“We The Parents Were Actually More Nervous About The Change” – How Parents Experience Their Child's Schooling in Upper Primary School

Abstract

The study set out to explore parents' experiences of their child's upper primary schooling. Academically and vocationally educated mothers and fathers (N = 326) were prompted to give positive and negative comments on their child's school years at the end of his/her 7th and 9th grade. It was found that a great majority of the comments were positive and that the mothers and the academically educated parents reported significantly more of both positive and negative events from their child's school years than the vocationally educated parents and the fathers did. Furthermore, the parents of boys expressed more concerns than those of girls did. It was concluded that parents' social position, such as education and gender, seem to be good measures of their social-psychological distance from the school.

Keywords:

• parental experiences
• upper primary schooling
• gender
• education

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hannu Räty

Hannu Räty, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Eastern Finland, Finland.

Suvi Ruokolainen

Suvi Ruokolainen, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Eastern Finland, Finland.

Kati Kasanen

Kati Kasanen, Department of Education and Psychology, University of Eastern Finland, Finland.