Abstract
This paper is based on the data acquired from surveys conducted in southeastern China and Taiwan. In both of these two Chinese societies，compulsory primary education has been implemented successfully. However，because of the continuous expansion of middle and higher education in Taiwan，the average educational achievement of Taiwanese is higher than that of mainland Chinese. As for mainlanders，the difference in average educational achievement across age cohorts reflects the stagnancy in the development of education in general during the 1960s and 1970s. It’s common for both societies that the respondent’s educational achievement is influenced by the socio-economic background of his/her family and the level of urbanization of his/her location. Nevertheless，“location”features a much more significant role in the case of southeastern China than in Taiwan. Despite the obvious difference in average educational achievement，the educational expectation of these two cases is almost the same-the minor difference between them would be proved as statistically insignificant after controlling socio-economic variables. This suggests that Chinese people on both sides of Taiwan Strait share a similar strong value on education.