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“Success Is Relative”

Previous studies have pursued whether there is an inverse relationship between levels of achievement and students’ perceptions of their success. We find that these academic paradoxes exist but that they need to be analyzed in a manner that does not look only at structure or culture and that remaps what falls under both of these categories. Comparing in-depth interview data of middle-class Korean American and Mexican American college students who have realized a similar outcome, enrollment in a higher tier University of California school or rough equivalent, this study examines how the interplay of structural dimensions—class and ethnic factors such as social location and social capital—as well as cultural dimensions—ethnic expectations, reference groups, and emotional support—shapes the modes and mechanisms by which students feel “successful.” Our study reveals that meaning-making processes influenced by this structural-cultural interplay yield paradoxical outcomes when analysts move beyond a single or objective focus on academic achievement. We conclude with a discussion of how scholarship on immigration, race/ethnicity, and education can move in this direction of complicating the definitions and measures of academic success.