IES Predoctoral Program Seminar: Dr. Xi Song

The University of Pennsylvania Predoctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Research Methods for Field-based Research in Education, sponsored by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), welcomes Dr. Xi Song to our weekly seminar series.

Intergenerational Educational Mobility of Asian Americans under the Shadow of the Asian Exclusion (1892-1943)
Presented by Dr. Xi Song, Associate Professor of Sociology and Demography, University of Pennsylvania

An early sociological view in the United States, traceable to Edward Alsworth Ross (1866–1951), was that Asian American immigrants had lower standards for their children’s education than Whites. According to this reasoning, it was not until the Civil Rights Movement that the socioeconomic profiles of Asian Americans began to improve, leading to a new well-educated, “model minority” generation. With recently released linked 1900–1940 full-count U.S. Census microdata, we challenge this view with new evidence on the intergenerational mobility of native-born Asian Americans before the Civil Rights Movement. We find that Chinese and Japanese Americans who grew up during 1882–1943, a period of anti-Asian policies in the U.S. (for example, the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Gentleman’s Agreement), exhibited exceptionally high educational mobility amid these policies. However, their higher educational mobility failed to translate into higher occupational mobility. The discrepancy between educational and occupational mobility suggests labor market discrimination was at work for Asian Americans prior to the Civil Rights Movement.

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The IES Predoctoral Program’s weekly seminar series connects program fellows and affiliates to scholars and practitioners who engage in educational research and the development of research methods.

Seminars are likely of greatest interest to doctoral students and faculty but are open to all members of the Penn community. If you are interested in attending virtually, please email Melanie Bahti for Zoom information.