Parental beliefs concerning development and education, family educational practices and children’s intellectual and academic performances

Abstract

The present study examines the relationships between parental beliefs relating to development and education, parenting practices, and the intellectual and academic performances of children. Data were collected for 128 families with a child in the second or third year of primary school. Investigations of the factors affecting the children's performances were carried out using two models that combined the different study variables. Compliance between the data and the theoretical models was tested by path analysis, using LISREL software. The results show a good fit between the data and the models and partly confirm the hypothesis that family educational practices are intermediary variables between parenting beliefs and a child's intellectual and academic performances. Résumé Cet article présente une recherche qui a porté sur 128 familles et leur enfant scolarisé en C.E.1 et C.E.2 (deuxième et troisième année de l'enseignement primaire). L'étude a pour objectif d'examiner les relations entre les croyances parentales relatives au développement et à l'éducation, les pratiques éducatives familiales et les performances intellectuelles et scolaires de l'enfant. Deux modèles explicatifs des performances des enfants ont été construits mettant en relation les différentes variables de l'étude. La conformité des données aux modèles théoriques a été testée par des analyses en pistes causales effectuées à l'aide du logiciel LISREL. Les résultats montrent, d'une part l'adéquation des données aux modèles, et d'autre part, confirment partiellement l'hypothèse selon laquelle les pratiques éducatives familiales sont des variables intermédiaires entre les croyances parentales et les performances intellectuelles et scolaires de l'enfant.

Early parenting beliefs and academic achievement: the mediating role of language

“…Research has demonstrated an association between parenting beliefs and academic achievement, with authoritarian beliefs relating to poorer academic outcomes in comparison to authoritative beliefs (Aunola, Nurmi, Niemi, Lerkkanen, & Rasku-Puttonen, 2002;Burchinal et al, 2002;Davis-Kean, 2005;García & Gracia, 2009;Shumow, Vandell, & Posner, 1998;Tazouti, Malarde, & Michea, 2010). This finding has been shown even after controlling for such variables as race, socioeconomic status (SES), and level of maternal education (Shumow et al, 1998).…”

“…Parental input is associated with not only structural aspects of a child's language, such as vocabulary and syntax (Barnes, Gutfreund, Satterly, & Wells, 1983;Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk, Seltzer, & Lyons, 1991), but also the social-communicative aspects (Ely & Gleason, 1995). A number of studies have shown a significant association between parenting and language in early childhood (Burchinal et al, 2002;NICHD ECCRN, 2004;Raviv, Kessenich, & Morrison, 2004;Tazouti et al, 2010;Topor et al, 2010), but these studies failed to clarify the predictive role of parenting beliefs on later language development. Parenting beliefs could be associated with a child's language development as a consequence of the different patterns of parent-child interactions a parenting style encourages.…”

“…Despite the interest in understanding the nature of the relationship between parenting beliefs and academic achievement, most have measured parenting beliefs just before the child began formal schooling or after the child was already in school (Aunola et al, 2002;Davis-Kean, 2005;García & Gracia, 2009;Tazouti et al, 2010). An exception is a longitudinal study conducted by Burchinal et al (2002), which showed that early progressive (authoritative-like) parenting beliefs were related to higher academic achievement (reading, math) in grade 2.…”

“…As the focus of this study is to examine the impact of early authoritarian parenting beliefs as a risk factor, we have only included a measure of this aspect of parenting. Moreover, we focus on this particular aspect of parenting to clarify the relationship between parenting style and academic achievement, which is lacking in many studies in this area (see Tazouti et al, 2010, for a review). We test this mediation model using longitudinal data from NICHD ECCYD (2002) and SEM.…”

Parental (STEM) Occupations, the Home Numeracy Environment, and Kindergarten Children’s Numerical Competencies

“…Accordingly, they will show greater interest, as well as positive beliefs and attitudes, concerning STEM [66]. Such positive attitudes and beliefs may be related to children's numerical competencies [67][68][69].…”