Are parents’ academic gender stereotypes and changes in them related to their perceptions of their child’s mathematical competence?

In the course of their child’s school years, a group of parents were asked to assess their child’s mathematical competence and indicate whether they endorsed the gender stereotype pertaining to it. Once the child had entered upper primary school, the consistent stereotypic parents tended to rate their boys’ mathematical competence higher than the parents of girls did. Additionally, the parents whose attitude turned into an anti‐stereotypical one perceived their girls’ mathematical competencies as higher than those of the boys, which was related to their perception that the boys’ competencies were getting worse while the girls’ competencies were getting better.     

School achievement and adolescents’ interactions with their fathers, mothers, and friends

This article explores effects of parents’ and friends’ behaviour in verbal interactions with adolescents concerning adolescents’ school achievement. The behaviour of adolescents’ partners was observed in interactions elicited by a plan-something-together task at first measurement of a two-year longitudinal investigation. Grades in school and perceived school success at measurement points 1, 2, and 3 were included to capture adolescents’ academic achievement. Cross-sectional correlations (n=32) and longitudinal partial correlations (n=24–26) served to analyse contemporaneous associations and directed effects across a one-and two-year time interval. Findings confirmed systematic influences of parents’ as well as friends’ behaviours on the objective and subjective measures of school achievement. Patterns of effects, however, partly depending on the type of partner in interactions. The differential effects are discussed with reference to structural differences between adolescents’ family and friendship relationships.     

Predictors of change in mothers’ and fathers’ parent-child aggression risk

Parents' cognitive schemas about parenting, personal vulnerabilities, and personal resources may affect their risk of engaging in parent-child aggression (PCA). This longitudinal study examined predictors of change in mothers' and fathers' PCA risk across the transition to parenthood, comparing trajectories of parents evidencing high versus low sociodemographic risk. Potential predictors involved parenting-relevant schemas (consistent with Social Information Processing theory, including approval of PCA, negative attributions of child behavior, and knowledge of nonphysical discipline options), personal vulnerabilities (psychopathology, intimate partner violence, substance use issues), and resources (problem-focused coping, emotion regulation, social support, and partner satisfaction). Results indicated that increases in PCA approval, negative child behavior attributions, and symptoms of psychopathology, as well as decreases in problem-focused coping skills, emotion regulation ability, and partner satisfaction, all significantly predicted changes in mothers' and fathers' PCA risk over time—regardless of risk group status. Notably, increases in intimate partner violence victimization and decreases in social support satisfaction predicted mothers' but not fathers' PCA risk change; moreover, increases in knowledge of nonphysical discipline alternatives or in substance use issues did not predict change in PCA risk for either mothers or fathers. Risk groups differed in PCA risk across all predictors with minimal evidence of differential trajectories. Overall, these findings have important implications for child abuse prevention programs involving both universal and secondary abuse prevention efforts.     

Fathers’ and mothers’ home learning environments and children’s early academic outcomes

The home learning environment (HLE) that children experience early on is highly predictive of their later academic competencies; however, the bulk of this work is operationalized from mothers’ perspectives. This study investigates the HLE provided by both mothers and fathers to their preschoolers (n = 767), with consideration for how parents’ practices relate to one another as well as how these practices predict children’s early academic outcomes. Using an SEM framework, results indicate that while, overall, mothers provide HLE activities more frequently than fathers do, both mothers (β = .18, p < .05) and fathers (β = .22, p < .05) make unique contributions to their preschooler’s early academic skills, but only for families where mother has less than a bachelor’s degree. For families where mother has a bachelor’s degree or higher, the effect of father’s HLE practices is not a significant predictor of children’s academics when considering mother’s HLE. For all families, fathers are providing a variety of HLE activities to their young children; and, although these may occur less frequently than mothers’ practices, they are particularly important for the academic development of children whose mothers have less than a bachelor’s degree. Practical implications are discussed.     

Is the Brief Child Abuse Potential Inventory (BCAPI) a valid measure of child abuse potential among mothers and fathers of young children in Germany?

BackgroundIn order to prevent child abuse, instruments measuring child abuse potential (CAP) need to be appropriate, reliable and valid.ObjectiveThis study aimed to confirm the 6-factor structure of the Brief Child Abuse Potential Inventory (BCAPI) in a German sample of mothers and fathers, and to examine longitudinal predictors of CAP.Participants and settingTwo waves of data were collected from 197 mothers and 191 fathers of children aged 10–21 months for the “Kinder in Deutschland – KiD 0–3” in-depth study. Families were stratified based on prior self-report data for screening purposes.Methods138 fathers and 147 mothers were included in the analysis (invalid: 25% mothers, 30% fathers). First, validity of reporting was examined. Second, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to assess factor structure. Third, internal reliability and criterion validity were examined. Finally, multivariate poisson regressions investigated longitudinal predictors of CAP in mothers.ResultsA previously established six-factor structure was confirmed for mothers but not fathers. CFA failed for fathers due to large numbers of variables with zero variance. For mothers, internal consistency and criterion validity were good. BCAPI score at follow-up was associated with baseline BCAPI score (β = 00.08), stress (β = 0.06), education (β=-0.19) and alcohol use (β = .58).ConclusionsFindings confirm the six-factor structure of the BCAPI among German mothers. The clinical use of the BCAPI in fathers is not recommended as it might produce data that are hard to interpret. Further research with fathers is needed to establish if this is due to limitations with this dataset or with the questionnaire.     

Parents’ perceptions of their child’s resilience and competencies

This study examined parental views of their child’s educability through the parents’ perceptions of their child’s resilience. The purposes of the study were: (1) to examine psychometric properties of the rating scale created to measure parental views of their child’s educational and psychological resilience, (2) to explore whether the parents’ views of the child’s resilience were related to their notions of the child’s competencies and (3) to examine how parents’ perceptions of their child’s resilience were related to the parent’s social position and the child’s gender. Data were collected by questionnaire from the parents of fifth-grade children (N=391). The parental rating scale consisted of three dimensions of resilience, all with satisfactory reliability. Parents’ views of their child’s resilience were related to their perceptions of child’s abilities and school success, suggesting that the parental rating scale had concurrent validity. The results also indicated that parents’ views of their child’s resilience were related to their gender and education and to the child’s gender. Furthermore, parents’ views of their child’s educational resilience, based on parents’ trust in their child’s internal capacities, were related to the parental definition of their child’s cognitive-verbal competencies, in particular.     

Mother’s, father’s regulation and child’s self-regulation in a computer-mediated learning situation

This study has explored the parents’ regulation strategies that were more likely to support children’s self-regulation in learning situations with computers. These strategies have been analysed by means of new grids involving seven categories of behaviour: cognitive strategies relating to identification of objective, exploration of means, attention and evaluation; motivational strategies; and socio-communicative strategies such as joint attention and request. 62 7-year-old children from Quebec families were examined with their mothers and fathers. The children were asked to complete two learning tasks that involved using LOGO software to draw a picture. Results indicated that parents’ regulation varied depending on their gender; a higher directivity was observed in mothers, more specifically through some specific strategies. Analysis of variance on repeated measures showed that, during the session, there was a decrease in the specification of the objective, the initiation of joint attention and of behaviour regulation in parents; and an improvement of the identification of the objective, planning and self-evaluation in children. Correlations between parental regulation and children’s self-regulation strategies indicated positive links concerning strategies relating to joint attention and to motivation; and negative links concerning strategies relating to the exploration of means and evaluation. A good adjustment of the parents’ regulation and the children’s self-regulation correlated positivel with success in the task. Methodological implications are proposed for research and psycho-educative intervention.     

Do teachers, principals, and superintendents perceive leadership the same way?

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used in this study to determine the extent to which teachers, principals, and superintendents perceive the leadership construct in the same way. The researchers found that the two-factor model fits the principal group and particularly the superintendent group better than does the four-factor model. The principals and particularly the superintendents appear to have a more tightly focused mental model of leadership than teachers. The test of structural invariance across the three groups indicated that there was configural and weak invariance, but not strong or strict invariance. It appears that the item-loading patterns and item loadings are invariant, but the intercepts are different, which suggests that the groups put different emphases on the importance of the factors. The study affirms the importance of determining and reporting the extent to which comparison groups share the same mental model for leadership.      

The little emperor: Chinese parents’ assessment of their own,their partner’s and their only child’s intelligence

This study set out to examine whether Chinese parents, more than people from other nations, over-estimate the intelligence of their son (little emperor) compared to their daughter. In this study, 155 pairs of married couples from mainland China estimated their own, their partner’s and their only child’s overall intelligence and 13 “multiple intelligences.” They also completed a short measure of the Big Five personality traits. Replicating previous studies, fathers rated themselves higher than mothers for almost all types of intelligence. Results revealed, however, no parental sex differences in the estimates of children’s multiple intelligences. Both parents attributed higher overall, verbal, and musical intelligence, but lower existential intelligence to their child than to themselves. Multiple regressions indicated that estimates of verbal, logical–mathematical, spatial and intrapersonal intelligence were the best predictors of estimates of overall intelligence. Participants’ openness and neuroticism were significant predictors of self-rated intelligence. The results were interpreted in relation to specific Chinese social and cultural influences, though there seemed to be no “little emperor” effect.     

Parents’ perceptions of their children’s child care: a cross-national comparison

This study compares how parents in Germany and the USA perceive the quality of ECE services their preschoolers receive in the two different cultures and ECE systems existing in the countries. The sample included 2,407 parents in the USA and 392 in Germany. Classroom quality was assessed by trained observers using the USA and German versions of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS). Parents’ perceptions of ECE programs were measured with a parent questionnaire (ECERSPQ), which is an adaptation of the ECERS. Findings show that in both countries, parents indicate high importance for the aspects of quality required in the ECERS/ECERSPQ, that parents assign substantially higher quality scores to their children’s classrooms than do trained observers, and parent quality assessments are influenced by the relative importance they attribute to aspects of quality. Findings are discussed in terms of assisting parents to become more discriminating in their child care choices.     

From parents to children: the impact of mothers’ and fathers’ educational attainments on those of their sons and daughters in West Germany

Empirical studies have repeatedly shown that in Germany educational success still strongly depends on the social origin of individuals. Using the National Educational Panel Study, we analyse the effects of fathers’ and mothers’ education levels on their sons’ and daughters’ educational attainments across three successive birth cohorts in West Germany. We calculate the predicted probabilities of reaching low, medium or high education levels on the basis of the level of education of the mothers and the fathers. Our results show: a persistence of the status maintenance model, with very few exceptions; a growth in the educational level of women via medium-level education connected to segregation in the labour market; and finally that the first transition of girls to medium-level education has been completed, leaving space for daughters to attempt to outnumber sons in tertiary education, mainly due to the pressure of mothers.     

Do individual differences in children’s curiosity relate to their inquiry-based learning?

This study investigates how individual differences in 7- to 9-year-olds' curiosity relate to the inquiry-learning process and outcomes in environments differing in structure. The focus on curiosity as individual differences variable was motivated by the importance of curiosity in science education, and uncertainty being central to both the definition of curiosity and the inquiry-learning environment. Curiosity was assessed with the Underwater Exploration game (Jirout, J., & Klahr, D. (2012). Children's scientific curiosity: In search of an operational definition of an elusive concept. Developmental Review, 32, 125–160. doi:10.1016/j.dr.2012.04.002), and inquiry-based learning with the newly developed Scientific Discovery task, which focuses on the principle of designing informative experiments. Structure of the inquiry-learning environment was manipulated by explaining this principle or not. As intelligence relates to learning and possibly curiosity, it was taken into account. Results showed that children's curiosity was positively related to their knowledge acquisition, but not to their quality of exploration. For low intelligent children, environment structure positively affected their quality of exploration, but not their knowledge acquisition. There was no interaction between curiosity and environment structure. These results support the existence of two distinct inquiry-based learning processes – the designing of experiments, on the one hand, and the reflection on performed experiments, on the other – and link children's curiosity to the latter process.     

School’s out: a comprehensive follow-up study on parents’ perceptions of their child’s school

This longitudinal study set out to examine the changes that took place in parents’ evaluations of their child’s school in the course of the child’s complete 9-year-long compulsory education. Over the follow-up period, academically educated and vocationally educated mothers and fathers (N = 326) were asked to indicate their degree of satisfaction with aspects of their child’s school every 2 years. It was found that the level of parental satisfaction was fairly high at the start, that the general decreasing trend was gradual rather than abrupt, and that the proportion of dissatisfied parents remained low and stable. A pattern of differences emerged to suggest that the parents’ perceptions were structured by their social-psychological distance from the school as measured by their social positions; for instance, the vocationally educated parents, fathers in particular, displayed less satisfaction than the academically educated ones.     

Signs,symbols and schemas: understanding meaning in a child’s drawings

This paper examines the schematic underpinnings in the drawings of a four-year-old girl, Thea. The paper reviews literature on graphic representations, signs and meaning-making before discussing schematic form in children’s drawings, the theoretical background for the study. The paper discusses ethical issues and methodological approaches to the study where data include drawings made at home and school, Thea’s recorded talk about drawings, and video recordings of her drawing sessions over a four-month period. These were coded manually and using NVivo to identify schemas. The paper discusses examples of Thea’s exploration of enclosure and trajectory schematic form, which are represented by rich content derived from her experiences and imagination. The paper concludes that Thea’s drawings included many schematic signifiers with clear evidence of complex thinking around enclosures and of vertical and horizontal trajectories. The paper evidences the importance of listening to children’s talk as they draw in order to understand more fully, the meanings they are making. Through signs, symbols and personal narratives, Thea used drawing as a meaningful semiotic space where her persistent schematic concerns were manifest.     

Single‐parent families: the role of parent’s and child’s gender on academic achievement

Using national survey data, the present study investigated whether adolescents living with parents of their same gender fare better on academic achievement than their peers living with opposite‐gender parents. Multiple analyses of covariance (MANCOVA) procedures were employed to examine the effects of the children’s gender in single‐father and single‐mother families on students’ academic achievement, as measured by four dependent variables (reading test score, mathematics test score, English teachers’ evaluation, and mathematics teachers’ evaluation) while controlling the covariate, socioeconomic status. The results indicated that there were no benefits in same‐gender single‐parent households. Furthermore, daughters in single‐father homes performed better than other parent and child combinations on academic achievement. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Topics discussed with mothers and fathers for parent–child sex communication among African-American adolescents

The purpose of this study was to examine gender differences in parent–child sex communication for 14 topics among early adolescent African-American youth. Similar to prior research, a larger percentage of participants reported they discussed sex with their mother in comparison to their father. In contrast to prior research, more males than females reported they discussed sexual topics with their mothers and fathers. Binary logistic regression analysis found significant differences for males versus females for father–child conversations on 12 of the 14 topics. Only two of the analyses were significant for males versus females on mother–child discussion of the topics. Finally, parent–child conversations tended to focus on general versus personal information. For example, a larger percentage of participants reported discussing general information on HIV/AIDS compared to discussing sexual orientation. The importance of research that focuses on the role of fathers in parent–child sexual socialisation is discussed.     

Mothers’ and fathers’ well-being, parenting styles, and their children’s cognitive and behavioural strategies at primary school

One-hundred and five 6- to 7-year-old children were given a test measuring their helplessness, failure expectations, task-irrelevant behaviour, lack of persistence and search for social support in a classroom setting in order to examine the impact of parental well-being and parenting styles on the children’s cognitive and behavioural strategies at school. Both parents were also asked to fill in scales measuring their depression, parenting stress and parenting styles. The results revealed that maternal depressive symptomatology was associated with their children’s use of maladaptive strategies, whereas paternal depression was not. Moreover, maternal authoritative parenting styles and authoritarian control, seemed to decrease their children’s use of maladaptive strategies. On the other hand, the more parenting stress reported by the fathers, the more their children showed the use of maladaptive strategies.     

Do intelligence and sustained attention interact in predicting academic achievement?

Research in clinical samples suggests that the relationship between intelligence and academic achievement might be moderated by sustained attention. The present study aimed to explore whether this interaction could be observed in a non-clinical sample. We investigated a sample of 11th and 12th grade students (N = 231). An overall performance score and a quality of performance score in sustained attention as well as verbal, numerical, and general intelligence scores served as predictors. Achievement criteria were grades in math and German as well as Grade Point Average (GPA) obtained after testing. Both types of sustained attention scores were significantly related to school performance, but only the quality of performance score incrementally contributed to the prediction of school performance above and beyond intelligence. Overall differences in the sustained attention test significantly moderated the relationship between verbal intelligence and German grades. Quality of performance moderated the relationship between general intelligence and GPA as well as the one between numerical intelligence and math grades. The study elucidates the interplay between sustained attention, intelligence, and school performance in a non-clinical sample.     

Do teachers’ knowledge and behaviour reflect their qualifications and training?

It is easier to collect data on teachers’ qualifications, experience, or training than to get a precise idea of their command of subject matter or their classroom behaviour. However, research consistently shows that “class effect” (the impact on a student of being in one class rather than another) on pupil performance is relatively high, especially in Africa, whereas the impact of qualifications, experience, or training on pupil learning is generally low. The purpose of this paper is to compare teacher academic qualifications and professional training on the one hand, with teacher test scores and behaviour on the other, showing the weak links between the former and the latter. What also emerges is the importance of certain external management-related factors such as the vastly reduced hours of effective learning time due to high rates of absenteeism and delayed term starts. Despite the importance of what really happens in the classroom, it remains difficult to measure the classroom dynamic reliably and accurately.