La eficacia del control parental en la educación de los hijos. Un estudio transcultural en el marco de los estilos parentales

Abstract

Abstract Child rearing is the spectrum of activities that parents carry out with their children. In this area one of the most studied aspects have been parenting styles. There is currently a great debate that questions the effectiveness of the authoritative parenting style (based on affection and control) in some countries. The doctoral thesis investigates whether parenting styles work in different countries in the same way and how beneficial it is for the development of children to educate with or without limits and norms. The work is exposed in two distinct parts: a first part in which the context of parenting styles is defined; a preliminary empirical study that justifies the need for a more thorough investigation; and a systematic review of the literature that provides a detailed view of the most used parenting styles questionnaires and outcomes. The second part is constituted by a larger empirical study. It has been carried out with adolescents between 11 and 22 from Spain, Chile, USA and the Philippines using the PARQ/C and PSI-II questionnaires. The subscales of both questionnaires have been compared and the association of each of them with different aspects of adolescent development has been analyzed. This thesis concludes that depending on the subscale of parental control used this dimension seems to be beneficial or detrimental to adolescents development. Furthermore, it seems that there are no significant differences associated with cultural differences in the effect of parental styles.