Education key to assimilation, study says

Far fewer Arab American women, 67.5%, get jobs compared to white women, 82%, according to the 2000 U.S. census.

While some may see this as a troubling trend that points to inequality, some Arab American women would disagree, according to a recent UCI study.

For some Arab American women, getting an education is an asset, not to achieve career goals, but to help raise a family, according to the study published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review.

“Education comes into play because educated women have more skills and resources needed to navigate the American social system,” author of the study and UCI professor Jen’nan Read said. “The fact that female education is highly valued suggests stereotypes are off.”

According to census data, while more white educated women are working, more Arab American women are educated by comparison with 37% of working-age Arab American women having received a bachelor’s degree or higher, while 29% of working-age white women have the same education among their peers.

“[In our culture] woman have often relied on their husbands for money, their home and food,” UCI political science major Zeinab Najaf said. “My mom does not have an education, and the values that she instilled in me were to get an education and do the things she couldn’t do.”

Read’s two-year in-depth interviewing process on 40 Muslim and Christian Arab Americans in Houston showed that above career, family values mattered most for Arab Americans.

These cultures don’t see day-care or baby sitters as a positive way to help raise children, Read said, and those cultural influences ask that at least one parent must be at home to take care of the children, a similar mind-set to 1950s America, Read said.

“They are very similar to what we used to look like,” Read said. “It shouldn’t be seen as these women are being kept home.”

Some ethnic groups see the American family structure as broken with latchkey kids, drugs and alcohol, Read said. These ethnic groups, such as Arab Americans, will assimilate to American culture in other ways, but choose not to in terms of family.

While some women use their skills for “market” purposes, these women are more inclined to use their education to benefit family and community, what Read refers to as “social capital.”

Najaf, who was born in America, is the daughter of Iraqi immigrants. She believes the trend of Arab American women not choosing a career path is a dangerous one.

“I can understand why someone would choose something like [being a home maker], but it feeds on this ideology that woman are oppressed and unequal,” Najaf said. “We are partly to blame for that.”

But Read said her findings actually challenge those stereotypes, suggesting that education functions as an equalizer, even without a career.

“These educated women are much better off than their lesser-educated peers,” Read said.

Najaf agrees that even without a career, education is still important. But if Arab American women settle on the idea that raising a family is their only option, motivation for education will decline, she argued.

“I think that Arab American women have come to the realization they can be independent and still have a spouse and still have children,” Najaf said. “As people that live in society, we continue to grow and we should continue to grow.”

Many younger Arab Americans think like Najaf, but their minds change when they have children, according to Read’s study.

“The reality is, once it comes around to it, once they have a kid or a family, someone has to take care of it,” Read said.

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at daniel.tedford@latimes.com.