Asian American children exhibit stronger math and reading skills than white children at school entry, a pattern that has motivated scholars to examine early childhood to determine when and why these gaps form. Yet, to date, it has been unclear what parenting practices might explain this "Asian Advantage." Analyzing more than 4,100 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, we find that the role of parenting is complex. Asian American parents have high educational expectations compared with whites but are less engaged in traditional measures of parenting (e.g., reading to the child, maternal warmth, parent-child relationship), and these differences matter for understanding the Asian American/white math advantage in early childhood. Thus, even by age four, Asian American parents (across ethnic subgroups) play an important but complex role in the development of a child's cognitive skills in the first few years of life.

Modes of accommodation and adaptation may influence minority immigrants’ assimilation outcomes. Using census data from 1980, 1990, and 2000, we follow the Asian Indians and Filipinos who were 0–19 years old in 1980 and immigrated to the US in the 1970s. We apply cohort analysis to compare their educational attainment when they became 20–39 years old in 2000 with that of their parents in 1980 and 1990. Educational attainment, on average, was lower among Filipino immigrant children than among their parents but higher among Asian Indian immigrant children than among their parents. We then explore differences in educational attainment and intermarriage patterns between Asian Indians and Filipinos. Asian Indians were much more likely to complete college, but far less likely to marry whites than Filipinos. These findings offer the basis for the discussion of different paths of assimilation among middle-class immigrants.