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formulation for leadership styles and that, interestingly, also revealed an independent individualism factor described by Triandis, McCusker, and Hui (1990).
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The presented article measures parents´ perceived parenting values that correspond to Lewin’s parenting styles:
autocratic, laissez-faire and democratic. A large number of instruments have featured prominently. The definitions of the parenting styles are often taken from Baumrind’s Parental Authority Questionnaire (1968), Parental Authority Questionnaire (Buri, 1991), Measure of Parental Styles (Parker et al., 1997), Permissive, Authoritarian, and Authoritative Parental Authority Prototypes (Baumrind, 1971).
The basic research purpose was to determine the differences between parenting (leadership) styles of parents whose children attended traditional and Montessori classes in a medium-sized primary school from the region of Zlín in the Czech Republic. We also investigated what parenting style prevails in families (regardless of the traditional or alternative education chosen for children). Furthermore, we wondered whether the parenting style varies according to the age of parents and their achieved level of education. The aim of the study was also to find out how much time parents spend preparing children for school and how much leisure time they spend together.
Due to the nature of the research foundation, a quantitative approach using descriptive and inductive statistics was used.
Measurement
The administrated self-report questionnaire developed by the authors consisted of 15 questions in which the four items of the questionnaire have an informational character detecting sociodemographic variables such as gender, age, the level of education and type of the selected school for the children (i.e., traditional and primary school Montessori classes ). The scale consists of 9 specific items asking the respondents to rate their parenting behavior on a scale of one (strongly disagree) to seven (strongly agree), with three items for each subscale:
autocratic (i.e. "Do you think your child needs constant control?"); laissez-faire (i.e. "Do you keep track of how your child spends all his or her leisure time?") and democratic (i.e. "Do you give your child the opportunity to propose a solution to the problem?"). Higher scores for each subscale represented a higher endorsement of the measured parenting style, except for the laissez-faire parenting style with reversed items. These items were recoded during the data processing to maintain a uniform direction of parenting styles and these styles could be compared.
The remaining two items of the questionnaire discover how much time parents spend preparing children for school and how much leisure time they spend together. The answers ranged between a) less than an hour; b) 1-2 hours; c) within 3 hours; or d) 3 hours and more.
Sample
The base sample consisted of n = 418 parents whose children attended traditional and Montessori classes in a medium-sized primary school from the region of Zlín in the Czech Republic. All of the parents were invited to collaborate on research through printed questionnaires. An exhaustive selection of respondents was carried out and the final research sample consisted of n = 131 parents. The return rate of questionnaires was 31% which symbolizes the average level of return (Mertens, 2015).
Out of that number, 16% were male and 15% were female with the age range between 29 and 52 years. The average age of parents was 38.5 years. The age composition of the research sample is illustrated in Table 1.
Table 1. Age subsamples.
Age groups N %
29-35 28 21
36-40 63 48
41-52 37 28
Missing 3 2
In total 131 100
The largest number of parents (44%) completed secondary school education and 34% of the parents were university graduates. 77% of the parents selected traditional classes for their children while 23% preferred Montessori classes.
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RESULTS
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the Shapiro–Wilk test and the Lilliefors test of normality were used for testing the normal distribution of data. A nonparametric Mann–Whitney U test and Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance and Chi-square test for independence were used to decide whether there are statistically significant differences between the groups. The hypotheses were tested at a level of α = .05. Possible confounding results due to multiple variables were corrected by the Bonferroni method. Calculations were performed using IBM SPSS 22.
The descriptive statistics showed that respondents (parents) scored the highest score of the questionnaire (see Table 2 and Fig. 1) on the democratic parenting ( = 5.03; SD = 1.12) style. The autocratic parenting style ( = 3.32; SD = 1.09) was the second used parenting style followed by the laissez-faire parenting style ( = 2.15; SD
= .89).
Table 2. The descriptive statistics of parenting styles.
Parenting style Mean Median Modus Min. Max. SD
Democratic 5.03 5 5 1.67 7 1.12
Autocratic 3.32 3.33 4 1 6.33 1.09
Laissez-faire 2.15 2 1.67 1 6 0.89
Mean Mean±SD Mean±1.96*SD
Democratic parenting style Autocratic parenting style Laissez-faire parenting style 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Fig. 1 The average scores on parenting style
Whether the achieved average results of the parenting styles differ significantly could be indicated based on the results of the analysis of the Friedman test. The testing indicated that there are significant differences in the achieved level of autocratic parenting style (Md = 3.33), laissez-faire parenting style (Md = 2) and democratic parenting style (Md = 5). The calculation of the comparison of the individual samples (groups) by the non- parametric Wilcox test for two dependent samples to include the Bonferroni correction (in this case p = .05 / 3 = .02) produced the following results: the medians of all groups were significantly different (p = .00, p < .02).
Regarding the relationship between types of the parenting style and the influence of the independent variables in the form of the preference of the chosen type of education for children (i.e. traditional or alternative education), there were two significant differences. Attainment levels and the democratic and autocratic parenting style vary according to the type of education chosen for children. Parents with a prevailing democratic parenting style often prefer a Montessori education for their children and on the other hand parents with a prevailing autocratic parenting style often prefer traditional education. This result confirms the assertion that alternative education is closer to parents who respect the needs and opinions of the child.
The preference of parenting style is not influenced by gender, age, or parents' education. The only exception is the democratic parenting style, which varies according to the educational attainment of their parents. Parents with a higher education achieve higher levels of the democratic parenting style. These findings are particularly
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interesting since they reveal the influence of specific factors on the preference of child-rearing. However, neither age nor gender or a certain level of education of parents influence their preference of the parenting style.
Parents typically devote less than an hour a day of the time to help children to prepare for school. However, parents have transferred a lot of their own leisure time to time spent being with the children. In both cases, women spend more time with children during the day. However, this result is largely influenced by the predominance of women in the survey sample, which may affect the detected frequency of nominal variables1 listed in Fig. 2 and 3. The interpretation of these results is descriptive for the level and should not lead to any general conclusions.
man woman less than an hour 1-2 hours within 3 hours
Preparation for school -10
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Četnosti
Fig. 2. The time to prepare for school by gender
man woman less than an hour 1-2 hours 3 hours more than 3 hours
Leisure time -10
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Četnosti
Fig. 3. The leisure time by gender
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
The main aim of the study was to determine the achieved level of the three most common parenting styles (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939) among parents (n = 131) whose children attended traditional and alternative (Montessori) classes in a medium-sized primary school from the region of Zlín in the Czech Republic. The self- report questionnaire developed by the authors was used and the data was subjected to descriptive and bivariate statistics.
The highest score was achieved by the democratic parenting style = 5.03; SD = 1.12) followed by the autocratic parenting style ( = 3.32; SD = 1.09) and the laissez-faire parenting style ( = 2.15; SD = .89).
Regarding the relationship between the types of the parenting style and the influence of the independent variables such as the type of education for children (i.e. traditional or alternative education), the age, gender and the level of the education achieved by parents was very low. Significant differences were found only in relation to the type of education chosen by parents for their children and in the level of the democratic parenting style influenced by the educational attainment of the parents. We assumed that those parents who have their children
1 In the case of testing hypotheses about the influence of the variables (type of education for children, age, gender and the level of the education achieved by parents) on parenting styles was worked with metric data.
Different frequencies of each compared group does not influence the results and can be widely interpreted.
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in alternative classes will gravitate towards the democratic parenting style. This assumption was confirmed.
Linked to this is the finding that the autocratic parenting style is more popular with parents who prefer a traditional education for their children. The limitation of the study is its focus on the Zlín region in the Czech Republic, whose results may materially differ from the remaining regions of the Czech Republic. For this reason, the results can´t cover the entire population of parents.
An interesting area for future research is the intergenerational transmission of the parenting style and its influences on parenting attitudes, values and behaviour of the next generation in which the genetic and contextual continuity would be taken into account as well as grand-parenting. Another point of view can be obtained in a methodologically adequate way. Most promising are studies using observational measures for parenting style with longitudinal projects such as the one that Grossmann and his colleague used (1988). Such a design would investigate two or three generations of parents with a comparable, valid parenting measurement.
Furthermore, in the traditional research program using quite global questionnaires, the sample size should be taken into account since the size restricts the generalizability of the results. Lastly, longitudinal intervention experiments and a detailed description of individual cases may shed more light on the causal mechanism of parents influencing their children's parenting abilities.
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