The Family Socioeconomic Effect on Extra Lessons in Greater China: A Comparison between Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and
- PDF / 367,049 Bytes
- 15 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 2 Downloads / 162 Views
REGULAR ARTICLE
The Family Socioeconomic Effect on Extra Lessons in Greater China: A Comparison between Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao Yisu Zhou · Dan Wang
© De La Salle University 2014
Abstract Spawned by the heightened competition in mainstream education, supplementary tutoring outside regular school time has rapidly expanded as a common practice of students seeking to gain a competitive edge in school. It is widely known that students from low socioeconomic status (SES) families lag behind their high-SES peers in academic performance. This study examines whether extra lessons reinforce or weaken the family effect on educational inequality. We use the Programme for International Student Assessment 2009 data to analyze the effect of family SES on the likelihood and intensity of students’ extra lesson attendance in four Chinese regions: Shanghai, Taiwan (Chinese Taipei), Hong Kong, and Macao. The research confirms that (1) high-SES students are more likely than low-SES students to receive extra lessons, and (2) among the students who participated, highSES students also invested more time each week in such lessons. However, the study has also found substantial regional differences. Keywords Out-of-school-time lessons · Socioeconomic background · Inequality · China
Y. Zhou (&) Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Taipa, Macao, SAR, China e-mail: [email protected] D. Wang Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, SAR, China e-mail: [email protected]
Introduction Education plays a central role in deciding individuals’ life chances. As a result, competition among students in school is heightened and families tend to mobilize all means possible to help their children gain an edge in school learning. Recent decades have witnessed a worldwide trend of students taking supplementary tutoring classes outside school time to facilitate their learning (Bray 2009; Bray and Lykins 2012). Supplementary tutoring has experienced vigorous growth in many parts of the world, especially in East Asia, where students and families are believed to attach great importance to education because of the cultural influence of the Confucian tradition (Kim and Lee 2010; Liu 2012). Some schools provide extra lessons outside the regular class schedule to their own students, while business also takes advantage of students’ need by offering feecharging tutoring lessons. In Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, private tutoring has developed into a billion-dollar commercial industry (Dawson 2010; Jang 2011). Supplementary learning has thrived and grown into a phenomenon that demands social and research attention. As the popularity of extra learning activities grows, a question arises about educational equality. The extra learning activities are largely spawned by competition in the mainstream schools. And yet there is wide documentation that children’s academic achievement in school is heavily influenced by their family backgrounds (Chudgar and Luschei 2009; Coleman 1988; Lareau 2002, 2003). Students from po
Data Loading...
