Education Strategies for Taiwanese’s Family
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Sue-Wen Lean Lang-Wen Huang
Abstract
To explore the significance of education strategies for Taiwanese’s families, this study
took up the idea of social capital to examine whether various forms of social capital exerted
predictability on two commonly noted education arrangements or choices parents made for
children during the early part of their student careers. Education strategy was conceptualized
as the undertaken of a deliberate, aggressive educational effort in accord with parental
education aspirations for a child by a parent and for the purpose of enhancement in academic
performance of a child. Two types of education strategies were investigated: cross-district
school attendance and parental school participation. Based on a reduced sample of 255
households with at least one child in a grade or middle school, a part of the 2002 Survey of
Family Change and Development in Shihlin by LHSS at Soochow University, our findings
indicated that the employment of cross-district school attendance strategy is highly correlated
with educational resources and choices at disposal for a given community. Moreover, forms
of social capital have differential influences on education strategies used by families. Higher
income families opted less for local schools.
Families with higher rate of community
participation on the other hand went for local schools more. Finally, for parental school
participation strategy, families that invested in children on cram schools or extra-curriculum
activities were less likely to get involved in school affairs. High parental participation in
community affairs further extended to greater involvement in school by parents.
Keywords: Education Strategy, Social Capital, Economic Capital, Cultural Capital, CrossDistrict School Attendance, and School Participation
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Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan.
E-mail: swlean@webmail.scu.edu.tw
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Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan.
E-mail:huang@webmail.scu.edu.tw
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