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I thought Sowell's point about Asians greatly outperforming whites was HUGELY important. It gives the lie to the notion that only economic factors are the cause of racial gaps in scholastic performance (unless Asians generally attend much better schools than whites and are richer as well, which seems dubious).

So take it from there. Asian children are generally brought up by their parents to study hard and work hard and to perform. It's no surprise they outperform whites. As Sowell says, there is nothing mysterious about this. And cultural differences probably explain some of the gap between the scholastic performance of whites and blacks as well, although there is clearly a significant economic difference in that comparison on average.

I don't think economic considerations are unimportant. But I think those who ignore the LARGE effect of cultural habits and conditioning on scholastic performance are ignoring one of the greatest factors when comparing such groups.

And no, if everyone emulated the Asians it wouldn't solve everything, but it sure as hell would raise our nation's average scholastic performance--by a LOT.