Parenting Across Cultures : Parental attributions, attitudes and behaviour

Abstract: Previously studies in parenting have mainly been conducted in Western countries. Not uncommonly results from such studies are used to describe general, worldwide trends. In an attempt to make the field of parenting research more culturally heterogeneous, an international research project, Parenting Across Cultures, was started. The project includes nine participant countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and USA) and its purpose is to examine parenting across cultures. This thesis is based on reports from parent participants. The aim of Study I was to investigate mothers’ and fathers’ (77 participants from each group) attributions and attitudes in Sweden. The results revealed that Swedish parents are more polarized in their attitudes than in their attributions, they think more alike for parenting attitudes and there was greater variability for parenting attributions, particularly regarding uncontrollable success, as opposed to attributions regarding adult- or child-controlled failure. Regarding attitudes, mothers and fathers reported more progressive than authoritarian attitudes. Fathers reported higher adult-controlled failure and child-controlled failure attributions than mothers. In Study II the aim was to assess whether mothers’ and fathers’ self-reports of acceptance-rejection, warmth, and hostility/rejection/neglect of their children differ in the nine countries. A total of 1996 parents (998 mothers and 998 fathers) participated in the study. Mothers and fathers reported high acceptance and warmth and low rejection and hostility/rejection/neglect (HRN) of their children in all nine countries. Despite the overwhelmingly high levels of acceptance and low levels of rejection across all countries, and despite our use of statistical controls for parental age, education, social desirability, and child age, some systematic differences between countries emerged. In summary, parents in the studies report higher similarity about parenting in some cases, for example concerning acceptance and warmth and hostility/rejection/neglect, but lower in others, such as the Swedish parents’ reports about attributions.