This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Yi, C.-C. Articles by Chang, M.-Y. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Psychological Well-Being of Taiwanese Youth

School versus Family Context from Early to Late Adolescence

Academia Sinica, chinyi{at}gate.sinica.edu.tw

Chyi-In Wu

Academia Sinica, sss1ciw{at}gate.sinica.edu.tw

Ying-Hwa Chang

Academia Sinica, ethwa{at}gate.sinica.edu.tw

Ming-Yi Chang

National Taiwan University, mini0832{at}msn.com

This study examines the growth trajectory of the psychological well-being of Taiwanese adolescents from early to late adolescence. Under the competitive educational system in Taiwan, family and school context are two major loci accounting for the developmental outcome. Data are taken from the Taiwan Youth Project, which is a longitudinal panel study of 2696 students since the year 2000. The study uses individual depressive symptoms as the dependent variable. Family cohesion, family educational strategy as well as classroom effects at school are chosen to indicate the potential contextual influence. Using the latent growth curve method, the analysis confirms that family and school factors do produce different effects over time. Family context is salient at the initial status, but not for subsequent development. Class cohesion as well as adolescents' perceptions of unfairness by teachers determine the depressive level, the linear slope and the non-linear quadratic growth curve. In other words, once the adolescent gets used to junior high school, the school context tends to exert more pronounced effects. Further analysis on gender comparisons indicates that selective family and school effects are more pronounced among females, with a greater degree of depressive symptoms over time. The article concludes that while family and school have different impacts on the growth curve of individual depressive symptoms, the school context exerts salient effects over an adolescent's life course.

Key Words: adolescent development • classroom effect • educational competition • family educational strategy • psychological well-being

International Sociology, Vol. 24, No. 3, 397-429 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0268580909102914


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?