘False Dichotomy?’, 407.

93. See Sawir, ‘Internationalisation of Higher Education Curriculum’.

94. See above 88., 596.

95. Lander & Santoro, ‘Invisible and Hypervisible Academics’, 1017–1018.

96. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 176.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leon Moosavi

Dr Leon Moosavi is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Liverpool, UK. He has been based in Singapore since 2013 where he is the Director of the University of Liverpool in Singapore. His current research focuses on the decolonisation of knowledge, racism within higher education and academic imperialism. He has also published scholarship on Islamophobia, conversion to Islam and Muslim communities in the UK. His most recent publications are ‘The Decolonial Bandwagon and the Dangers of Intellectual Decolonisation’ and ‘“Can East Asian Students Think?”: Orientalism, Critical Thinking, and the Decolonial Project’.