INTERCULTURAL STUDY: MOTHERS ATTITUDES TO THEIR CHILDREN IN EARLY CHILDHOOD PERIODS IN NIGERIA AND TURKEY

Abstract

In each culture, parents reflect the child upbringing attitudes and behaviors that are functional for their culture in order to convey their values system and basic attitudes to their children on their day-to-day practice. Study of parental attitudes and possible effects in different content, although appeared relatively old in Turkey, intercultural studies discussed in terms of family attitudes is limited. This study is aimed to discuss and compare the attitudes of mothers with 4-6 years old child to their children in Turkey and Nigeria. In summary, the "intercultural" term discussed in this study is the known basic approaches to the topic mothers' attitudes and behaviors were examined and the differences between cultures identified in this study were noted. In the findings of this study, Nigerian mothers got a significantly lower score in terms of communication with children as compared with Turkish mothers (p<0.05), while compared in terms of dissatisfaction, rewarding and punishing to child's behavior, Nigerian mothers got a significantly higher score. On the other hand, in the period of 4-6 years, there is no significant difference between the two countries in terms of the responsibilities the mothers expect from their children.