The Survey of Korean Mother's Child-rearing Methods and a Study of Their Influence on School Achievement

한국 어머니의 육아 실태조사 및 학업성적과의 관련성에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study is to survey Korean mother's child-rearing methods and to see what influence each layed on children's school achievement. To obtain data, a questionaire was given to 607 boys and girls, who were selected from both public and private middle schools in Seoul. The student were consisted of two distinct groups, namely superior and inferior. Five top students from each class were categorized as the superior group and five bottom ones from each class were categorized as the inferior group. The questionaire was consisted of 7 items, namely, the needing method, feeding period, weaning time, mothers general attitudes about crying, sleeping arrangement and whether mothers workers or not. Summary of this study is as follows ; 1. As far as babies were breast-fed, there was no significant between the superior group and the interior group no matter what feeding period and weaning time were. 2. When the babies were fed by milk or both by milk and breast, the most favorable weaning time for intellectual development seemed to be between 6 and 9 months after birth. 3. The mother's general attitudes to babies crying and the sleeping arrangement have definite influence on the children's school achievement. It was shown that if mothers hugged babies as soon as they cried the babies tended to be superior, but the mothers of inferior group had tendency to let alone, until the babies stopped crying or hug after finishing their urgent works. Then the superior group was allowed to sleep alone in his own bed in the mother's room. On the contrary, the inferior group was kept in their mother bed or that of other family's without being given his own bed. 4. Whether mother had a job or not did not had any influence on children's school achievement. 5. Korean mothers have tendency to hug their babies as soon as when they find them cry and feed them with breast milk. The study also shows that the mothers rearing attitudes has certain influencial effect upon the children's school achievement.