1. Introduction
1.4 Methodology
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1.4 Methodology
This study’s objective is to examine the factors of Taiwanese businessmen’s decision of bringing their children with to China from the perspective of character and competitiveness under the scope of children’s education. This study will execute with three stages — anticipatory preparation, material collection and interview analysis.
This paper is in the use of in-depth interview. I am going to interview with parents who have children and people who have comments on this issue. I plan to interview 20 Taiwanese businessmen and related people such as Taima, children both in Taiwan and China. In order to meet the theoretical saturation, the field work will be conducted in the area of Shanghai and Taiwan over a eight-month period from July 2009 to March 2010.
Firstly, anticipatory preparation focuses on the followings: collecting the relative literature review, having dialogue with associated theories; launching the detailed scheme of the research framework, emphasizing on conceptual operation; carrying on the implementation of interview design. The second stage, material collection, is consisted of in-depth interview, participation and observation. The third stage, data analysis, includes field data compilation; field data analysis; establishment of demonstration and thesis writing.
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Figure1: Research flow chart
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Figure2: Chart of Research Progress
Duty Stage Anticipatory
Preparation Field Work Data Analysis
Work Course Sep 2008～Jun 2009 Jul 2009～Feb 2010 Mar 2010～Jun 2010 Collecting Literature Review
Launching Detailed Scheme of Research Framework
In-Depth Interview
Participation &
Observation
Field Data Compilation
Field Data Analysis
Establishment of Demonstration and Thesis Writing First stage: anticipatory preparation
Second stage: material collection
Third stage: data analysis
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The study will be conducted through qualitative approaches. Qualitative research will be based on field work conducted in the area of Shanghai and Taipei. Bringing children with to China or not, the decision making is personal and subjective, and also influenced by social networking and other specific characteristics. Therefore, the research is based upon the qualitative approach, in the use of semi-structured questionnaire to collect and analyze qualitative data. It is helpful to understand the Taiwanese businessmen’s personal intention and social networks. In the qualitative approach, this research will be assisted with in-depth interview to better understand the decision making.
What’s more, through the collection and review of second-hand academic journals, books, and newspapers provide background, the study of the evolution of Taiwanese businessmen’s attitudes and decision of bringing their children with to the rising China will be more completed.
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Chapter2. Literature Review
The thinking, concept and culture related to character exist in every move of one’s life. Culture and identity are to behave and think at one’s will. It is very exclusive depending on one’s personal decision and also influenced gradually by the environment and atmosphere. On the contrary with the inner will, competitiveness is affected by the outside world really. The competitiveness relates career opportunity and profit making.
Though rich in soul is quite important, it won’t exist without well-living in daily life.
People seek for better living standard and well-being undoubtedly.
2.1 Migration and Education
Education has been identified in sociological research as a catalyst of social, economic and ideational change. The relationship between education and migration is not new in theory or research. It is however, a complex relationship both from the theoretical and empirical pointview that is not thoroughly understood. Some studies have indeed found strong positive effects of educational attainment on the propensity to migrate.6 However, other studies have found negative effects of educational attainment on migration in certain settings,7 and still others have found no significant effects at all.8
6 John C. Caldwell, African Rural-Urban Migration: The Movement to Ghana’s Towns, New York:
Columbia University Press, (1969); Oded Stark & J. Edward Taylor, “Migration Incentives, Migration Types: The Role of Relative Deprivation,” The Economic Journal, 101(1991): 1163-1178; and Katharine M Donato, “Current Trends and Patterns of Female Migration: Evidence from Mexico,” International Migration Review, 27:4 (1993): 748-771.
7 Robert E.B.Lucas, “Migration amongst the Batswana,” The Economic Journal, 95(1985): 358-382;
Douglas S. Massey, Rafael Alarcon, Jorge Durand, and Humberto Gonzalez, Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley & LA: University of California Press, (1987); Douglas S. Massey & Kristin E. Espinosa, “What’s Driving Mexico-U.S.
Migration?” American Journal of Sociology, 102:4(1997): 939-999; Michael A. Quinn & Stephen Rubb,
“The Importance of Education-Occupation Matching in Migration Decisions,” Demography, 42: 1(2005):
153-167.
8 Robert D. Emerson, “Migratory Labour and Agriculture,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 71:3(1989): 617-629.; R. H. Adams, “The Economic and Demographic Determinants of International Migration in Rural Egypt,” Journal of Development Studies 30:1 (1993):146-167. ; Sara R Curran &
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In general, the literature appears to favor the prospect that educational attainment does increase the likelihood of migration.9
The link between education and migration is often viewed as problematic in public discourse. Of recent, however, a more positive view of this context is taken, which emphasis of multicultural migrants, their educational aspirations and their multiple cultural orientations increasingly as an important individual resource and societal potential. However, both these views have their basis a view of culture that does not emphasize the individual actions of the persons concerned but it instead entails a stereotypical and sometimes racist schemes of perception or description. These allegations present hurdles for processes and communication and education. Within these surface historically and culturally conditioned mechanisms of discrimination. They are thus important aspects of the relationship between migration and education.10
Economic theories of the relationship between education and out-migration are some of the oldest in the field. Both of the neo-classical and new economics of migration theories conceptualize educational attainment as a form of human capital that leads an individual to expect better outcomes from migration.11 The knowledge and skills gained from school may also increase the ability of an individual to complete a journey and cope with in a new place, thereby decreasing the costs and risks of migration.12 Through these mechanisms, economic theories generally predict that educational attainment is positively related to migration. However, the process of migration forces a student to quit their current schooling; it can interrupt their studies, and in many cases precludes them from re-enrolling. There may also be opportunity costs for parents who have already invested in their children’s education. Thus, the neo-classical and new economic theories of migration would lead us to predict the enrolment in school would decrease the likelihood of migration, independent of the effects of educational attainment.13
9 Williams Nathalie, “Education, Gender and Migration,” Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, Los Angeles, California (March, 2006).
10 International Conference: Migration, Education and Social Change, Institute for Regional and Migration research (IRM), Trier, Germany (July, 2006).
11 John R., Harris & Michael P. Todaro, “Migration, Unemployment, and Development: A Two-Sector Analysis,” American Economic Review, (1970):126-142.
12 O. Stark & D. E. Bloom, “The New Economics of Labor Migration,” American Economic Review 75:2 (1985):173–178.
13 See note 9 above.
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Other theories linking education to out-migration through social mechanisms do not have the historical legacy of economic theories, but have received strong support in the past decades. Social networks theory14 adapts Bourdieu’s concept of social concept of social capital to migration, arguing that social contacts with individuals who have migrated, or are currently resident at a destination, provide information and assistance to the new migrant, thereby decreasing the costs and risks of migration. Thus social networks may increase the probability of out-migration. Empirical research has consistently found social contacts to be a strong determinant of out-migration.15
Education enters this causal relationship through expanding social networks.
Participation in formal education increases the number of non-family social relationships of an individual, regardless of whether they have gained any knowledge, skills, or credentials from school. Additionally, social networks may in fact relate synergistically with economic theory. Not only does formal schooling provide an individual with wider social networks are selectively comprised of educated individuals who may be more likely to migrate themselves. Thus, we would expect educational attainment, or more years spent in formal schooling, to increase an individual’s social network and thereby increase the likelihood that they will migrate.16
2.2 Character and Education
Character education is “broad in scope and difficult to define”17 and character education is as old as education itself. The two broad proposes of education in virtually every society are to “help people become smart, and help them become good.”18
From the earliest days of Western civilization, character education took the form of stories and mentorship. Plato learned from Socrates not only through their engaging
14 Douglas S. Massey, “The Ethno-Survey in Theory and Practice,” International Migration Review 21(1987):1498-1522.
15 K. M. Donato, “Current Trends and Patterns in Female Migration: Evidence from Mexico,”
International Migration Review 27:4(1993):748–771. ; H. Zlotnik, “The South-to-North Migration of Women,” International Migration Review 29:1(1995):229–254.
16 See note 9 above.
17 Evelyn, Holt Otten, “Character Education,” September 2000, available at:
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conversations, but also by traveling and living with Socrates and embracing the qualities he observed in his teacher. Previously, stories have formed the bases of transmitting culture and history (for example, Aesop’s fables, and a variety of fairy tales). Today, while stories are still powerful vehicles for character education, the process is intensified in schools, where the majority of children spend the greater part of their days.19
In the early part of the 20th century, both Dewey and Whitehead argued for the education of the “whole person”,20 and for education to be useful.21 Thorndike, a behaviorist, presented the classic Stimulus-Response framework. He noted that learning results from the associations formed between stimuli and responses. In 1926, Thorndike conducted a five-year character education inquiry to evaluate moral education and construct an inventory of useful values.
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget is most notable for posing cognitive, intellectual, and moral development in stages. Moreover, he believed that “schema” was necessary for cognitive development, and that those structures changed over time through the processes of assimilation (i.e. interpreting events in light of existing schema) and accommodation (constructing new schema to make sense of the environment).22 Kohlberg’s theory of moral development also posed stages through which children must pass in order to move to a “higher stage” of development. He also popularized the use of “moral dilemmas” as one method for fostering increasingly higher levels of moral development.23
Current theory and recent research has led to new understandings about moral development, knowledge, and learning, and their relation to the teaching of values/character education. Stage theories of development have yielded to theories that acknowledge the multifaceted nature of human development and learning. Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg have gained notoriety with their notions of multiple intelligences and the nature of the mind respectively. Gardner’s work identifies several distinct forms of intelligence, including ‘inter-personal” (social skills) and
“intra-personal” (insight, meta-cognition) intelligence, both of which are central aspects
19 Kathleen Shea, Making the Case for Value/Character Education, (2003)
20 Dewey J, Democracy and Education, New York: Macmillan, (1916)
21 A. N. Whitehead, The Aims of Education and other Essays. New York: Macmillan,(1929)
22 Jean Piaget, The Moral Development of the Child, New York: Collier, (1932/1965)
23 Lawrence Kohlberg, The Psychology of Moral Development. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row (1969/1984)
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of values/character education.24 Sternberg’s work brings to light several information processing sub-processes which interact to determine behavior, particularly the ability to adapt to and shape the present environment, an important consideration for creating a values-based atmosphere in society.25 Vigotsky highlighted the importance of social interaction in learning. According to Vigotsky26, every function in the child’ cultural development appears twice: first on the social level, and later, on the individual level. His notion of the “zone of proximal leaning” is another of his contributions, explaining the importance of a certain time span during which learning can occur. The social skills children need to function effectively are often developed and refined within the context of a character education program.
2.3 Competitiveness and Education
As the World Economic Forum underlined in its Global Competitiveness Report,
“Education and training have emerged as key drivers of competitiveness, ensuring that the labor force has access to new knowledge and is trained in new processes and the latest technologies...A country’s ability to absorb new technologies, to produce goods and services that can reach standards of quality and performance acceptable in international markets, to engage with the rest of the world in ways that are value-creating, is intimately linked to the quality of its schools, to the priority given to training in mathematics and science, and to the existence and accessibility of specialized research and training centers.” 27
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a system of international assessments that focus on 15-year-olds' capabilities in reading literacy, mathematics literacy, and science literacy. PISA also includes measures of general or cross-curricular competencies such as learning strategies. PISA emphasizes functional skills that students have acquired as they near the end of mandatory schooling. PISA is
24 H. Gardner, Frames of Mind: the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, New York: Basic Books, 10th. Ed, (1993)
25 R. Sternberg, The Triarchic Mind: A New Theory of Human Intelligence, New York: Viking Press, (1988)
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organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries. Begun in 2000, PISA is administered every 3 years. Each administration includes assessments of all three subjects, but assesses one of the subjects in depth. The most recent administration was in 2006 and focused on science literacy. PISA 2009 data collection will take place from September to November 2009 and will focus on reading literacy. The PISA 2009 National Report will be released in December 2010.28 In the PISA 2009 data collection, Shanghai-China will be included. As we read the data of year 2006, we find out the good performance in mathematical of Taipei, but we still can predict the brilliant outcome of Shanghai-China in many aspects of observation.
2.4 Prospects for the Future of China and Taiwan
China’s high rates of growth over the past quarter of a century and over the past decade in particular were the result of a rapid expansion of the key ingredients of economic growth everywhere in the world. These ingredients included a rapid increase in the capital stock particularly in the modern industrial and service sectors together with an equally if not more impressive expansion in human capital through the growth of student enrollment particularly at the secondary and university levels. Primary level enrollment was effectively universal by the 1990s so expansion there was much less rapid.
Increased inputs of physical capital and human capital, however, were not the main story of growth during the reform period that began in 1978. There were also major productivity spurts caused by the steady dismantling of many barriers to independent enterprise followed in the 1990s by the gradual creation of some of the institutional structures needed particularly by foreign investors.29
International competitiveness in global economy is evaluated by two international organizations: the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the International Institute for Management Development (IMD). WEF defines national competitiveness as the
28 PISA, Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World Executive Summary, (2006)
29 Dwight H. Perkins, “China’s Recent Economic Performance and Future Prospects,” Asian Economic Policy Review, Tokyo, (2006):16-41.
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capability of maintaining high economic growth rate of a nation for the coming five to ten years.
Geography and history determine the economy and politics, and politics and economics are closely interwoven. Examples are trade frictions, tariff negotiations, regulations on inward and outward foreign investments, or even the gunboat diplomacy of yesteryears. For the future of the Taiwanese economy, however, the most urgent problem it faces today is, unfortunately, the basic problem of nation-building, which other countries already experienced a long time ago, and the ensuing military threat from China for “unification.” We have seen the tremendous growth of Taiwan’s trade and outward investment in China in the 1990s. Taiwanese firms are the second largest foreign investors in China, next to Hong Kong, in the early 1990s, and are probably the largest investors throughout the 1990s if Taiwanese indirect investment through Hong Kong is considered. The growth and magnitude up to now probably indicate complementarities of economic relations between the two countries. As the world competitiveness indice have shown, while the future prospects of Taiwan in the global economy have been excellent and bright, they hinge greatly, if not crucially, on Taiwan’s political relations with China.
Any discussions of Taiwan in the global economy in the future cannot, and should not, avoid its problem with China. The basic problem is China’s territorial claim on Taiwan and the threat of the use of military forces. But China’s territorial claim is tenuous at best, and that both countries would be benefited by a peaceful resolution of the dispute in a civilized manner.30
30 Frank S.T. Hsiao& Mei-Chu W., Hsiao, “Taiwan in the Global Economy: Past, Present and
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Chapter3. Analysis of Competitiveness Concern
This and next chapters will observe the two main factors---competitiveness and character, from the perspectives of family, school, society, higher education and job opportunities, to examine how competitiveness and character affects Taiwanese parents in China to decide up their children’s study plan.
Since reform and opening up, not only a large number of Taiwanese businesspeople have invested or worked in China but also many of them are intended footing locally.
Therefore, the condition of bringing their children with to China becomes normally seen.
As far as the Taiwanese parents concerned, their children’s education is the most significant as education is a considerable course to shape children’s competitiveness and moral personality. However, the education system has many differences between China and Taiwan, along with Taiwanese parents’ concerns, there comes with the following choices. If their children might go back to Taiwan to continue their education in the near future, the parents would choose Taiwanese Businessmen’s school that is determined to put an end to the problem of schooling of the children of Taiwanese businessmen, and in turn promotes familial union and harmony so that Taiwanese businessmen at hand without looking back. Or some parents who think over their children’s local networking and even to continue higher education in China, they would select local schools for their kids to attend. Also there are some parents consider letting their kids study abroad, they might send their children to international schools so as to do helping for applying for colleges in the foreign countries. Others leave their children in Taiwan to continue education.
Here the fieldwork for this research is primarily conducted in Taipei and Shanghai, the in-depth interview with 20 Taiwanese businesspeople, parents and people who on the spot have understanding about cross-Strait education conditions. Through depth-interview with the above-mentioned people, this research will make out and explain how family, school education, social impact, advancement to a higher school and
Here the fieldwork for this research is primarily conducted in Taipei and Shanghai, the in-depth interview with 20 Taiwanese businesspeople, parents and people who on the spot have understanding about cross-Strait education conditions. Through depth-interview with the above-mentioned people, this research will make out and explain how family, school education, social impact, advancement to a higher school and