The Power of Culturally Empowering Coursework: A Multigroup Path Analysis Examining Multiethnic Filipino Student Success at the University of Hawaii

Abstract

This study utilizes multigroup path analysis to explore the factors that contribute to Filipino student success at the University of Hawaii (UH). Filipinos are the largest non-white and Asian ethnic group in the State of Hawaii, yet Filipinos have been historically underrepresented at UH’s four-year campuses, and overrepresented at the community college campuses. Using UH data, this study analyzes the effect of math, writing, and reading proficiency, culturally empowering curriculum, which is operationally defined as enrollment in Filipino ethnic studies courses or language courses, and demographic covariates on degree attainment and transfer. UH’s current ethnicity reporting policy trumps Filipino multiethnic students into Native Hawaiian, mixed race, and mixed Asian ethnic categories. This study disaggregates multiethnic Filipinos to explore the possibility of group differences across culturally empowering curriculum, math, writing, and reading proficiency, and other covariates. Path analyses reveal that culturally empowering coursework is beneficial for both bachelor and associate degree attainment and transfer to a four-year institution. Community college multigroup path analysis reveals that this effect varies across multiethnic Filipino groups. Results also show that living in a Filipino neighborhood and enrolling in a major with a high concentration of Filipinos is only a significant predictor of degree attainment for Filipino monoethnics, as these covariates have no significant effect on Filipino Hawaiians and multiethnic non-Hawaiian Filipinos. The university multigroup analysis failed to find significant group effects. Implications for multiethnic curriculum and increasing Filipino enrollment at UH are discussed.