Glass Ceilings and Asian Americans: The New Face of Workplace Barriers [Paperback]

Woo skillfully brings together a scattered literature and contributes an interesting account of Asian American workers' promotion experiences and expectations in a high-tech firm. This book will serve as a valuable resource to researchers in the field of workplace inequality, who have noted the relative lack of materials on Asian Americans' experiences. Its comprehensive coverage of the socioeconomic status of Asian Americans and the barriers they continue to face will also make a nice addition to undergraduate and graduate classes.The book offers a balanced analysis of the cultural and structural forces that diminish Asian Americans' access to upper management. What is most compelling about Woo's study is that results of her analysis corroborate the claim of the dominant influence of multiple structural forces that pull women and racial minorities away from top managerial posts.... In sum, I think this book is essential reading for anyone interested in career processes for minorities in organizational settings. It would also make an ideal supplementary reading for an undergraduate course on social stratification and mobility.One of the strengths of this book is the insightful and thorough presentation of the state of research on the glass ceiling. The text is rich with supporting data from the field and from other studies, which draws the reader into the mainstream currents of the debate. Key barriers in researching the glass ceiling are identified, making the work useful from the perspective of methodology. This book makes a very important contribution to the field.Deborah Woo has produced a valuable book that will reach beyond those narrowly interested in the question of employment discrimination against Asian Americans. The successes of Asian Americans, and the economic obstacles they face, are much misunderstood, subject both to the whims of stereotype and to the faulty assumptions of scholars and politicians. Woo's project is to clear up the common misunderstalS6