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The assumption behind introducing parental choice in education is that schools have

to pay attention to the demands of students and parents in order to survive in a

competitive market. By giving parents consumer rights in their choice teachers’ motivation and school quality can be improved. The idea is that in a competitive

market, educational providers will attempt to improve their standards in order to meet

consumers’criteria(Gorard,1997; Woods et al., 1998). If they fail to recruit enough pupils, they will be unable to compete in the market and go out of business. Therefore,

introducing parental choice plans to educational market is a way to promote

competition and increase the accountability of schools to parents (Maddaus, 1990;

Wikeley, 1998; Woods et al., 1998). It can also improve student performance

(Murnane 1984 cited in Maddaus, 1990).

Bridge (1978 cited in Maddaus, 1990) lists several optimal conditions for choice plans,

including:

 individuals have incentives to shop aggressively;

 individuals are well informed about marketed conditions;

 there are many competing suppliers of the goods and services people want;  there is some excess capacity in the system so that people have true choices;  the quality of goods and services is easily measured; and

 the product or service is relatively inexpensive and purchased frequently.

lack one or more conditions. Information imperfections involving inadequate sources

of information, the difficulty of measuring educational quality and the infrequency of

educational choices appear in the process of parental choice and need to be considered

by policy analysts (Maddaus, 1990).

From the 1990s, parental choice has been of increased interest in academic research

and has focused on policy concerns, particularly in Western research. Many studies

haveconcentrated on researching parents’reasonsforchoiceand theissuesofequity. However, most research (such as Brain and Klein, 1994; Gewirtz et al., 1995; Hou,

2002; Hughes et al., 1994; Martin, 1995; Woods et al., 1998) into parental choice of

schools has been conducted in quasi-markets which are strongly politically regulated.

Their research looked at parental choice in secondary schools (Brain and Kelin’s study, Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe’s study; Hou’s study and Martin’s study; Woods, Bagley and Glatter’sstudy)orprimary schools(Hughes,Wikeley and Nash’sstudy) which are compulsory education. The standards of secondary and primary schools

have been under the control of central Government. Parents make their choice under a

certain range of qualities and conditions. Thus, parents do not have true choices

because it is highly regulated under certain conditions. If policy-makers and

administrators have different views on educational goals, with the limited choices,

parental choice may not have a significant influence on school provision. In this

situation, the government still has the main influence on the quality of school

provision.

However, preschool education in Taiwan is not compulsory and only one third of

preschools are public schools. The provisions of preschools in Taiwan are diverse and

their preferences. They have the right and freedom to decide where to send their

children for preschool education. When they have various choices, the process of

making their decision may be difficult and complex. Theparents’roleand parents’ actions during the process of choosing preschools in Taiwan may be different from

other research (such as Brain and Klein, 1994; Gewirtz et al., 1995; Hughes et al.,

1994; Martin, 1995). Their expectations of preschool education, or alternatively the

kind of preschool education on offer to them (that influences their expectations), may

influence the kind of preschools they choose in the market. In the conditions of the

competitive market, their criteria for choosing preschools may shape preschool

provision and affect the preschool quality in Taiwan.

Research by Vincent and Ball (2001) looked at how parents placed themselves in the

preschool market by looking at working parents’choices of care for their preschool

children. This paper focused on analyses of the issues involved in the decision of

whether to go back to work or stay at home. The tensions between work and domestic

responsibilities influenced their emotional feelings, which appeared to affect the

processes of engaging in a market transaction in buying care for their young children

(Vincent and Ball, 2001). However, the extended family is still popular in Taiwan.

Even for a nuclear family, it is common for young children to be looked after by their

grandparents. The emotional feeling of buying care for their young children may not

affect the processes of engaging the preschool market. In addition, Taiwanese parents

take education very seriously (Hou, 2002) and are afraid that their children will fall

behind if they do not have a good preschool education (Lin, 2002). Therefore,

preschools are not only expected to provide the service of caring for young children

but also provide education to them. Parents’concernsin Taiwan and the processes of decision making may be different from the parents in Vincent and Ball’s study. In

Taiwanese families, caring is a shared responsibility (Yunus, 2005). Therefore when

working parents choose to send their children to a preschool, their major concern is

about the future benefit for the child rather than the immediate benefit for the parents

(which may be care based). This changes the emotional framework informing parents’ decision making. Therefore, Taiwanese parents may be in a better position to make a

rational choice.