Making Sense of Segregation: Asian American Youth Perspectives (2022-2024)

This qualitative study examines how 64 Asian
American high school students and recent alumni in New York City make sense of racial and socioeconomic
segregation across selective and nonselective public high schools; and what
their sensemaking reveals about their understandings of race, class, and power. Nearly
all interviewees believed that the underrepresentation of Black and Latine
students at selective high schools is problematic, but they employed distinct frames
to describe the nature of the problem and how to remedy it. Most students
employed abstract liberalism and culture of poverty frames,
lacking a critical analysis of race and power. Some students employed a conscious
compromise frame, critiquing segregation as undermining the individual
benefits of diversity. Fewer students employed a power analysis frame,
pointing to the systemic factors shaping the racialized structure of
educational opportunity. Findings reveal students’ uneven experience with, and
analytic tools for, discussing race and Asian American identity.

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