Despite one-dimensional stereotypes and barriers experienced by Asian American women, many have achieved prominence. We know very little about these stories, their lives, or what helped them to achieve beyond expectations. Based on the Productive Giftedness Model, the article identifies the common traits and supportive conditions that influence their success. To help illustrate these experiences, the article highlights the lives of 10 notable Asian American women across diverse professions. These women displayed “productive giftedness” as girls; they were accomplished, determined, and skillful early on, which led to excellence, awards, and leadership opportunities. Many also had supportive conditions including the investment of one or more adults. Parents, teachers, and mentors can further enhance these opportunities for Asian American girls. These general principles can be learned and applied to other groups as well. Supporting individual, instructional, and environmental factors can influence learning and achievement for girls in the early and school years.

It has been widely reported that Korean-American students as a group outperform most other groups of students in terms of academic achievement due to having parents with especially high academic expectations due to traditional Confucian values. To examine this achievement, this study examines the common factors across the indigenous East Asian parenting ideologies, styles, and practices based on the perceptions of high-achieving, Korean-American primary school students through the East Asian Parenting Model. Perceptions about child development and learning, the mother-child relationship, authoritarian parenting style, and specific East Asian parenting practices are patterns explored in this study. These findings may inform teachers, pre-service teachers, and others involved in the education of Korean-American students about differentiating factors (i.e., specific East Asian parental and/or teaching practices) that may be influential for explaining and improving the academic achievement for the children in this group.

Research on parenting styles and children’s developmental outcomes have been prominent in the parenting and achievement literature for decades and research shows that parenting style is not consistent across families from diverse backgrounds (Baumrind, 1971; Chao, 1994; Grusec, Goodnow, & Kuzcynski, 2000). Building on this research, this study examines Korean parenting and its influence on Korean-American achievement by examining the common factors across East Asian parenting ideologies, styles, and practices through the East Asian Parenting Model (EAPM) (Chao, 1994; Choi, Kim, Pekelnicky, & Kim, 2013; Darling & Steinberg, 1993). Perceptions about child development and learning and the changing and evolving mother-child relationship are patterns particularly explored in this study. Overall, this study purports important findings regarding evolving Korean parenting foundations affecting Korean-American achievement which add to the field of Asian-American achievement literature. These findings may help inform educators working within school. settings about ways in which Korean parenting foundations influence the education of these children.