Parenting Styles, Parental Instructions and Children's Self-regulated Learning Behaviors in Canada and China

Many cross-cultural studies have shown that Asian students have higher academic achievement than Western students. The present study focused on parental factors and their relevance to children's learning behaviors from a cultural perspective. Specifically, I sought to examine whether there were cross-cultural differences in maternal parenting styles, maternal instructive behaviors and children's learning behaviors in Canada and China and how these parenting factors were related with children's behaviors in each country. Forty-one Canadian children and 44 Chinese children aged 4 to 5 years and their mothers participated in the present study. Information on maternal parenting styles was collected from self report. Data on maternal parenting strategies, maternal instructive behaviors and children's learning behaviors were obtained from observations of mother-child interactions in a problem-solving session. The results indicated that Chinese mothers were more authoritarian and displayed more high-power strategies such as direct command and intrusiveness than Canadian mothers. No significant cross-cultural difference was found in maternal instructions. It was also found that Chinese mothers' authoritative parenting style was positively correlated with children's self-initiated learning behaviors and negatively correlated with children's mother-initiated learning behaviors and requesting for guidance/help. Canadian mothers' authoritarian parenting style was positively correlated with children's requesting for guidance/help. Moreover, maternal explicit and implicit instructive strategies were negatively related with Canadian children's guidance-seeking behaviors and maternal implicit instruction was positively related with Chinese children's guidance/-seeking behaviors. The importance of culture values on learning and achievement was discussed.