Untangling Asian American Political Participation: Education, Immigrant Status, Political Generation, and Political Trust

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Data, Policy, and Access: Participation and Pathways with AANHPI Communities

Abstract

This paper critically examines the relationship between educational attainment and political participation among Asian Americans, using nationally representative data from the 2014 General Social Survey and logistic regression analysis. By disaggregating participation into conventional (voting) and unconventional (protests, petitions, boycotts) forms, the study reveals that education does not uniformly predict civic engagement across racial groups. For Asian Americans, immigrant status and political generation more strongly shape participation than educational level alone. Framed by theories of political socialization and community cultural wealth, the analysis underscores the need to move beyond education-based models to account for structural exclusion and alternative modes of civic agency. The findings have implications for reimagining civic education and expanding definitions of democratic participation in immigrant and racialized communities.

Author

• Yun Rachel Liang, Touro University