著者

末冨 芳

出版者

日本教育社会学会

雑誌

教育社会学研究 (ISSN:03873145)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.77, pp.5-25, 2005-11-15

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Why do parents pay to have their children educated? The aim of this article is to clarify parental awareness and motives for paying for their children's education, focusing on the parents of high school and college students. Firstly, a theoretical framework is proposed for parental fund-injection behavior into their children's education. This behavior can be defined using two criteria. The first is Investment, Consumption or Gift, and the other is Child-Oriented or Parent-Oriented. Secondly, a statistical analysis is performed using survey questionnaires targeting parents of high school and college students, and the following results are obtained. 1. Over 50% of parents agree with the two statements, "College life is valuable for acquiring life knowledge, " and "Studying at university will improve a child's ability and skills." Many parents have a strong awareness toward their children finding employment and making progress. These results demonstrate that a relatively high rate of parents have the awareness of "Child-Oriented Consumption" and "Child-Oriented Investment." 2. The results of the factor analyses are as follows. Four factors are derived from high school student's parent data : "producer of child's ability, ""gift inter vivos, ""necessary costs, ""expectation of returns, " and three factors are derived from college student's parent data : "producer of child's ability, ""assessment of profitability, " and "gift inter vivos." 3. The model of parents as sponsors of educational expenses can be determined from the positive and negative signs of the factor scores. The largest group of parents of high school students is the "Living Wallet"(16.1%) whose factor scores are all negative. The second largest group is the "Devoted Self-seeker"(15.4%) whose factor scores are all positive. Looking at parents of college students, the largest group is the "Devoted Self-seeker"(31.2%), and the second largest group the "Living Wallet"(29.4%). Finally, based on these findings, parents as the sponsors of educational expense can be separated into two types. One fits the theoretical framework of this article and the other does not. The motives and awareness of the first type can be explained as Investment, Consumption or Gift. However, we cannot explain the latter type, or "Living Wallet." The motives of the "Living Wallet" do not fit within the framework developed in this paper. It is likely that they have extremely negative motivations, such as risk aversion strategies or educational expenses as insurance. Further research is necessary to clarify this issue.