“Minority but not Underrepresented” Faculty: A Systematic Review on Asian American Pacific Islander Faculty Experiences

• In Event: The persistent oppression of racism in global higher education

Proposal

The purpose of this paper presentation is to center the voices of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI faculty) as a call to action and illuminate the power of protest on the continuation of anti-Asian racism in society and the academia. Through a systematic review of the literature that includes studies from 1990-2023, we intend to illuminate the racialized experiences of AAPI faculty across academic disciplines and career stages. As a call to action, our study seeks to counter the National Science Foundation’s “minority but not underrepresented minority” classification of AAPIs by underscoring AAPI faculty’s minoritization despite erroneous generalizations of overrepresentation. Included in the review is the illumination of AAPI faculty’s efforts to create Asian American studies through a history of protest and political struggles. Based on this concern, our research is guided by the following questions: (1) What are tenured and tenure-track AAPI faculty’s perceptions and experiences within their careers across different stages and academic disciplines? (2) How do race, gender, and immigration statuses influence the experiences of tenured and tenure-track AAPI faculty across career stages and academic disciplines?

Currently, there is lack of critical research examining the exclusion of AAPI from the category of “underrepresented minority” in the framing of colleges and universities’ strategic priorities to diversify the faculty. As a classification that was started by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to determine the underrepresented groups in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), many colleges and universities have since extended this framework to understand faculty diversity across all academic units and disciplines. However, such an approach to diversity has quietly positioned Asian Americans as outliers in matters related to racial equity (Kim & Cooc, 2020). The NSF classification racializes AAPI academics and renders them in peculiar positions to prove and disprove their status as People of Color and the ability to build coalitions to advance racial equity and inclusivity (Liou & Boveda, 2022).

Theoretical, and Practical Arguments
Despite the Western conception of the social contract in articulating the ideals of hard work, meritocracy, and the American Dream, the educational systems in the United States remain highly stratified in sorting students into various sectors of the economy (Mills, 1997). In critiquing the hypocrisy of this social contract, Mills (1997) conceptualizes the racial contract that subjugates People of Color to a subordinated social contract of racism, exclusion, and exploitation. In the P-20 educational systems, there is an assumption embedded in this dominant discourse that often equates AAPI’s educational attainment with a lack of exposure to racism. In higher education, getting a terminal degree represents the pinnacle of one’s education in the meritocratic system. For AAPI faculty, race, gender, and immigration statuses continue to play a role in their racial contract. From this perspective, the ideologies associated with the “minority but not underrepresented minority” classification is a function of the racial contract, where the model minority thesis serves as the default justification for the lack of attention to the existing bamboo ceiling or the negative experiences with the everyday biases against AAPIs (Lee, 2019).

Approaches for the Systematic Literature Review
Systematic literature refers to the process of using explicit and systematic methods to collate and synthesize findings of studies that address a clearly formulated question (Alexander, 2020; Page et al., 2021). The current work follows the elements of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) model and focuses on the experiences of AAPI faculty in tenure-track careers in the U.S. The research team conducted an extensive search of the literature using four major databases, including ERIC, WOS, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The search terms used for the Boolean search included a variety of relevant phrases.

To ensure the quality of the literature review, the research team adopted Alexander's (2020) recommended approach, which involved using the constructs on their research questions to guide the review process and extracting relevant data from the literature. The review identified manuscripts focused on AAPI faculty in the United States, with a particular emphasis on those written in English. Limiting the scope to this language aimed to increase the likelihood that we incorporate the most recent and relevant literature about the experiences of AAPI faculty in U.S. settings. From a total of 7,032 sources, our methods of inclusion and exclusion resulted in a review of 251 studies.

The selected papers will be coded based on the coding scheme developed based on the theoretical framework. Specifically, the perceptions and experiences among the AAPI faculty within different layers of higher education organizations (e.g., program, departmental, college) and external spaces (e.g., professional fields and associations, broader community and society) will be captured. How these dimensions interact with faculty’s activities of research, teaching and mentoring, service, receiving professional mentoring, moving to another institution, and quality of life will be documented. The study is in the beginning of the coding process. We anticipate having the results and analysis this fall.

Significance
Since increasing faculty diversity is a necessary condition for ameliorating the campus racial climate (Parker & Trolian, 2020), the exclusion of AAPI faculty in conversations on diversity, equity, and inclusivity presents significant challenges for higher education to address all forms of racism. The current study provides implications for future research on diversity, equity, and inclusion in faculty development. Based on the synthesis of the current literature, our study will inform policy and community organizing—illuminating the power of protest.

Authors

• Daniel D Liou, Arizona State University

• Jeongeun Kim, University of Maryland - College Park

• Ivet Parra-Gaete, Arizona State University