Cultural influences on upbringing. By raising children we transmit culture. In this way, education ensures the transmission of cultural values and norms to successive generations. The question here is, what is culture? Should/may all culture be transferred? Does education not only preserve culture, but also promote progress and innovation?
Values, Norms and
By raising children we transmit culture. In this way, education ensures the transmission of cultural values and norms to successive generations. The question here is, what is culture? Should/may all culture be transferred? Does education not only preserve culture, but also promote progress and innovation?
Education is also culture itself. People are brought up differently in different cultures. It is clear that raising children from the Maasai tribe will be different from raising a Western European child. What differences are there and what factors explain differences? Is one way of parenting better than the other?
Research
In the 1990s, research was conducted into parenting in our country, including Parenting in the Netherlands (1996), which mapped out the average Dutch upbringing, and Parenting in Moroccan families in the Netherlands (1999), which examined how children are raised in Moroccan circles. In both studies, attention was paid to the goals that the parents have in mind. When we compare the results, we see clear differences.
In both studies, twelve goals were presented to parents. They had to indicate how important they found those goals by ranking them from more to less important . The goals presented to the parents were not the same in the studies, but the results are easy to compare.
The goals in order of importance (from more to less):
Parenting in the Netherlands (1996)
- Bearing responsibility
- Taking others into account
- Independence
- Civility
- Be tolerant
- School results
- Helpful
- Respectful
- Curious
- Ambition
- Parents obey
- Intelligent
Education in Moroccan families (1999)
- Course
- Adhere to Islamic regulations
- Respectful
- Honesty
- Future-oriented
- Stay on the right path
- Social
- Stand up for himself
- Responsibility
- Open mind towards others
- Have shame
- Epicurean
In both studies the goals were combined (each in its own way), after which the following picture emerged:
Dutch parents
- Autonomous
- Social
- Conformity
- Performance-oriented
Moroccan parents
- Performance-oriented
- Conformism
- Social
- Autonomous
What is most important to the average Dutch parent is least important to the average Moroccan parent and vice versa. Moroccan parents are no exception: other studies in the series Parenting in immigrant families in the Netherlands show a similar picture for at least Turkish, Somali and Chinese parents.
Educational climate
Immigrant and native parents differ in the way they interact with their children. One way fits better with school learning and life than the other, better with what is learned and expected from students at school, how students work and collaborate at school, how teachers interact with children, and so on.
Since the mid-twentieth century , parenting climate, more precisely: Parenting style, has been known to partly determine school performance. The influence is confirmed again and again in research, also in the Netherlands.
There is debate about the definition of parenting style, but it roughly boils down to the nature of involvement and authority: quality and intensity of support, guidance, direction, punishment, challenge, release, communication and the like.
Educational disadvantage
The explanation of educational disadvantage through old age style is common, but not without its drawbacks. The influence that the educational climate has on school learning is not yet completely clear, especially with regard to the more detailed question of which aspects of interaction with children exactly have an influence and how the influences work.
Large-scale empirical studies show connections, but say little about the details. Illustrative is the issue of whether authoritarian parenting is by definition detrimental to school performance. Large-scale studies have always shown that students of authoritarian parents do less well at school. An exception to this rule is children of Southeast Asian descent, for example Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese children. They do well at school with authoritarian parenting. From this we can deduce that the meaning and effect of parental behavior differs per culture. This cultural relativity causes many problems in research and theories about the influence of parenting climate or parenting style.
The method of education that is considered ideal among Chinese parents is considered authoritarian in the West and therefore unfavorable for the children’s educational learning and life. So wrongly .