The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data reveal persistent achievement gaps among White students and other minority students in the United States. Take the 12^th-grade students’ assessment in mathematics and reading as an example (NAEP, 2013). As shown in Table 1, the percentage of White students at or above the proficient level is significantly higher both in mathematics and reading than American Indian, Hispanic and Black students, and the only exception is Asian/Islander students, whose test scores have been similar to the White students’ scores.  Likewise, NAEP’s (2014) 4^th- and 8^th-grade students’ assessments in reading and mathematics, the Long-Term Trend (2012) data in reading and mathematics, and the High School Transcript Study (2009) data all portray a similar pattern, and the same trend may be observed across subjects, grades, districts and states.

Insert Table 1 here

Such unusual assessment results for the Asian students across K-12 schools and over time merit critical examination. If any achievement differences between the diverse student population and their White counterparts may be explained as the mainstream culture and schooling privileging the White students and disempowering other non-White students, then why can the Asian students, who themselves come from very diverse cultural, socio-economic, linguistic, and ethnic backgrounds, manage to get academic success comparable with the White students? While differing socioeconomic conditions  and racial/cultural relations are often used to account for the persistent gaps, there are few investigations, hence little empirical evidence, about why students from diverse backgrounds still learn and perform differently within similar socioeconomic and instructional school settings. Are there any personal, familial and cultural attributes that may have helped them stand out? If so, in what ways can their academic success be replicated by other minority students? More importantly, how can schools motivate and engage all children to equally learn the required curriculums? Clearly, answers to these questions are not only theoretically significant, but may offer much needed insight to the educational field deal with the widening achievement gaps.

This study focused on three high school seniors from diverse backgrounds. Specifically, it addressed these three research questions: 1. How do these students articulate their engagement with school courses? 2. How do they perceive the role of their parent(s) in their school learning? 3. How do they view their teachers’ impact on their academic performance?  

Theoretical Framework

Educational researchers developed various theories to explain the divergent academic achievements by students from diverse backgrounds. This research is informed by three theoretical perspectives. Firstly, critical theorists suggest that schools adopt social discourses and practices in accordance with students’ socio-economic capital, thus helping to reproduce the social relations and conditions that perpetuate the existing social order and inequality (Kozol, 1992). More recently, Ravitch (2011) maintained that even though American adolescents scored poorly in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), compared with their peers in other developed countries, the low scores were mainly caused by poverty in the American society. Secondly, to account for the divergent achievements, Ogbu (1987) theorized two types of minorities: involuntary minorities and voluntary immigrant minorities. According to Ogbu, the former tend to adopt an oppositional stance toward schooling, but the latter have more instrumental motivation for schooling (Lee, 1996). Finally, Watkins and Biggs (1996) tracked the root of the Eastern educational tradition to the Confucian-heritage learning culture. Li (2012) further differentiated the Western and Eastern educational traditions. The former often focuses on external variables that impact optimizing conditions for learning, and the latter first looks internally at personal virtue and effort. Together, these theorizations provide interrelated conceptual lenses to comprehensively examine diverse students’ differing academic performance within the same school setting. 

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