The Impact of Maternal Schooling and Occupation on Child-rearing Attitudes and Behaviours in Low Income Neighbourhoods in Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

As a developing country, Egypt and especially Cairo, is in a transitional phase between a traditional and a modern, education-based society and between traditional child-rearing values of passivity and obedience and new demands for academic competence. Education is seen by present day parents as the major vehicle for the future success and happiness of children and much effort is expended toward this goal. Thirty Cairene mothers from low income neighbourhoods with similar housing standards and crowding, but with different levels of education and occupational status were interviewed (1994-95) about socialisation values and practices and observed with their children in order to evaluate how mothers prepare preschoolers for the cognitive demands of school. It was anticipated that educated working mothers would be less traditional and engage their children in more active competence training (mediation of learning experience, MLE, and authoritative child-raising style, AC-R) as a mediator to children’s cognitive competence. These expectations were supported. The 30 mothers were generally found to emphasise a controlling, restricting, and protecting style of child rearing, with moral education, compliance, agreeableness, passivity, and loyalty as ideals. Observation revealed little verbal interaction or stimulation of children. Educated working mothers, however, expressed belief in earlier developmental timetables and endorsed the less traditional values of stimulating and interacting rather than controlling and expecting obedience of the child more than the remaining mothers. Educated working mothers were also more positively verbally interacting with their children during the interview than nonworking low-educated mothers. They scored higher on AC-R and on the MLE categories guiding and expanding in interactive play and these variables were related to the children’s cognitive competence (intelligence scores), also when the mothers’ intelligence was accounted for. Mothers’ educational and occupational levels did not predict children’s cognitive competence directly, suggesting that mothers’ child-rearing behaviours acted as mediators. Fathers’ educational level was not related to the children’s cognitive competence. The results point to the potential benefit of investing in girls’ (and future mothers’) education for the future of their children.