Chinese Educational Achievement and “Folk Theories of Success”

This article examines issues of human agency and Ogbu's concept of “folk theory of success” in the context of the Dutch Chinese immigrant educational experience. It argues that minority educational behavior and the way it comes about cannot be described with static interpretive frames; rather, it must be located within the context of a flexible “cultural logic” that determines the interpretation of continually changing circumstances facing an individual or group and provides malleable blueprints for behavior and folk theories of success.