Parenting practices and pre-schoolers’ cognitive skills in Turkish immigrant and German families

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the association between parenting behaviours, children’s daily activities and their cognitive development. Participants were 52 Turkish-German and 65 German pre-school children and their mothers, who were matched in terms of education level (10–12 years of schooling). Children’s cognitive skills were assessed using a developmental test (ET 6–6). Parenting behaviours were measured with a modified version of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire. Children’s daily activities and their literacy environment were captured with interviews as well as with a time budget diary covering two days. For parenting practices, we found mean differences inasmuch as parents in the German sample were more likely to be engaged in dyadic interaction and book reading, and less likely to endorse inconsistent parenting practices and rigid discipline practices when compared to the Turkish immigrant parents. We found similarities in the sense that parents in the two samples were equally likely to engage in positive parenting behaviour and in social play, and girls received higher scores on cognitive performance than boys. Separate regression analyses for each sample revealed that parent’s involvement indicating a more stimulating environment was positively associated with children’s cognitive development. Taken together, the findings point to the importance of programmes geared at supporting Turkish immigrant parents’ involvement with their pre-schoolers.

Keywords:

• cognitive skills
• parenting
• pre-schoolers
• Turkish immigrants

Acknowledgements

This article was funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.