Discussion of Various Articles

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(1) This paper examines the article, "Indochinese Refugee Families and Academic Achievement" by Nathan Caplan, Marcella H. Choy, and John K. Whitmore, published in the February 1992 issue of Scientific American, and compares it to relevant writings in The Development of Children by Michael Cole and Sheila R. Cole. The concept presented in this article is that the social support system within the families of refugee children is an important factor in their ability to excel in the educational system in the United States. To Caplan and his co-authors, this is an indication that American schools are actually effective in providing education; their inability to achieve such impressive results with most other students suggests the existence of other factors, beyond the control of the schools. Caplan and his associates argue that society could learn how to support the work of the schools more effectively by studying the model of the refugee children.

(2) The purpose of the article is to report the findings of the authors' study of 536 school-age children and their families living in one of five urban areas across the country. This group had been in the United States for an average of three and a half years, arriving as refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and China. The authors' intent is to show the academic success of the majority of these children, especially in comparison with their American counterparts, and to put forward several theories about the reasons for that success.

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specially when it is part of the package of values conveyed within the family, is important to the individual child's success, for both girls and boys. Where girls were expected to do as well as boys and where mothers and fathers were seen as equal partners, children's test scores were significantly higher. (5) The article relies on considerable evidence to support its thesis. The authors conducted a detailed study of 536 refugee children in 200 nuclear families, living in five cities across the country, chosen at random from a larger pool of 1,400 households. They conducted interviews with the families, as well as consulting school transcripts and other documents. They compared test scores with those of other students; most of their arguments are based on factual evidence that is well-supported by their research. (6) My judgment of the reliability and validity of the article's conclusions is that the authors' research is solid and credible. One important factor in my evaluation is the fact that the family interviews were conducted in their native tongues; since many of the parents did not speak much English, this method allowed the researchers to obtain more detailed and accurate information. Although this was not state
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Approximate Word count = 1574
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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