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Preface
The background for this study may be unusual for projects of this nature. A more typical, certainly more ideal, format for a cross-national study involves the acquisition of a generous grant from a major funding agency; a period of intense data collection, which is soon followed by months of data analysis with the help of a professional staff and/or doctoral students; and a timely publication of the results (ideally within several years of the data collection).
None of these desiderata was possible in this project. Two of us began the effort in the late 1980s, 20 years before the publication of this book. At an institution like California State University Bakersfield, whose primary mission is teaching, research is only possible in the interstices of classroom responsibilities, endless committee assignments that are unavoidable at small institutions, and advising cum commiserating with students. The Oregon portion of the project involved data collection over three summers and one sabbatical quarter. The Taiwan portion was completed during a sabbatical year while teaching in Taiwan. With few exceptions, all interviewers and research assistants in both countries were undergraduate students who often overcame a lack of professional experience by their enthusiasm and youthful élan.