The Effect of Parents’ Education on Children’s Studies at School and Social Activities

Abstract

This paper uses survey data of college graduates throughout China conducted in 2003 by a Peking University research group and investigates the impact of parents’ educational background on the studies and social activities of their children in college. The empirical results show that parents’ educational background are positively associated with their children’s chances of passing standard English exams and serving as student cadres in college. This study suggests that parents with higher level of education are more capable of cultivating of their children with better personalities and psychological qualities. The educational outcomes of college students are a joint products of the families and schools.

Notes

From Carnoy (1995).

Based on the opinion of anonymous reviewers, we attempted to add the difference in years between father’s and mother’s years of education as independent variables to three Probit binomial choice models to investigate the impact of the difference in fathers’ and mothers’ educational backgrounds on the studies and social activities of their children at college. However, the final empirical results showed that both the arithmetic value and absolute value of the difference in father’s and mother’s years of education were not significant for the coefficients in the three models. From this we can see that in this study, the difference in fathers’ and mothers’ educational backgrounds may not have a significant impact on the studies and social activities of their children in college, therefore, in the end this study did not further analyze the variable of the difference in fathers’ and mothers’ educational backgrounds.

Many sociological papers use Logit models that produce probability ratios, that is, Exp(B) values. We use a Probit model in this study, which gives marginal values above and below the average variable values; these marginal values are probability differences and not probability ratios.

An anonymous reviewer who is an expert in the subject raised the problem of the problem of the nature of the relationship of the two explained variables of party members and student union cadres. We found through a crosstab analysis that the degree of coincidence of student cadres and student party members in the sample data is not very high. This shows that the commonly held view that being a party member is a precondition to being a cadre is more concentrated in adult work departments such as government organs, and under China’s current political system, party member identity is a necessary precondition to a cadre’s professional career. For a more detailed study on the relationship between party member identity and professional advancement, see Li and Walder (2001). Such a strict correlation does not exist for college students. Appointments of student cadres often look at whether the student had former experience as a student cadre and is not mainly based on whether they were a party member.

In early February 2004, Ma Jiajue, a student at Yunnan University, got into a conflict with his classmates while playing cards in his dorm, which led to the thoughts and actions of killing his classmates. This incident set off a great discussion in society about a series of related problems such as the cultivation of college students.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Li Fengliang

Li Fengliang is an associate professor at the Institute of Education, Tsinghua University.

Hou Longlong

Hou Longlong is an associate professor at the Beijing Normal University.

Wen Dongmao

Wen Dongmao is a professor at Peking University.