Parental Involvement Predicts Ability Tracking Outcome and College Attendance Among Secondary School Students in Taiwan

• In Event: International Experiences and College Access

Abstract

Parents manage and influence their child’s education and academic success in multiple ways. However, it remains unclear whether parents of different educational background vary their involvement in the child’s education and inspire their child to attend college. The challenge comes even earlier under a strict ability tracking system, in which college-going process starts once students are tracked. Following the social cognitive career theory and analyzing a multi-informant panel dataset based on adolescents in Taiwan, we found that a higher parental educational expectation was related to a higher probability of attending college immediately after high school graduation, controlling for the child’s track placement. Findings highlight the strength and resilience among parents of varying sociodemographic background.

Authors

• Hsun-Yu Chan, National Taiwan Normal University

• Zhi-Ling Zhou, National Taiwan Normal University