At the Threshold of School: Parental Assessments of the Competencies of Their Preschool-Aged Children

The study set out to examine the organization of parental assessments of their children's competencies in terms of the parents' education and gender and the chilďs gender. Parents with university education ( N = 231) and vocational education ( N = 343) were asked to appraise their preschool-aged chilďs competencies in domains pertaining to school subjects and abilities. It was found that parents with university education emphasized cognitive-verbal competencies when assessing their children, and parents with vocational education emphasized practical competencies. Girls' competencies were generally assessed more favorably than were boy's. Yet boys were considered to have higher mathematical skills than were girls, and this assessment was further specified by the parents' educational position. In sum, the organization of parental assessments seemed to have already taken shape by the time the child enters school.