Parents' Ideas About the Development and Education of Their Children. Answers to Some Questions

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Abstract
The ideas of parents concerning the development, upbringing, and education of their children have become a subject that has produced a lot of work in developmental research in recent years. However, there still remain grey areas and contradictions which need to be further clarified. While trying to steer clear of the fragmentary nature of research done in this area, this paper analyses a wide-ranging set of ideas of differing content. An attempt is then made to find elements that help characterise the overall pattern of these ideas. The study also tries to clarify the amount of weight that should be given to each of the determining variables that go to make up parents' ideas (educational background, professional status, rural or urban residence, previous experience as parents), while at the same time analysing the degree of concurrence, or lack of it, existing within the married couple. Three classes of parents are seen to exist (traditional, modern, and paradoxical) and the educational background is seen to be the variable that contributes most to determining their ideas. The impact of the several background variables depends on the type of parent being considered.