Abstract:

Introduction:
The current study examined how cultural and religious practices may influence children’s learning. Parents play a very important role in forming their children’s personalities and characteristics. Parents’ practices differ from a culture to another and their involvement in their children differ as a result of many personal, cultural, and psychological variables. Very few studies, if any, are available about parents’ cultural and religious practices in Middle Eastern communities.

Objectives:
The objectives of the current study were to examine:
(1) the levels of cultural and religious parenting practices,
(2) the levels of high school students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs and
(3) the relationship between these practices and children’s academic self-efficacy beliefs.

Methodology:
This study undertook a descriptive research design trying to explain the levels of the study’s variable and the nature of the relationships connecting them. In order to achieve the study’s goals, the researcher applied two questionnaires for a sample of 2152 students who were in grade 12 from different school districts in the Sultanate of Oman. These students were invited to participate in the study during class sessions. The researcher along with some assistants visited different schools across the country after getting approval from the ethics committee at the Ministry of Education. The students were assured for confidentiality and no identification information was obtained. The students were told that their participation in the study was voluntary based and they had the right to withdraw any time. The students responded to a questionnaire that evaluates their sense of academic self-efficacy beliefs (6 items, α = 0.82) and a questionnaire about their parents’ cultural and religious practices (6 items, α = 0.71).

Results:
Descriptive statistics were used to examine the levels of cultural and religious parenting practices as perceived by the Omani children. The results showed high levels of these parenting styles practiced by fathers (M = 4.06) and mothers (M =4.29). In addition, high levels of academic self-efficacy were reported (M = 4.13). The results showed statistically significant correlation between students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs and their parents acculturation practices measured by children’s perceptions of mothers’ practices (r = 0.29, p < 0.001) and fathers’ practices (r = 0.24, p < 0.001). The researcher discusses the findings using a cultural framework and provide some insights to understand children-parent relationship in the Omani context.

Keywords:

religious practices, high school academic efficacy beliefs, Oman.