Parental Beliefs, Motivation, and Involvement Correlates of Child Attachment and School Achievement in Argentina and the U.S.

MARÍA CRISTINA RICHAUD; BELÉN MESURADO; LISA NEWLAND

Montreal

Congreso; 2011 SRCD Biennial Meeting; 2011

Society for Research in Child Development

Recent findings indicate that parental involvement and behavioral control are associated with children’s social competence, positive attitudes toward school, academic achievement, and attachment security (Doyle et al., 2004; Newland et al., 2010; Richaud de Minzi, 2006, 2010). Attachment studies have focused more on the mother-child than the father-child attachment relationship (Brown et al., 2007; Newland et al., 2008), and less is known about the specific roles of fathers and mothers than about general patterns of beliefs and involvement (e.g Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 2005). Cultural differences will also affect how parents interact with their children, e.g. in Argentina, child-rearing practices are based on greater power assertion than in Anglo-Saxon families (Facio & Batistuta, 1998; Reebye et al., 1999). This study was designed to examine connections between father and mother beliefs, motivations, involvement in educational activities, relationships with teachers, and children’s school achievement and attachment security within two cultures. Participants included families (mother, father, and one child age 8 to 11 years old) from 2 research sites in: 1) the rural Midwestern U.S. (n = 95), and 2) urban Argentina (preliminary n = 20, final n = 100). Site 1 participants came from low (52%), middle (33%) and high (15%) SES backgrounds. The majority of children (52% male, 48% female) lived with married, biological parents (83%) and were Caucasian (88%) and other ethnicities (12%). Site 2 participants came from low (41%), middle (49%) and high (10%) SES backgrounds. The majority of children (52% male, 48% female) lived with married, biological parents (83%) and were of European descent (93%). The parent survey included measures of self-efficacy, invitations to involvement (general, child, and teacher), and home-based and school-based involvement (Green et al., 2007), and new measures of parent-teacher relationship quality, parent beliefs about teachers, and parent motivation for involvement. Parents also reported on child’s school achievement. Children completed the Children’s Relationship Attitudes (avoidant and ambivalent subscales, Roggman et al., 2001) with a new secure exploration scale (Newland et al., 2010). All measures were translated and back-translated for the Argentinian sample, and scale reliabilities were .60 or higher for all measures in both samples. In the U.S., father motivation for closeness was (inversely) related to children’s avoidance and ambivalence (Table 1). Secure exploration was related to father efficacy, motivation, and involvement. Several mother beliefs and motivations were related to children’s attachment and secure exploration. Children’s report of secure exploration with both mothers and fathers was related to school achievement. Father and mother involvement were related to parenting beliefs, motivations, and parent-teacher relationship. For Argentinian fathers and mothers (Table 2), nearly all parental beliefs and involvement were inversely related children’s avoidant and ambivalent attachment (weaker associations for ambivalence towards mothers), and positively related to home-based and school-based involvement. Secure exploration with both mothers and fathers was related to parents’ perceived invitations, motivation for closeness, involvement, and school achievement. All analyses will be re-run with the complete data set, and cultural differences will be examined using multivariate techniques. These results are relevant to psychologists and educators.