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Teacher-parent relationships: influence of gender and education on organizational parents’ counterproductive behaviors

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Abstract

The present paper examines the influence of parent’s demographics (gender and educational level) and a contextual variable (school grade) on counterproductive parents’ behavior during interaction with teachers. Data were gathered by administering the Italian version of the Challenging Parent Standard Questionnaire (Pepe 2010) to a sample of in-service teachers of both elementary and middle schools (N = 674). As a result, a sample composed of 150 fathers and 524 mothers showing counterproductive behaviors was obtained. General linear model multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) revealed no statistically significant differences between fathers’ and mothers’ counterproductive behaviors when controlled for the effects of parents’ education and the school grade. Low parental educational levels appeared to be associated with uncooperative and uninvolved behaviors, whereas excessively worried behaviors about a child’s education seems to be associated with a parent having a college degree or more. It must be remarked that parents’ behaviors can be conditioned by expectation about, or reaction to, the behavior of the teacher and the results should be interpreted by considering nonindependence of involved actors. Results are discussed in terms of theory development and parenting programs aimed at improving parent-teacher relationships.

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Notes

  1. Employees CWBs are characterized by a high degree of intentionality and by the willingness to damage either the organization or its members (Weiten and Lloyd 2006); on the contrary, we tend to consider parents’ counterproductive behaviors (at least the majority of them) as a phenomenon occurring among people who have started participating in organizational processes with genuine enthusiasm and interest toward positive involvement. In our experience, the parents usually reported a very low level of awareness regarding the harmful consequences of their counterproductive behaviors during interactions with teachers.

  2. Subsidiarity (n.d.) is “the principle that decisions should be made at the lowest possible level of a government or an organization, rather than always being made at a high level” (para. 1) (Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy

    Alessandro Pepe & Loredana Addimando

Authors
  1. Alessandro Pepe
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  2. Loredana Addimando
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Correspondence to Alessandro Pepe.

Additional information

Alessandro Pepe. University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy. E-mail: alessandro.pepe1@unimib.it

Current themes of research:

Job-related stress. Job satisfaction. Organizational counterproductive behaviors. Parental involvement. Applications of mixed-method in social sciences.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Pepe, A., & Addimando, L. (2010). Testing the psychometric properties of the Challenging Parent Standard Questionnaire (CPSQ) in the Italian educational context. International Journal About Parents in Education, 4(1), 1–16.

Pepe, A., & Addimando, L. (2013). Comparison of occupational stress in response to challenging behaviours between general and special education primary teachers in Northern Italy. International Journal of Special Education, 13(1), 11–23.

Pepe, A., & Castelli, S. (2013). A cautionary tale on research methods in the field of parents in education. International Journal about Parents in Education, 7(1), 1–6.

Veronese, G., & Pepe, A. (2013). Psychometric proprieties of the Impact of Event Scale (short version) in contexts of military violence. Research on Social Work Practice, 23(6), 710–718.

Loredana Addimando. University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy

Current themes of research:

Job-related stress. Job satisfaction. Organizational counterproductive behaviors. Parental involvement. Applications of mixed-method in social sciences.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Addimando, L. (2013). I comportamenti controproducenti dei genitori a scuola: un’analisi sulla soddisfazione e l’autonomia lavorativa degli insegnanti [Parents’ counterproductive behaviors at schools: an analysis of job satisfaction and perceptions of autonomy]. Psicologia della Salute [Health Psychology], 2, 33–51.

Castelli, S., Pepe, A., & Addimando, L. (2011). Différences culturelles entre parents et enseignants: leur impact sur les niveaux de stress perçus par les professeurs. In M. De Leonardis, V. Rouyer, C. Safont-Mottay, O. Troupel-Cremel, & C. Zaouche Gaudron (Eds.), Précarités et éducation familiale (pp. 299–307). Paris: Edition Eres.

Castelli, S., Pepe, A., & Addimando, L. (2012). A mixed methods study of the responses to two open-ended questions regarding stress in the classroom from a sample of Italian teachers. In C. McCarthy, R. Lambert, & A. Ullrich (Eds.), International Perspectives on Teacher Stress (pp. 267–288). Charlotte, NC: IAP - Information Age Publishing, Inc.

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Pepe, A., Addimando, L. Teacher-parent relationships: influence of gender and education on organizational parents’ counterproductive behaviors. Eur J Psychol Educ 29, 503–519 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-014-0210-0

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