Profiling parental orientation to early childhood curriculum

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to identify the curricular preferences of parents for their youngsters. The study sample included 1490 parents with children enrolled in private preschool and prekindergarten classrooms. Data for the present study were collected via online surveys. Parents prioritized eleven academic and developmental areas in descending order on the questionnaire form. The latent class analysis was performed on parents' rankings of academic and developmental areas to identify classes of parents with similar priorities. The results indicated that based on their preferences parents can be empirically classified into three groups: Academic, Developmental, and Balanced. The results also indicated that parents with pre-kindergartners were more likely to be in the Academic class while parents with preschoolers were more likely to be in the Developmental class. The overall findings suggest that parental preferences regarding early childhood curricula correspond with the ongoing debate in the relevant literature. The congruence between parental preferences and the curricular objectives is likely to promote the effective implementation of the curriculum for young children within diverse settings. Therefore, practitioners and administrators should survey parental priorities and expectations regarding early educational activities and services provided in schools.