&gt; What white middle-class parents do not always understand, she said, is how much pressure recent immigrants feel to boost their children into the middle class.<p>The professions are not middle class. A very large proportion of the parents of these pressured kids would be disappointed if their children only reached the middle class.<p>&gt; “They don’t have the same chances to get their children internships or jobs at law firms,” Professor Lee said. “So what they believe is that their children must excel beyond their white peers in academic settings so they have the same chances to excel later.”<p>The parents of these kids are also well aware that they need to be better than an equivalent white kid to get into an equivalent college, or into an equivalent professional programme.