Confidence, Motivation and Effort

From Why do children of Indian immigrants dominate American spelling bees? by Eugene Volokh.

The last eight national champions and thirteen of the last seventeen have been of Indian descent, a string of victories that began in 1999 with Nupur Lala’s win.

Given the extremely difficult and competitive nature of the spelling bees, it is impossible that the continuing domination of the spelling bees by Indian students over such an extended period is a fluke or an accident. There must be a rational explanation for their success, some secret to their prowess. Consequently, I would like to reopen the debate on this subject and welcome suggestions for making sense of this astonishing phenomenon.

Here are some of the contributions from comments.

Parental ambition

For the same reason Koreans own half the dry cleaning business in the US. It's easy for a minority group to find a niche and shape in-group norms in order to dominate in it.

North South Foundation bees as a feeder system

"Most American kids look up to sports figures," he says. "Indian kids are more interested in education, and they finally have a role model."

Spellbound, the 2002 documentary that featured Indian-American Nupur Lala's run to the 1999 Scripps title

Many first-generation South Asian parents saw NSF as a way for their children to assimilate—the best way to understand a culture, after all, is to learn its language.

Predecessor exemplars

Because their parents speak good English at home (thereby excluding quite a few other immigrant groups), combined with no desire to see their boys "waste" time playing sport (so excluding other US minorities who focus on that).

My experience of Indian immigrants (admittedly not in the US and obviously hardly exhaustive) is that many of them live vicariously through their boys, and conflate their own worth with the academic success of their boys.

Model minority myth

Relatively high parental educational attainment

Relatively dominant focus on education as a factor for economic national and self-improvement in India

Focus and effort on a competitive academic pursuit that promotes self-improvement, memory, and competition

Media attention

Spelling is also very individualistic.

There is a large volume of very high IQ tech industry immigration to the U.S. from South Asia and those who excel in spelling bees are mostly very high IQ children of these very high IQ parents

Success begets imitation. For every South Asian spelling bee winner, ten other contestants are encouraged in their belief that they can do the same.

Immigrants, in general, tend to be high in grit and inclined to devote great efforts to advancing academically.

English, of a sort, is a native language or highly fluently spoken second language for most South Asian immigrants that gives their children an edge over comparable immigrants from places like China or Russia where this is not the case.

The key to success is simply preparation

Specifically, an Indian-American cultural organization called the North South Foundation sponsors a spelling bee league. It is not just the best spelling bee league but almost the only one. Therefore its participants dominate the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Those participants are drawn almost entirely from children of Indian immigrants, who after all are the people who participate in Indian-American cultural organizations.

Why some Indian-Americans put so much effort into spelling bees and practically no one else does is an interesting question, but the fact that they do it adequately explains their dominance.

Indian immigrant children are doing well at this because their mothers value the activity.

I think it's just as simple as the fact that Indian-American families (or some of them) have made this a priority, whereas other ethnic groups have not.

Indians are exposed to different languages. They typically know at least 2 (an Indian language + English), and come into contact with at least a couple more.

Maybe they don't find American sports as interesting so competitive Indians find an outlet in intellectual sport.

Another factor could be overcompensation. Indians typically have English as a first language, but most Americans will probably interpret the accent as evidence of poor English skills.

It's not about emphasizing education broadly; it's likely that Indian-Americans strongly emphasize the spelling bee specifically, highly out of proportion compared to other groups, and even other groups with equally high emphasis on education generally.

First, most of the kids come from families with parents of above average intelligence.

Second, the Indian culture focuses on education...yes, more so than many other (but NOT all other) cultures.

Third, Indians come from an 'English first' culture...which gives them a leg up on many other immigrant groups, such as the Chinese.

But fourth: Indian parents (especially mothers) are really, really driven.

The Indian education system emphasizes rote memorization, as does English spelling. This pre-selects American immigrants who will train their children rigorously.

A commitment to education and a rigid enforcement of "There is only one right answer", none of this whole math / good effort nonsense?

The consensus across several sites seems to be that the results arise because of 1) High IQ homesettings, 2) Parental prioritization, 3) Institutional infrastructure (NSF), 4) Community awareness (documentary), 5) Immigrant desire for excelling, 6) Comparative advantage for Indians of multilingualism and native English compared to other immigrant groups and 7) Effort.

All reasonable hypotheses. Consistent with The Triple Package by Amy Chua and Jeb Rubenfeld - Confidence, Motivation and Effort.