Pre-education in Singapore: are there ethnic differences in parental attitudes?

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that parents from a Chinese background would have higher academic expectations and parental involvement than parents from other Asian backgrounds and that these differences would be evident from before formal schooling commenced. A total of 244 parents living in Singapore completed an online survey including the Child Rearing Beliefs Scale (Okagaki & Sternberg, 1993), rating of Parental Involvement (Reynolds, 1992), a diary of a typical week for their child's academic and non academic activities, and demographics items. Ethnicity was divided between Chinese (n=124) and Others (n=120), i.e., Malay, Indian and Eurasian). This study's surveying responses were gathered between November 2011 and January 2012. Ethnic differences were found in parental beliefs and involvement scores. Specifically, Chinese scored significantly lower on the Child Rearing Beliefs Scale and Parental Involvement ratings than Others. Furthermore, ethnicity was found to be a significant predictor of parental beliefs and involvement after controlling for sex, education and income.