Parenting styles in the families of students studying in Nis Текст научной статьи по специальности «Науки об образовании»

УДК 159.99

Елизавета А. Тодорович

Стили воспитания в семьях студентов, обучающихся в Нишском университете

В различных культурах наблюдаются определенные особенности родителей, которые можно соотнести с авторитетным стилем воспитания. Учитывая особенность авторитетного стиля воспитания, мы хотели выяснить принадлежат ли студенты, обучающиеся в Нишском университете, семьям с названным стилем воспитания. Среди исследованных стилей воспитания были авторитетный (демократичный), авторитарный, разрешающий (согласно теории Дианы Бомринд) и другие. Анкетный опрос PSDQ (Стили воспитания & Измерительные анкеты. Робинсон, Мандлеко, Олсен и Харт, 2001). В исследовании приняли участие 316 студентов мужского пола и 268 студентов женского пола. Результаты показывают, что и у отцов, и у матерей более выражеными являются варианты авторитетного, а не авторитарного и разрешающего стилей. Дозволенность как стиль воспитания более распространена среди матерей. Авторитетный стиль воспитания матерей более выражен среди студентов факультета философии по сравнению со студентами факультета электроники, тогда как авторитарный стиль воспитания чаще наблюдался среди студентов факультета электроники. Авторитетный стиль воспитания отцов чаще можно наблюдать среди студентов отделения естественных наук, чем среди студентов других факультетов, тогда как авторитарный стиль воспитания отцов чаще встрачался среди студентов факультета электроники.

Ключевые слова: стиль воспитания, авторитетный, авторитарный, дозволенность, студенты. Jelisaveta A. Todorovic

Parenting Styles in the Families of Students Studying in Nis

This paper was created as a pert of the projects 179074 "Tradition, modernization and national identity in Serbia and in the Balkans in the process of European integration " and 179002 "Indicators and models of role harmonization at work and in the family " which are supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia

Research has shown that in different cultures there are certain characteristics of parents that are considered adequate, and can be connected to authoritative educational style. Having in mind the peculiarity of the authoritative parenting style, we wanted to examine whether the students of the University of Nis come from families with authoritative parenting style. The examined parenting styles were authoritative (democratic), authoritarian and permissive according to the theoretical understanding of Diana Baumrind, and which were presented in the theoretical part of this paper. PSDQ questionnaire (Parenting Styles & Dimensions Questionnaire, Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 2001). This research was conducted on 316 male and 268 female students. The results show that, both in fathers and in mothers, the sub-dimensions of the authoritative style are more expressed than the sub-dimensions of the authoritarian and permissive style. Permissiveness is more common among mothers as a parenting style.. The mothers' authoritative style was significantly more prominent among the students of the Faculty of Philosophy in comparison to the students of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering, whereas the authoritarian style was more significantly prominent among the students of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering. The fathers' authoritative style was more prominent among the students of the Faculty of Science than among the students of other faculties, whereas the fathers' authoritarian style was more prominent among the students of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering.

Keywords: parenting style, authoritative, authoritarian, permissiveness, students.

Democratization in contemporary society represents a global process which is reflected on the establishment of certain relations in a modern (contemporary) family. Theories that deal with parenting (upbringing) emphasize the importance of democratic parenting (upbringing) in a family more and more often. In this research, we started from the division of parenting styles according to Diana Baumrind's theoretical concept, which differentiates between the authoritative (democratic), authoritarian and permissive parenting style. Authoritative parents monitor the

needs and interests of their child, recognize the child's qualities, but also set behavioral standards. The authoritative style is characterized by a relatively high but reasonable control adjusted to the child's age. Children from families with authoritative parents tend to display friendly behavior towards their peers, they are more independent and they are more directed towards research as well as oriented towards achievements. Authoritarian parents express their demands and expectations, but they do not communicate with their children about the reasons that are be-

© Елизавета А. Тодорович, 2015

hind these rules. These parents are strict, they expect obedience and they display power when their children misbehave. Permissive, indulgent parents do not punish - they accept and approve impulses, desires and actions of the child. Permissive parenting style is marked by a low control followed by low demands with a general acceptance of the child, and its most frequent consequence is a low social responsibility and a seeming independence of the child.

The research of interrelatedness between the parenting style and adolescents' success in school (school performance) is very important for understanding the competence of parental functioning. One of the first researches of this interrelatedness was organized by Baumrind (1968). By longitudinally following the children from the preschool age to adolescence, she determined that the children of authoritative parents are more mature, more socially independent, more active and more successful than the children of non-authoritative parents. She also determined that children of preschool age who have permissive parents showed a low level of self-confidence, self-control and competence. In order to determine the stability of these results, she organized the research again in the adolescence period and she concluded that the relationship between the parenting styles and the achievement in school (school performance) was in accordance with the earlier findings (Baumrind, 1991). In comparison with their peers, the adolescents from authoritative families were cognitively motivated and goal-oriented, whereas their tests of verbal and mathematical achievements were among the highest-rated. Also, they were socially responsible, had high self-confidence and internal locus of control.

The results of numerous studies show that the adolescents, who were raised in families in which their parents used the authoritative style, have more success in school (better school performance) than their peers. Steinberg and his associates (Steinberg et al. 1992) present some studies in which it is suggested that the relationship between the authoritative style and school performance is causal, evident in both young and old adolescents, strong through different conceptualizations and operationalizations of authority, and generalized across different ethnic, socioeconomic and family structures. The research of Steinberg (Steinberg et al. 1992) and his associates shows that, in adolescence, there are three specific components of authority that contribute to healthy psychological development and success in school: parental acceptance or warmth, behavioral supervision and strictness, and psychological auton-

omy granting or democracy. In his study, Steinberg concluded that authoritarian parenting is in high correlation with school performance, although there is an exception: for the adolescents who come from African-American families the correlation between authoritarian parenting and school performance is not relevant, which indicates that authoritativeness is not a good predictor of academic achievements in African-American families. These results suggest that culture plays a very important role between parenting styles and academic performance in adolescents. According to the results of Matejevic and Stojkovic's research (Matejevic, Stojkovic, 2012), it has been determined that there is a low but significant correlation between maternal democratic parenting style and adolescents' very good school performance (p=0.283, p<0.05) and between maternal democratic parenting style and adolescents' good school performance (p=0.284, p<0.01), which confirms that the democratic parenting style is associated with better school performance. Since statistically relevant correlations were obtained only in relation to the parenting style of mothers, it can be concluded that the contribution of mothers in adolescents' success in school (school performance) is probably more adequate and more present.

A research Lamborn and the associates conducted (Lamborn et al. 1991) shows that adolescents who come from authoritarian families have significantly higher academic competencies, significantly lower level of problematic behavior and significantly higher level of psychosocial development than those adolescents who come from authoritarian, indulgent and neglectful families. In their study of the success of adolescents in college, Turner and the associates (Turner, et al. 2009) state that the results of their research show that the authoritative parenting style is a predictor of the student's success in college.

Baumrind and Thompson (Baumrind, Thompson, 2002) note that the authoritative model is the most efficient parenting style both in achieving a high level of individuality and in achieving a high level of togetherness in children, except that it limits this competence in relation to the raising of children in Europe and America. Authoritative parenting balances between a warm participation and psychological autonomy, consistent behavior control and high developmental expectations regarding the social maturity and cognitive achievements. In contrast to authoritarian parents, who are very demanding, but not also sensitive, permissive parents who are sensitive, but not demanding, and indifferent parents, who are neither demanding nor sensitive, authoritative par-

ents are equally demanding and sensitive. On the one hand, Baumrind believes, they provide tight control and set high maturity standards, and on the other hand they offer warmth, responsiveness to children's needs and encourage independence. Given that children have their own plans, which include testing the limits of parental authority, disciplinary moments are frequent in families in which parents use the authoritative parenting style. The mechanisms that characterize authoritative parenting are characterized by the encouragement of moral internalization, independence, pro-social behavior and a high level of cognitive operations.

Although there are various alternatives in different cultural contexts in relation to the authoritative parenting style, not a single analyzed study showed that the authoritative parenting style could be harmful or less efficient. Studies show that there are certain characteristics of parents that are considered to be adequate in different cultures, and these characteristics could be linked with the authoritative parenting style. These characteristics are (Baumrind, Thompson, 2002): deep and permanent commitment to the parental role, intimate knowledge of the child and its developmental needs, respect of child's individuality and demands, modification of the regime and structure in the family in order to correspond to the developmental characteristics of the child, cognitive stimulation and effective communication, as well as the use of explanations to ensure that the children understand the guals of their parents and their disciplinary actions.

Having in mind the peculiarity of the authoritative parenting style, we wanted to examine whether the students of the University of Nis come from families with authoritative parenting style.

Such an objective presupposes the following specific objectives:

1. to examine the level of representation of parenting styles in the sample of the students of the University of Nis,

2. to determine whether there are differences in the level of representation of styles depending on whether they are related to the mother or the father, and

3. to determine if there is a difference between the students of different faculties of the University of Nis regarding the level of representation of parenting styles in the family.

It was expected that the sample of students of the University of Nis would show that the dominant parenting style was authoritative (democratic). Apart from that, we started with the presupposition that we

would have significant differences between different faculties of the University of Nis (Faculty of Philosophy, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Science and Faculty of Mechanical Engineering) regarding the dominant parenting style.

The examined parenting styles were authoritative (democratic), authoritarian and permissive according to the theoretical understanding of Diana Baumrind, and which were presented in the theoretical part of this paper. PSDQ questionnaire (Parenting Styles & Dimensions Questionnaire, Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 2001) was used for the examination of these parenting styles. It contains the following dimensions with the examples of the following items:

1. Dimensions of the authoritative parenting style are: Attachment (My father/mother encourages me to freely express my opinion), Regulation (My father/mother emphasizes the reasons for having certain rules) and Autonomy (My father/mother allows me to participate in the creation of family rules), and they constitute the first factor of the questionnaire.

2. Dimensions of the authoritarian style are: Coercion (My father/mother punishes me when I am disobedient), Verbal hostility (My father/mother yells at me when I misbehave), and Not explaining (My father/mother punishes me by leaving me with little or without any explanation), and they constitute the second factor of the questionnaire.

3. The permissive, i.e. indulgent parenting style (My father/mother has spoiled me) has no special dimensions in the questionnaire, although it constitutes the third dimension of it. Four items represent this style.

This research was conducted on 316 male and 268 female students. The results show that, both in fathers and in mothers, the sub-dimensions of the authoritative style are more expressed than the subdimensions of the authoritarian and permissive style, which means that the majority of the students estimated that the dominant parenting style in their families is the authoritative one, i.e. democratic. What is interesting is that mothers use coercion more and explain the demands and punishments to a lesser degree compared to fathers, although these differences are very small and statistically irrelevant. Indulgence is more frequent in the behavior of mothers. Based on these results, it seems justifiable to conclude that the parenting factors examined were more expressed among the students' mothers, even in the instances when the authoritarian style was concerned, which is, in a way, unexpected.

The mothers' authoritative style was significantly more prominent among the students of the Faculty of

Philosophy in comparison to the students of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering, whereas the authoritarian style was more significantly prominent among the students of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering, which is mainly attended by male students.

The fathers' authoritative style was more prominent among the students of the Faculty of Science than among the students of other faculties (Faculty of Philosophy, Faculty of Electronic Engineering and Faculty of Mechanical Engineering), whereas the fathers' authoritarian style was more prominent among the students of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in comparison to the students of the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Science. There were no noted differences regarding the permissive style.

Библиографический список

1. Баумринд, 1968: D. Baumrind, "Authoritarian vs. Authoritative Parental Control", Adolescence, Berkeley, vol. 3, 11. 255-272.

2. Баумринд, 1991: D. Baumrind, "The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance use", Journal of Early Adolescence, Berkeley, vol. 11, 56-95.

3. Баумринд, Томпсон, 2002: D. Baumrind, A. R. Thompson, "The Ethics of Parenting", In M. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of Parenting, Vol. 5. Practical Issues in Parenting, LEA, Mah-wah, New Jersey London

4. Ламборн, 1991: D.S Lamborn et al., "Patterns of Competence and Adjustment among Adolescents from Authoritative, Authoritarian, Indulgent, and Neglectful", Child Development, vol. 62. 1049-1065.

5. Мат^евиЬ, СтсуковиЬ, 2012: М. Мат^евиЬ, СтсуковиЬ (2012) Васпитни стил родитела и школски успех мла^их адолесцената, Иновацщ'еу настави, вол. 25. стр. 37-46.

6. Стеинберг, 1992: L. Steinberg, et al, "Impact of Parenting Practices on Adolescent Achievement: Authoritative Parenting, School Involvement, and Encouragement to Succeed", Child Development, vol. 63,1266-1281.

7. Стеинберг и Силк, 2002: L. Steinberg and , J.S. Silk, 'Parenting Adolescents", in Handbook of Parenting Marc H. Bornsein vol. 1. Children and Parenting, Mahwah, New Jersey, London.

Bibliograficheskij spisok

1. Baumrind, 1968: D. Baumrind, "Authoritarian vs. Authoritative Parental Control", Adolescence, Berkeley, vol. 3, 11. 255-272.

2. Baumrind, 1991: D. Baumrind, "The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance use", Journal of Early Adolescence, Berkeley, vol. 11, 56-95.

3. Baumrind, Tompson, 2002: D. Baumrind, A. R. Thompson, "The Ethics of Parenting", In M. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of Parenting, Vol. 5. Practical Issues in Parenting, LEA, Mah-wah, New Jersey London

4. Lamborn, 1991: D.S Lamborn et al., "Patterns of Competence and Adjustment among Adolescents from Authoritative, Authoritarian, Indulgent, and Neglectful", Child Development, vol. 62. 1049-1065.

5. Matejevih, Stojkovih, 2012: M. Matejevih, Stojkovih (2012) Vaspitni stil roditeaa i shkolski uspeh mlafyh adolesce-nata, Inovacije u nastavi, vol. 25. str. 37-46.

6. Steinberg, 1992: L. Steinberg, et al, "Impact of Parenting Practices on Adolescent Achievement: Authoritative Parenting, School Involvement, and Encouragement to Succeed", Child

Development, vol. 63,1266-1281.

7. Steinberg i Silk, 2002: L. Steinberg and , J.S. Silk, "Parenting Adolescents", in Handbook of Parenting Marc H. Bornsein vol. 1. Children and Parenting, Mahwah, New Jersey, London.