Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Jacqueline D. Spears / BeEtta L. Stoney / There is a paucity of research on Asian Indians (AI) and Asian Indian Americans (AIA) and their experiences in the American school system. Studies suggest that the educational experiences of Asian Indian American students are related to Asian Indian parents' cultural background, and acculturation into the host society. Previous research also shows that Asian Indian students excel academically. However, the researcher has from personal experience seen that there is a variation in the experiences and academic performance of Asian Indian American students in the middle and high schools. This study describes the educational experiences and the academic achievements of Asian Indian students in a middle and high school district in a Midwestern college town. It uses the multiple case study design, which results in a picture of the commonalities among these Asian Indian students as well as their unique individual experiences. The researcher studies the experiences that the Asian Indian students have in school through student, parent and teacher feedback. Nine Asian Indian American students are interviewed in detail, eight of their parents are surveyed with detailed electronic surveys, and five core curriculum teachers were surveyed with a detailed email survey questionnaire. This study reveals three major themes, namely, the struggle for self-identity in the AIA students, the various definitions of academic success and success in life; and the role and responsibility of the school district in nurturing these concepts of self-identity and academic success. The recommendations for schools and the teachers are to modify the curriculum to include AIA information as part of the regular curriculum. Asian Indian and Asian Indian American culture, history, geography, literature, must be taught regularly. Teachers must conscientiously incorporate the contributions of AIs and AIAs as a part of the regular curriculum. The recommendation for AI parents is to realize that their children are Americans of Indian origin, and not Asian Indians. The recommendations for further research are an inquiry into the absence of AIA information in the curriculum, a longitudinal study to follow the success of AIA students in later life.

When discussing Asian Indian population in the U.S. their economic success and scholastic achievement dominates the discourse. Despite their perceived economic and scholastic success and their status as a “model minority”, Asian Indians experience discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization from mainstream American society. These experiences of discrimination and perceived discrimination are causing second generation Asian Indians to give up on total assimilation and re-ethnicize. They are using different pathways of re-ethnicization to re-claim and to create an ethnic identity. This thesis provides evidence, through secondary sources, that Asian Indians in the U.S. do experience discrimination or perceived discrimination, and it is historic, cultural, and systemic. This thesis also uses secondary sources to explain several pathways of re-ethnicization utilized by second generation Asian Indians who have given up on complete assimilation. The process of re-ethnicization provides second generation Asian Indians agency, positionality, and placement in American society. Asian Indians through re-ethnicization occupy and embrace the margins that separate mainstream American society and the Asian Indians community in the U.S. It allows them to act as “go –betweens”.

<p>The 3,000-year-old Indian caste system continues to impact the experiences of Indians across the world. Psychological conceptualization and literature with Asian Indians (AIs) in the U.S have largely focused on the experiences of AIs as a marginalized group in the U.S. and within-group experiences such as casteism has not been considered as a framework for analysis, despite its pervasiveness. As counseling psychologists with values of social justice, caste is critical to consider as a unit and framework for analysis in understanding the lived experiences of all AIs in the U.S. This dissertation consists of two parts that are conceptually related to each other. The first chapter reviews historical, socio-political, and psychological factors in the conceptualization of casteism and theorizes Caste Critical Theory (CasteCRIT), which is based in Critical Race Theory. The second chapter assesses AI psychological literature from the lens of CasteCRIT. The empirical study aims to develop and validate a scale to measure casteist beliefs based in the key tenet of CasteCRIT that casteism is endemic. The Caste Beliefs Scale (CBS) is a 15-items scale with a correlational factor model and measures institutional and interpersonal caste beliefs in the U.S. Implications are discussed for future research. </p>

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Asian Indian Americans are a highly successful subset of Asian Americans. According to a 2012 Pew Center report, this population has the highest level of degree attainment among Asian Americans as well as the highest median income among Asian Americans ("The Rise of Asian Americans," 2012). However, there is a cloak of invisibility surrounding this population. There is little research on how second-generation Asian Indian Americans navigate the expectations of academic excellence and cultural adherence in their relationships with their first-generation parents. There is limited knowledge and understanding of this population that is burdened by family expectations, community expectations, institutional expectations, and their own self-expectations of academic excellence. The paucity of research on this population creates the invisible minority where students’ needs may be ignored based on unfounded assumptions on part of the community and the institution. This phenomenological study adds to the sparse literature on Asian Indian Americans by exploring the intergenerational relationships of Asian Indian American undergraduate students in a narrowly focused area of academic choices and academic performance. This study examined students’ perceptions of the communication between first-generation parents and second-generation children who are currently enrolled at Southern State University. Further, this study examined the stress generated by the intergenerational relationships and the coping strategies employed by the students for dealing with the aforementioned stress. Findings from this study indicate that first-generation parents stress academic excellence and enrollment in certain majors based on their own experiences as new immigrants as well as to uphold the honor and prestige of the family. While the expectations of academic excellence from parents create stress for the students, the students remain grateful to their parents for instilling such values in them. However, the findings reveal that students felt stress from the expectation of excellence from the community, family, and institution to perform well. The findings of varying levels of intergenerational issues suggest that the parent-child relationships in this population were complex and non-linear. / text

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