Cultivating the Difference: Social Class, Parental Values, Cultural Capital and Children’s After-School Activities in Taiwan

Abstract

Inspired by Melvin Kohn and Annette Lareau’s works, this paper aims to uncover the mechanisms of social reproduction practiced via after-school activities. The world’s lowest fertility rate, patriarchal family system, and burgeoning cram institutes make Taiwan a solid case to explore. Drawing on data from the Youth Project from 2000 and 2001 (N=2,126), we examine, step-by-step, the associations between parents’ social class, parents’ child-rearing values, and children’s after-school activity participation. By comparing maternal and paternal models, this paper demonstrates how Taiwanese parents carefully arranged the fabric of after-school time as an Asian version of concerted cultivation, and illustrates how cultural capital in Taiwan is practiced in the local context of parenting. Separate models on seven activities, including music, calligraphy, arts, dance, computer, sports and chess lessons, are investigated as well. By identifying the dynamic embedded within after-school activities, this paper contributes a fundamental understanding of after-school learning, a popular form of childhood socialization in East Asia.