Parentocracy and the Life and Death of Secondary Education for All in Taiwan

Since mid-1990s, the Taiwan government has implemented a populist educational policy, which was in fact initiated by the grassroots reform movement and aimed for “a universalized system of upper-secondary and higher education.” After twenty years, the quasi-compulsory high school system is widely argued to have failed in carrying out its promise of equalizing educational opportunity among social classes.

While the “third wave” of Western educational development in late 20th century was characterized by an ideology of parentocracy promoted from top down, the current educational expansion in Taiwan has adopted, in contrast, an ideology of parentocracy formulated bottom up, i.e. from the liberalist citizens. Therefore, this paper provides a different point of view from that of Richard Pring’s, according to whom secondary education for all is doomed to death due to a rigorous system of “testing.” Specifically, it presents, first of all, a dialectic relationship between nationalism and individualism, and then, a corresponding relationship between the state’s educational production mechanisms and the class-based parenting practices. Along these theoretical considerations, this paper analyzes how a civil ideology of educational parentocracy gave birth to the state policy of universalization of senior high school education (and college education as well), and how the former might lead the latter to such a dead end that marketization, accountability, and competition are all left in education. The author instantiates empirical research findings from Taiwan to support the argumentations formed in this paper.