Final

Research Question: Do parenting styles influence a child’s academic success?

Dornbusch, S.M., Ritter, P.L., Leiderman, P.H., Roberts, D.F., & Fraleigh, M.J. (1987). The relation of parenting style to adolescent school performance. Child Development, 58(1), 1244-1257, doi:10.2307/1130619

This article is a continuation of another study done by Hess and Holloway in 1984 on the parental styles and cognitive development. After taking a look at the prior study, the researchers decided that a continuation on their research was necessary to further understand the outcomes of certain parenting styles. Hess and Holloway’s study took a look at academic success in the pre-school level, so the researchers of this article decided to take a look at high school level adolescents as it relates to parenting styles. At the beginning of the study, there is a clear explanation of each parenting style being tested: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. They had 7,836 adolescents complete two different surveys, one about their academics and one about their parents. Then a survey was mailed to each of their parents to collect more data. These participants were enrolled in six different high schools in the San Francisco Bay area. The measures studied were ethnicity, parental education, family structure, parenting style, self-reported grades, and grade point average. After an in-depth analysis of the surveys, the researchers found that students did in fact do better in school if they had authoritative parents as opposed to authoritarian or permissive parents.

I thought that this particular article was an interesting one because it is pulled from the earlier stages of research in this topic. The reader notices that this is most likely an earlier piece of research by the fact that the study as a whole was wordy, unorganized, and confusing. The researchers did not know what to expect because there had been little research done prior to the study. The results portion of the study was disorienting and scattered. The only measure used for gathering data was self-reported surveys. I think that the study could have used more data to analyze, a wider range of participants, and been more organized. Although, I understand why the study seemed this way to me. Parenting styles as a whole are not easy to test or quantify. The researchers tackled a difficult task, especially being some of the first to take on the daunting task. As it relates to my research question: “Do parenting styles have an effect on the academic success of a child?” the study supported the idea that parenting style does in fact have an effect on the academic success of a child. Students whose parents followed authoritative parenting strategies were more likely to succeed in school as opposed to those who had authoritarian or permissive parents. This is most likely because students were already being raised to use deductive reasoning and learning to analyze situations. Authoritarian parents a have strict rules with no questions asked, so most of the time these students do not ask questions in any area of life. They do what they are told without thinking for themselves. On the opposite end of the spectrum, permissive parents are completely apathetic and do not give children any incentive to work hard. They have no reason to use deductive reasoning and do not have any idea what the consequences are of not working hard. The findings of this research study prove that a healthy balance of rules and freedom makes up an environment where a student can flourish.

Johnsen, A., Bjorknes, R., Iversen, A.C., & Sandbaek, M. (2018). School competence among adolescents in low-income families: does parenting style matter? Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(1), 2285-2294, doi:10.1007/s10826-018-1051-2

This article looked specifically at the parenting styles and school competence of children in two different groups: ethnic minority families and ethnic Norwegian families. The researchers defined four types of parenting styles: authoritarian, permissive, authoritative, and neglectful. The participants of this study were 261 adolescents, ages 6-12, living in poverty. Data was collected by surveying the participants three separate times, in 2003, 2006, and 2009. Parenting styles were measured by using the words “support,” “monitoring,” and “neglect.” Each participant was interviewed and asked a series of questions regarding demographics such as family finances, labor affiliations, and social relationships. In addition to these interviews, participants were asked to fill out surveys that asked about education and immigration. The researchers found that participants from the ethnic minority families had a higher rate of school competence than those with of the ethnic Norwegian families. They believe that this is because ethnic minorities have sacrificed more, and therefore are more optimistic when it comes to future opportunities. Children of an ethnic immigrant family are more likely to work harder for good grades as opposed to Norwegian families who tell their kids that mediocre grades are good enough.

Ample amounts of information were given on why the study is important, what research on the subject had been done before, and how this research is unique. The data that the researchers collected was well organized, informative, and explained in an effective manner. I think gathering participants from specific socioeconomic backgrounds was vital and that data was collected over three separate time periods. There were quite a few surveys, which can pose troublesome when collecting data for different variables, however the researchers did incorporate interviews which added additional support. This study found that a particular parenting style was not significantly more effective than the other when it comes to academic success. However, the presence of neglect did have a negative correlation to academic success. Support was a larger factor when it came to academic success of their participants. The researchers mentioned that neglect had even more series impacts on children in similar studies such as depression, anxiety, and dangerously poor self-esteem. The specific parenting style may not be as important to a child’s well-being as the level of support the child is shown.

Newman, J., Gozu, H., Guan, S., Lee, J.E., Li, X., & Sasaki, Y. (2015). Relationship between maternal parenting style and high school achievement and self-esteem in china, turkey, and u.s.a. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 46(2), 265-288, doi: 10.3138/jcfs.46.2.265

At the beginning of this article, the researchers provided extensive background information about the different parenting styles and the prevalence of each in the US, China, and Turkey. The researchers created a few research questions prior to collecting data which included the prevalence of each parenting style in each country, different levels of prevalence from country to country, and differences in the effect each of these styles have on children. The participants were all between the ages of 21 and 23 at a public university: 231 students from the US, 207 from China, and 196 from Turkey. Each participant was asked to complete a questionnaire called the “Buri Parent Authority Questionnaire.” These consisted of questions about their mothers in parenting, how they thought they performed in high school, how they think their parents would say they performed in high school, and self-esteem related questions. This study found that Americans experienced a positive impact on academic success when their mothers practiced an authoritative style parenting. The Chinese and Turkish students both had a significant negative impact overall on academic success when their mothers were authoritarian in their parenting techniques.

I think not including the father’s in the survey was not a good idea. As we have learned in throughout the class, fathers affect the environment as well. I would be curious to know why they were not able to obtain more participants considering three countries were involved. This study supports the fact that there is a correlation between parenting style and academic success. Evidently this correlation, according to this article, does not remain consistent from country to country. As for Turkish students, permissive parenting seemed to have a positive connection to academic success. On the other hand, American students seemed to have a higher success rate with authoritative parenting. Contrary to the belief that Chinese students thrive under authoritarian parenting styles, they actually respond negatively to this type of parenting. In Chinese students, authoritative parenting did not have a huge impact on academic success but did create a positive self-esteem. Although, in American students authoritative parenting had a negative effect on self-esteem. Even though parenting styles seem to correlate with academic success, it is not as consistent as researchers would have hoped. The correlation seems to be much more complex than a simple 1 to 1 kind of correlation. Different cultures respond differently to certain parenting styles. It is interesting that culture is an important factor in how parenting styles impact a child. I never imagined that an authoritative parent in one country could affect a child differently than an authoritative parent in another.