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OKAGAKI, LYNN, and STERNBEHG, ROBERT J. Parental Beliefs and Children's School Performance. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1993, 64, 36-56. Immigrant parents from Cambodia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Vietnam and native-born Anglo-American and Mexican-American parents responded to questions about child rearing, what teachers of first and second graders should teach their children, and what characterizes an intelligent child. Immigrant parents rated conforming to external standards as being more important to develop in their children than developing autonomous behaviors. In contrast, American-bom parents favored developing autonomy over conformity. Parents from all groups except Anglo-Americans indicated that noncognitive characteristics (i.e., motivation, social skills, and practical school skills) were as important as or more important than cognitive characteristics (i.e., problem-solving skills, verbal ability, creative ability) were to their conceptions of an intelligent first-grade child. Parental beliefs about conformity were correlated with measures of kindergarten (5-and 6-year-olds) and first-(6-and 7-year-olds) and second-grader (7-and 8-year-olds) children's school performance (i.e., teacher ratings of children's classroom performance; Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills reading, math, and language scores; and Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test scores).Over the last 2 decades, there has been from parents of American schoolchildren an increasing interest on the part of develop-who represent different cultural groups, mental psychologists in the effects of cul-Third, we examine the relation between patural context on development (e.g., Bronfen-rental beliefs and children's school perforbrenner, 1979; Laboratory of Comparative mance. Finally, we present our conclusions. Human Cognition, 1982;Slaughter-Defoe, Nakagawa, Takanishi, & Johnson, 1990). The present study examines beliefs about child rearing, intelligence, and education Seminal work on the relations among soamong parents from different ethnic back-cial context, parental beliefs, and child outgrounds. In addition, we look at the relations comes was conducted by Kohn (1969), who between parental beliefs and children's posited that: (a) elements in parents' social school performance. Our basic premise is context influence the goals and values parthat, for the most part, all parents want their ents have for their children, {b) these values children to be intelligent and to do well in will result in differences in parenting pracschool. But parents may have different ideas tices, and (c) differences in parenting behavabout what it means to be intelligent, what iors ultimately will result in differences in kinds of skills children need to do well in child outcomes. In the present research, we school, and what parenting practices will are concerned with variation in parental bepromote their children's development. This liefs as a function of cultural background, paper is divided into four sections. We begin Just as Kohn argued that social class differby presenting...

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The present study is an examination of the relations between parenting and the school performance of fourth- and fifth-grade children (mean age = 10 years, 2 months) in 75 Asian-American, 109 Latino, and 91 European-American families. Five aspects of parenting were studied: (a) expectations for children’s educational attainment, (b) grade expectations, (c) basic childrearing beliefs (i.e., development of autonomy, development of conformity to external standards, and importance of monitoring children’s activities), (d) self-reported behaviors (i.e., creating an academically enriching environment and helping with homework), and (e) perceptions of parental efficacy. School performance was measured by school grades and achievement test scores. Ethnic group differences emerged in parents’ expectations for children’s educational attainment, grade expectations, childrearing beliefs, perceptions of parental efficacy, and in the relations between these beliefs and children’s school achievement. These results provide further evidence of the importance of considering the constellation of parents’ beliefs, goals for their children, and the type of help parents can offer children when working with parents to facilitate their children’s school experiences.

Immigrant parents from Cambodia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Vietnam and native‐born Anglo‐American and Mexican‐American parents responded to questions about child rearing, what teachers of first and second graders should teach their children, and what characterizes an intelligent child. Immigrant parents rated conforming to external standards as being more important to develop in their children than developing autonomous behaviors. In contrast, American‐born parents favored developing autonomy over conformity. Parents from all groups except Anglo‐Americans indicated that noncognitive characteristics (i.e., motivation, social skills, and practical school skills) were as important as or more important than cognitive characteristics (i.e., problem‐solving skills, verbal ability, creative ability) were to their conceptions of an intelligent first‐grade child. Parental beliefs about conformity were correlated with measures of kindergarten (5‐ and 6‐year‐olds) and first‐ (6‐ and 7‐year‐olds) and second‐grader (7‐ and 8‐year‐olds) children's school performance (i.e., teacher ratings of children's classroom performance; Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills reading, math, and language scores; and Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test scores).