The relationship between 5 year-old children’s social value acquisition and parenting styles

Abstract

Value acquisition is a lifelong process that occurs in different contexts. However, it has been acknowledged that socializing with family members and the children’s desire to identify with their parents play a central role in preschoolers’ acquisition of basic social values. Despite the crucial role of parents in transmitting social values to their children, the relationship between value acquisition and parenting styles has been a neglected area in social sciences and educational studies. The present research, therefore, explores social value acquisition, parenting styles and the effects of parenting styles on the value acquisition of 5 year-old preschoolers living in Cyprus. This is a quantitative, descriptive correlational study, whose population comprises parents and their 5-year-old students attending private preschool education centers located in Nicosia. The data of the present study were collected through a personal information form, containing information about the parents’ and children’s demographics, The Scale for Preschool Social Values Acquisition and the Parenting Attitude Scale. The analysis of the data regarding the values that children have acquired reveals the highest acquisition of the “responsibility” value and the lowest acquisition of the “cooperation” value among preschoolers. The analysis also reveals that children whose parents have a democratic parenting style scored higher on the Preschool Social Value Acquisition Scale than the children of parents who utilize permissive and over-protective parenting practices. However, the results of the present study seem to indicate a low correlation between preschoolers’ social value acquisition and permissive and over-protective parenting styles.