The fast-growing demographic group of Asian Americans is often perceived as a “model minority.” This paper establishes empirical evidence of this stereotype in the context of education and then analyzes its consequences. We show that teachers rate Asian students’ academic skills more favorably than observationally similar White students in the same class, even after accounting for test performance and behavior. This contrasts with teachers’ lower likelihood of favoring Black and Hispanic students. Notably, teachers respond to the presence of any Asian student in the classroom by widening Black-White and Hispanic-White assessment gaps. This suggests that the “model minority” stereotype can negatively impact other minority groups despite its ostensibly positive connotation.

快速增长的亚裔美国人人口群体通常被视为“模范少数族裔”。本文在教育背景下建立了这种刻板印象的经验证据，然后分析了其后果。我们表明，教师对亚洲学生的学术技能的评价高于同一班观察相似的白人学生，即使在考虑了考试成绩和行为之后也是如此。这与教师偏爱黑人和西班牙裔学生的可能性较低形成鲜明对比。值得注意的是，教师通过扩大黑人与白人和西班牙裔与白人的评估差距来应对课堂上出现的任何亚洲学生。这表明，“模范少数民族”的刻板印象可能会对其他少数民族群体产生负面影响，尽管其表面上具有积极的内涵。