Mothers’ and fathers’ engagement in math activities with their toddler sons and daughters: The moderating role of parental math beliefs

Frontiers in Psychology

Psychology

Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda¹  Natasha Cabrera²  Yu Chen²  Darcy K. Smith³  Melissa E. Libertus³  Alex M. Silver³ 

[1] Department of Applied Psychology, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, New York University, New York, NY, United States;Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States;Department of Psychology, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States;

关键词: home numeracy;    math activities;    gender roles;    toddlers;    math beliefs;    fathers;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1124056

 received in 2022-12-14, accepted in 2023-02-14,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Parents’ beliefs about the importance of math predicts their math engagement with their children. However, most work focuses on mothers’ math engagement with preschool- and school-aged children, leaving gaps in knowledge about fathers and the experiences of toddlers. We examined differences in mothers’ and fathers’ (N = 94) engagement in math- and non-math activities with their two-year-old girls and boys. Parents reported their beliefs about the importance of math and literacy for young children and their frequency of home learning activities. Parents of sons did not differ in their engagement in math activities from parents of daughters. Mothers reported engaging more frequently in math activities with their toddlers than fathers did, but the difference reduced when parents endorsed stronger beliefs about the importance of math for children. Even at very early ages, children experience vastly different opportunities to learn math in the home, with math-related experiences being shaped by both parent gender and parents’ beliefs.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Silver, Chen, Smith, Tamis-LeMonda, Cabrera and Libertus.