The rapid social change in the East Asia has brought great research
attention on the family, education and political impacts. The growth
trajectory of the next generation is exposed to an entirely different
context owing to the dual effects of traditional and modern values as
well as practices. This book provides an overall picture of the
developmental trajectory of Taiwanese youth as a typical example in the
region. The time frame is set from early adolescence (13years old) to
young adulthood (22yeard old). Individual psychological well-being in
its broad definition will be used as the outcome indicator to reflect
significant developmental processes during this important transitional
life course. Benefitted from the rare panel datasets conducted from
2000-2009, this book has two major focuses: one is to explore the
interplay among family, school and community with regard to their
influence on the individual growth patterns; the other is to highlight
the potential constraint and/or strength of the prevailing social norms
and values shared among East Asian societies. To be specific, different
chapters will describe and analyze the life chances and growth patterns
among youth with different social capitals (including family SES,
educational achievement, rural-urban residence, etc.). Their short-term
versus long-term outcome, as indicated by various psychological
well-being variables (e.g., depressive symptoms, deviant or problem
behaviors, happiness, edutional performance), will allow us to delineate
the particular structural context that individual East Asian youth
encounters and to offer constructive suggestions on family interaction,
educational strategy as well as health related policies based on the
scientific evidence. This book incorporates comparative reports from
other East Asian societies, and from youth panel studies of Australia
and the U.S.. The experience of their counter-part in the advanced
societies will contribute to readers' understanding of the particular
social situation that East Asian youth is embedded in the growth
process. In addition, comparative perspective will enable the reader to
contemplate on the potential future development of the affluent
generation in the region. Since changing social structure occurred in
the last few decades in the East Asia has suffered inadequate
investigation in the realm of family, education and community, this book
provides timely information to fill up the gap. Analyses of the valuable
dataset from early adolescents to young adults will attract those who
are interested in family researches, in youth studies, in panel data
analyses, as well as in the social development in Taiwan and in East
Asia.
