Abstract:

Parents’ behavior can shape and influence children’s behaviors in many ways. An ample body of research, mainly in western countries, has shown that the ways in which parents communicate and interact with children significantly affect children’s physical and mental health. In this study the relations between adolescents’ academic achievement and several aspects of parenting, such as warmth, control, efficacy, and use of corporal punishment were examined over time in nine countries.

Interviews were conducted with adolescents (N = 1300+) and their mothers and fathers in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. When adolescents were ages 12, 13, and 14 years old, mothers and fathers were asked to rate how their adolescents perform in five subjects in school (i.e., reading, writing, math, social studies, and science), using a 4-point scale (1 = failing, 2 = below average, 3 = average, 4 = above average; items from the performance in academic subject section of the Child Behavior Checklist, Achenbach, 1991). Ratings of adolescents’ performance in the five subjects were averaged to create a composite score reflecting academic achievement at each age as perceived by mothers and fathers. Parents’ perceptions of their adolescents’ academic achievement were stable over time. In addition, mothers’ and fathers’ reports of adolescents’ academic achievement were highly correlated with one another (r = .68, .68, and .70, respectively, at ages 12, 13, and 14). Furthermore, mothers’ and fathers’ reports of adolescents’ academic achievement were highly correlated in all nine countries, ranging from a low of .48 in Italy to a high of .90 in Jordan.

Parents’ ratings of their adolescents’ academic achievement also were related to several aspects of parenting. When adolescents were age 12, they completed the Parental Acceptance-Rejection/Control Questionnaire-Short Form (Rohner, 2005). Items were averaged to create scales reflecting adolescents’ perceptions of their mothers’ and fathers’ warmth (e.g., “My mother/father makes me feel wanted and needed,” with 8 items about each parent) and control (e.g., “My mother/father is always telling me how I should behave,” with 5 items about each parent). When adolescents were 12, their mothers and fathers also completed a measure of efficacy that reflected how much mothers and fathers believed they could affect their adolescents’ behavior, including performance in school (e.g., “How much can you do to help your children to work hard at their school work,” with 6 items completed by each parent; Caprara, Regalia, Scabini, Barbaranelli, & Bandura, 2004). When adolescents were 12, their mothers and fathers also reported how frequently the adolescent had experienced corporal punishment in the last month (UNICEF, 2006). Findings revealed that adolescents who perceived their mothers and fathers as being warmer and less controlling, parents who perceived themselves as being more able to affect their adolescents’ performance in school, and parents who used less corporal punishment had adolescents who were rated by their parents as having higher academic achievement.

Keywords:

Parenting, Academic Achievement, Cross Cultural.