Decolonizing Our Data: A Critical Quantitative Multiethnic Investigation of Filipino Student Success

• In Event: Decolonizing Educational Research: Re-Storying How We Empower and Transform Filipina/x/o Communities

Abstract

Objectives
In conformity with the United States Office of Management and Budget racial reporting mandate, (1997), many colleges choose to lump multiethnic students into one or multiple mixed race categories. At the University of Hawaiʻi (UH), this practice, referred to as “trumping”, categorized Filipino students who co-identify with other ethnic and racial categories into mixed race or mixed ethnicity groups. This is problematic given the long history of ethnic commingling in the Filipino diaspora and results in undercounting Filipinos and the misrepresentation of Filipinos as a model minority student across the UH System. These empirical trends are suspect and ignore the multiethnic composition of Hawaii’s Filipino population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019). This paper’s research questions are (a) How can we decolonize higher education data classifications to include the experience of multiethnic Filipino students? (b) Under such a classification, are there differences between Filipino ethnic groups? And (c) How can we apply “untrumping” to investigate Filipino student success?

Perspective/Theoretical framework
The theoretical perspective used in this study was Critical Multiethnic Studies (MultiCrit). MultiCrit is a theoretical paradigm which argues that multiracial students experience race differently from their monoethnic racial minority peers (Root, 1996). Previous studies have shown that Multiethnic college students face unique educational experiences and challenges which warrant study separate from their monoethnic peers (Renn, 2003), but no studies have examined the experience of multiethnic Filipinos at the University of Hawaiʻi.

Methodology
This study decolonized the student data by untrumping student data and examining differences between Filipino ethnic groups (e.g. sole identifying Filipinos v. Filipino Hawaiian v. Filipino Mixed non-Hawaiians) and utilized multigroup path analysis to test for group differences. This study drew upon all students who identified as Filipino, alone or in combination, at the University of Hawaiʻi between 2013 and 2014 (n ~ 5,500). The analysis controlled for the influence of socioeconomic status (being a Pell recipient or graduate of a Title I high school), academic preparation (first semester grade point average, standardized placement exams), and other demographic variables (e.g., gender, full-time status, etc.) To test for group differences, this study disaggregated participants by multiethnic identification (monoethnic Filipinos, Filipino Hawaiians, and multiethnic non-Hawaiian Filipinos).

Findings
This study found that, using the decolonial untrumped data and multigroup path analysis, Filipino ethnic studies and language courses were shown to improve community college graduation and transfer rates for all Filipino ethnic groups. The effect of these courses were significant and positive for all community college participants.

Significance
These findings suggest that (a) decolonizing student data is a promising methodological tool to understand the Filipino experience in higher education, and (b) that all Filipino ethnic groups benefit from ethnic studies and Filipino language courses, but this benefit fluctuates in magnitude according to multiethnic identification. This methodology reveal that ethnic studies and language courses benefited all Filipino ethnic groups. By challenging the colonial higher education racial reporting paradigm, this study provides deeper, more meaningful, and statistically significant results.

Author

• Leighton Vila, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa