Abstract: The classical BlauDuncan status attainment model found that the advantage of family background was reproduced through children’s education but it did not give much detail to the intermediate mechanisms in the intergenerational transmission. Previous domestic studies considered school tracking, cultural capitals and social capitals being the mechanisms to explain the intergenerational transmission. The present study, according to the viewpoints of Wisconsin Educational Attainment Model, brought in college degree expectation/aspiration as the mediating variable between family background and children’s college education attainment. The analysis of the data from “Shanghai Residents Family Life Status Survey” (N=1181) in year 2010 found that those who had strong expectations for a college degree when they were young got significantly more opportunities to enter college, and furthermore, that the development of individuals’ expectations for higher education was related to their family backgrounds and parents’ expectations. Educational expectation played a role in intergenerational advantage status transmission as an intermediate mechanism that mediated the impact of family backgrounds on educational attainment. This mechanism was expressed during the process of children receiving education. The higher the socioeconomic status, the stronger expectations the parents would have for their children to get into college. This was particularly true of the parents who had received higher education themselves. They were able to provide their children with abundant and useful information about college life and learning, to engage more in their children’s learning, and to create more supportive conditions. All these advantages helped children maintain and realize their expectation of a college degree. Driven by the educational expectation for college, the individuals worked harder in the learning process in order to achieve the ambition of higher education, which led to increased likelihood to be admitted to college, and eventually, to the realization of the intergenerational transmission.

Key words:  family background , educational expectation , educational attainment , intergenerational transmission