ABSTRACT
The number of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans increased more rapidly between 1990 and 2000 than did the number of any other racial or ethnic group in the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001; 2002).1 The advent of new methodologies for the 2000 U.S. Census permit our first view of some of the distinctions among the heterogeneous Asian and Pacific Islander American ethnic groups, and across females and males within each ethnic group. While census information has aided in the identification of at-risk groups and general needs, the body of educational, social, and cultural research on these groups has evolved in the past two decades, deepening understanding of the equity dynamics affecting them. Research and publication on critical questions regarding learner attributes, sociocultural influences, external conditions and forces, and the interactive effects of these factors may have been promoted by the gradual increase in the number of Asian and Pacific Islander scholars on American university faculties and in national research centers. Still, Asian and Pacific Islander American girls and boys are invisible or undifferentiated in most of the nation’s large scale and longitudinal databases (e.g., the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study and the SAT annual results), and are infrequently represented in major research programs.
