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Teachers' perceptions and judgment of Puerto Rican and Anglo -American parent /child interaction and children's independence, attention management and potential for academic achievement

Rebecca Gonzalez-Flores, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Abstract

This study explored Anglo-American and Puerto Rican teacher's perception of independence, attention and potential for achievement based on two sets of an Anglo-American and a Puerto Rican parent-child interaction. It was hypothesized that teachers would perceive this interaction in a manner that is consistent with their own cultural script and their expectations about a child's behavior. The study examined whether two samples of teachers perceive (a) the child to be independent or dependent, and (b) how they perceived the pattern of attention displayed by an Anglo-American and a Puerto Rican child. A sample of sixty teachers, thirty Puerto Rican and thirty Anglo-American teachers participated in this study. They were shown two 8 minute segments; one an Anglo-American and another of a Puerto Rican parent child interaction. Both set of teachers completed three questionnaires designed to capture their perceptions of independence, attention and potential for academic achievement. The first video portrayed the Anglo-American dyad and the second video with English subtitles the Puerto Rican dyad. Raters were asked to rate a set of 22 items for both questionnaires. The third questionnaire contained 25 questions; the last three were open questions designed in order to capture meaningful themes that reflected the behaviors observed. The results suggest that both sample of raters perceive certain behaviors in a different manner in both parent-child interactions when they are compared. Both samples perceived the Anglo-American mother's parenting style as allowing more independence, less controlling in the interaction and using less verbal directions and guidance or structure to the child. They differed in their interpretation and perception of the child's level of independence as workers and also in terms of the child's contribution in the decision making process. These findings seem to indicate that as the mother is more verbal or directive or in control of the interaction, the child would depend more on the mother's direction and guidance to be involve on the task. The raters also perceived a different pattern of attention management in both children. The Anglo-American teachers perceived the Anglo-American child as more focused than the Puerto Rican child while the Puerto Rican teachers perceived the Anglo-American child as more easily distracted. There seemed to be different perceptions about which parenting style encourages to pay attention to more than one thing at a time. Anglo-American teachers perceived the Anglo-American mother as the one encouraging this skill, while Puerto Rican teachers thought that both parenting style encourage this skill. Anglo-American teachers were more likely to indicate that the Anglo-American mother would influence achievement more positively than the Puerto Rican mother. Many of the responses suggest that the Anglo-American mother allowed more independence and gave less guidance or structure to her child. Puerto Rican teachers were more inclined to predict both children as achieving equally in the classroom. The findings of this study provide insight into teacher's perceptions and cultural variations in parenting style and how children's behavior mirrors their cultural scripts.

Subject Area

Educational psychology|Developmental psychology|Bilingual education|Multicultural education

Recommended Citation

Gonzalez-Flores, Rebecca, "Teachers' perceptions and judgment of Puerto Rican and Anglo -American parent /child interaction and children's independence, attention management and potential for academic achievement" (2002). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI3039358.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3039358

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