Parental beliefs and values related to family risk, educational intervention, and child academic competence

Traditional, authoritarian and progressive, democratic beliefs about child rearing and education, and self-directing and conforming values for children were contrasted in parents of 126 children entering kindergarten. Eighty-three parents were socioeconomically disadvantaged; their children were at risk for mild mental retardation and school failure and had taken part in an experimental study of early childhood educational intervention. Forty-three subjects were parents of randomly selected kindergarten peers from the local population. Mothers of at-risk children with preschool intervention scored lower on traditional beliefs; such beliefs by parents were negatively correlated with child achievement in reading. Parents of children at risk differed from local population parents in both beliefs and values.