Disciplinary Divides within Asian American Studies: Lessons from Intergroup Contact Theory and Community-Based Participatory Research

I begin with a confession. I have been an on-again, off-again member of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) for the past seventeen years with the majority of time as a lapsed member. Yet throughout this time, I have been actively involved as a faculty member in Asian American studies (AAS) programs at the University of Texas at Austin (1997–2000) and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (2000–present). Moreover, as a professor of psychology, my research on ethnic identity, perceived discrimination, acculturation, parent-child cultural conflicts, and international adoption has long drawn upon AAS perspectives and scholarship. Nevertheless, I remain ambivalent about AAAS as a professional home, and I believe my own reservations with AAAS reflect a larger disconnect between the behavioral and social sciences and the field of AAS. In this article, I draw upon intergroup contact theory and community-based participatory research methods to suggest ways to bridge the divide between the behavioral and social sciences and AAS/AAAS.⁹

First, it’s important to begin with an understanding of what I mean by the behavioral and social sciences. I adopt a rather narrow definition that focuses primarily on empirical approaches to understanding human development, health, and well-being, because this specific subset of the field, which includes my own scholarship, is most absent from AAS/AAAS. The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institutes of Health provides the following description:

Basic research in the behavioral and social sciences is designed to further our understanding of fundamental mechanisms and patterns of behavioral and social functioning relevant to the Nation’s health and well-being, and as they interact with each other, with biology and the environment. . . . Applied research in the behavioral and social sciences is designed to predict or influence health outcomes, risks, or protective factors. It is also concerned with the impact of illness or risk for illness on behavioral or social functioning.¹⁰

This definition explicitly avoids naming particular disciplines, but behavioral and social sciences in this context most often refer to the fields of psychology, political science, sociology, economics, and anthropology—as well as other allied fields such as public health, education, social work. Moreover, behavioral/social scientists use quantitative and qualitative research designs to address these basic and applied research questions. In this respect, most researchers in this defined group of behavioral and social sciences adopt a positivist or postpositivist philosophy of science.

Beyond my own confession, the 2013 AAAS Conference programming highlights the lack of involvement by behavioral/social scientists in AAS/AAAS. In a cursory review of the 180 or so program session titles, including plenaries and workshops, I identified only four, possibly five, sessions whose topics and titles allude to a focus on behavioral and social functioning, as defined by NIH. Even among these few sessions, it was not apparent if the presentations involved qualitative or quantitative data. In addition to programming, AAAS also recognizes outstanding scholarship by conferring book awards at the conference, but there are no awards for best peer-reviewed journal articles—which is how the majority of behavioral/social scientists disseminate scholarship. These constructive critiques are not to say behavioral/social scientists only study health and mental health, rely on quantitative or qualitative data analyses, and publish in peer-reviewed journals, but they do suggest an organizational bias or preference within AAAS. It would be easy to blame this poor representation in sessions and awards on the lack of participation by behavioral/social scientists in AAAS or on the outdatedness of the theories and methodologies used by behavioral/social scientists. However, blaming the other (especially when they are in the minority within the organization) is rarely productive and often destructive.

To bridge this apparent divide, I adopt intergroup contact theory as a framework to understand how to help overcome perceived barriers and biases. Allport developed the theory based on early field research on black-white relations, such as desegregation/integration leading to more positive racial attitudes. In his pioneering book The Nature of Prejudice, Allport...