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Today, community service is a pillar of nearly all elite educational experiences. At Takau English School, an elite K-12 school in Taiwan, engaging in volunteer work is a critical component in the institution’s “Global Citizens” value of their three-pronged mission statement. In its simplest meaning from Merriam-Webster, community service refers to “work that is done without pay to help people in a community”.¹ The heart of this activity, in theory, is to give to others at the expense of self time and investment. What about this commitment to ‘serving others’ is so important to virtually all elite institutions?

To understand community service in an elite educational setting, it is useful to consider the origins of the elite class itself. In his work, “The State Nobility”, Pierre Bourdieu traces the roots of elite status to the Middle Ages, where this higher position in society was reserved for those who humbly acted in service of the king, often as knights in battles, to protect the greater good of their society.² This selflessness in performing such service for the public was considered “noble”, and therefore those descending from these individuals were granted the standard of being elite. Thus, elite status is grounded in the premise of promoting public wellbeing; however, the meaning of “elite” today has evolved towards taking leadership in positions of social, political, and industrial power that have significant influence in public wellbeing itself. 

Nonetheless, given these roots, community service acts as a mode of ascending towards the traditional elite ideal, and therefore may be especially valued by elite schools as a means of helping students attain this higher status. But even more forefront, promotion of community service by elite schools curates an image that reflects positively on their reputations: institutions position their students with significant resources to help those who are less privileged in order to better their larger communities. In theory, such a process would demand students to acknowledge their own privilege when giving back to those with circumstances different from their own, which contributes to the “morally elevated ethos” that Kenway and Lazarus (2017) coin to describe elite institutions that promote it.³ 

In practice, however, community service performance by elite students only acts to further elucidate socioeconomic class divisions in society, which reinforces the distinctions that create eliteness and reproduce privilege in society. Interviewees at TES viewed community service as a means of interacting with those of different social class from themselves, citing service trips as an opportunity for seeing people “who are very underprivileged” and “helping the minority”. Kenway and Lazarus also reported similar claims of students at an elite school in South Africa blindly distinguishing themselves from students outside their institution, one of which stating that “we can mix with anyone – even people beneath us”.³ By viewing others of different socioeconomic background as “beneath” themselves, these students are in part committing themselves to higher standing without recognizing the implications of their privilege. Taken together, these findings support the notion that community service itself may further divide the elite and non-elite classes rather than bridge the privilege gap. 

So should community service at these elite institutions really be viewed as a requirement that betters those of their community? Or does community service instead serve to reinforce students’ elite privilege while attending these schools? Importantly to note, the outcomes of community service are not exclusive to student status recognition: numerous studies cited by Antonio and colleagues (2000) indicated that student participation in volunteering during higher education was positively associated with greater dedication and interest in studies, learning of course material, and commitment to racial understanding.⁴ Therefore, community service in an elite setting may provide valuable mindsets and skills to those who engage thoughtfully, but also may serve the elite student more than the intended community. 

Works Cited:

1. Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Community service. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/community%20service
2. Bourdieu, P. (1996). The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power (L.C. Clough, Trans.). Polity Press. (Original work published 1989).
3. Kenway, J., & Lazarus, M. (2017). Elite schools, class disavowal and the mystification of virtues, Social Semiotics, 27:3, 265-275, DOI: 10.1080/10350330.2017.1301791
4. Antonio, A.L., Astin, H.S., & Cress, C.M. (2000). Community Service in Higher Education: A Look at the Nation’s Faculty. The Review of Higher Education, 23(4), 373-397. doi:10.1353/rhe.2000.0015.

Parents undoubtedly play a critical role in shaping the lives of their children. For most children, the environment that they are raised in is directly built and maintained by parents’ decisions, beliefs, and values, which often translate into those of the growing individual. At Takau English School, an elite private K-12 school in Taiwan, we observed that many of the students’ values were acquired from their family through emphasis on their parents’ values. For example, most students indicated that family was incredibly important to them, but one value specifically stressed by their parents was respect for their elders. Also, while several students valued hard work and gratitude as morals gained from their parents, another student expressed that her commitment to contributing to the community was largely influenced by her parents’ roles as doctors that emphasized this value.

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But outside of inherited values and guiding life principles, we also saw instances of parental involvement that seemed overly striking. In particular, while discussing how often he spends time with his parents, Lee shared that “[I’m] with my parents all the time when I come home… they’re just sitting beside me,” and proceeded to point to his parents at the edge of the virtual interview screen. Another student also shared a related experience, in which her mom stepped in to listen to the interview and hence the student introduced her to the interviewer. Although parents aren’t directly intervening in the students’ thoughts or actions through their own here, their constant presence in their childrens’ spaces supports the notion that they maintain hyper-influence over the students’ lives. 

Traditionally, strong parental influence through high expectations for educational outcomes and achievement have been noted particularly in Asian cultures (1). In alignment with this, one perspective in parenting proposes that academic excellence is directed through strictly enforcing students to adhere to a tightly regulated educational schedule, an approach known as authoritarian parenting (2). In contrast to autonomy-granting parenting, which promotes more independence in the process of learning and growing, authoritarian parenting allows little space for independent pursuits and strong emphasis on outcome attainment (2). Authoritarian parenting in several Asian countries has been examined in part as a product of Confucian ideology, where the core value of filial piety requires children to have unequivocal respect for and conformity to their parents’ decisions and desires (1,2). This philosophy inherently undermines individual autonomy in children resulting in stronger tendencies for obeying their parents’ educational demands even if they differ from their own desires – granted if students can recognize how their own needs differ from those of their parents.

Returning back to TES, authoritarian parenting may contribute to the educational values that students expressed. Through our research, we discovered that Confucian ideas are tightly entwined in Taiwanese culture, and as reflected above in our interviews, family is considered an utmost priority to students. Combined with our observation of seemingly hyper-involved parents, we suspect that many students at TES may be subject to authoritarian parenting, which may even more so restrict their ability to recognize their own independence. Lee, who first indicated that his parents are constantly by his side at home, later stated during the interview that “half of [my expectations in school] is my parents and the other half is myself”. Given the discussion above, I wonder how much of ‘his half’ of the academic expectations placed on him are truly his own desire to distinguish himself in school, or instead if these may be a reflection of his personal commitment to the values of filial piety that his family’s culture embraces. 

Works Cited

1. Poon, D. (2013). Parental influence on Asian Americas’ educational and vocational outcomes. Applied Psychology OPUS. https://wp.nyu.edu/steinhardt-appsych_opus/parental-influence-on-asian-americans-educational-and-vocational-outcomes/
2. Hung, J. (2018). Parenting Styles, Academic Demands and Children’s Psychosocial Well-being: Why Today’s Hong Kong Chinese Students Are So Stressed. The Columbia University Journal of Global Health, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.7916/thejgh.v8i2.4854

Elite schools breed success through the production of individuals suited with values and skills that enable them to claim or maintain elite positions in society. But through what means –and at what cost– is this accomplished? One important aspect that is integral to this question is the environment fostered between students at school. At Takau English School, an elite secondary school in Taiwan, students experience what they considered a competitive academic space, which requires some to “separate the friendships and school stuff”. But another interviewee at TES was grateful that even with its competitive grounds, their school’s environment of student relationships was still far from a rival institution’s where “it’s really ruining their friendships”. Based on these findings, I want to consider what drives academic competition, how competition can be productive in some cases, and when constructive competition crosses into territory that can be detrimental to student experiences.

The rise of social media enabled by the Internet has significantly hastened the spread of information across the world. But even as social media consumption continues to grow, television remains a predominant form of media consumed by many individuals across all ages. Spanning from children’s cartoons and adult sitcoms to nightly news segments and commercial advertisements, TV programming can fulfill a range of entertainment and informational purposes. Reading through interviews with students at Takau English School in Taiwan, I was particularly interested to see television emerge as a strong personal influencer in a conversation with one of the students. When asked about his future plans given his status as a twelfth year student, Lee shared that he’s looking to pursue college in Germany based on inspiration from watching a German TV show at home. To prepare for this possibility, Lee began devoting an additional six hours per week to private tutoring for German, which he started learning to speak only a month prior to the interview in the spring of his final year in school. 

As a domestic college student in the US, I can’t help but wonder whether I could be convinced by a foreign TV show to study in the country of its setting. In recent decades, much attention has been given to the power of television in shaping the beliefs and behavior of individuals. At the surface, media biases in what news sources preferentially choose to share and the political tones through which this information is delivered can significantly influence the audience’s perception of outside events, whether at a local, national, or international level. But even more casual programming with stricter entertainment purposes, such as crime shows and TV dramas, can also drive certain motives or directions in those who watch them. In the US, several studies have supported the “monkey-see, monkey-do” tendency in childhood learning, which upon further applications, linked childhood consumption of TV shows depicting violence to higher rates of aggression and crime during adulthood.¹ However, not all aspects of TV influence are negative. Although occupations are rarely depicted perfectly on the screen, TV shows were reported to have some influence on the career decisions of roughly one in every five adults –and nearly two in every five millennials of ages 18 to 24– in a study from the UK.² For many, seeing others on TV in positions of importance and authority, such as lawyers, doctors, and law enforcement, can confirm interests in or amplify concerns for pursuing these careers.  

The case of foreign television is arguably even more intriguing than domestic programming because these shows showcase not only the underlying themes intended for the domestic viewer but also an entirely new cultural framework to the foreign audience. In Thailand, watching foreign Chinese TV programs has unsurprisingly been found to improve general cultural awareness and knowledge.³ More unexpectedly, however, viewing these series also fostered greater acceptance and understanding of “not only the external cultures that could be seen, but also the internal ones, including beliefs, attitudes, norms, and values”.³ The power of internalizing cultural perspective reminds me of a similar context in America with the show “Dora the Explorer”. Dora has become an icon in American childhood for embodying not only a female Latina presence in a television industry that strongly underrepresents these identities, but also many of the characteristics that are most prized in American culture, such as being kind, social, independent, and clever.⁴ For those outside the US, watching “Dora the Explorer” provides a strong basis for familiarizing with important themes in American society.

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So how does TV programming, and particularly that of foreign nature like that which Lee watched, fit into the elite context? For many families of upper class background, economic limitations are likely not a concern for creating international experiences. Foreign shows may give general audiences a glimpse into a different world that is thrilling for the new social lens it provides, but elite audiences have the financial mobility to experience this lens for themselves through travel. Additionally, upper class families may be better-suited to take further preparations for immersive experiences using their elite resources, such as connections to a private language tutor in the case of Lee. But the impacts of foreign TV could extend further than just cultivating travel destinations. I wonder whether these TV programs may in part captivate elites with a glimpse into the lives of other elites distant from those which they’ve grown up around in their home country. Although Lee never had the chance to elaborate more on the details of his motivation, I’d be interested in hearing how the characters in his show may have reflected German elites –or non-elites– and how his experience with others in Germany, given he pursued it, compared to the culture portrayed on the show. 

Works Cited

1. American Psychological Association. (2013). Violence in the media: Psychologists study potential harmful effects. https://www.apa.org/topics/video-games/violence-harmful-effects.
2. McAninch, O. (2017, February 24). How TV Influences Career Choices. The London Economic. https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/entertainment/tv/tv-influences-career-choices-41140/
3. Tirasawasdichai, T., Obrenovic, B., & Alsharif, H.Z.H. (2022). The impact of TV series consumption on cultural knowledge: An empirical study based on gratification–cultivation theory. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1061850
4. Havrilla, K. (2010). A Sociological Influence in Dora the Explorer. ASA Footnotes, 38(2), 10. https://www.asanet.org/wp-content/uploads/savvy/footnotes/feb10/dora_0210.html