Parental Goals, Beliefs and Values in Child Rearing Practices among the Oromo Community in West Wollega Zone

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate parental goals, beliefs, and values in child rearing practices among West Wollega Oromo Community. Survey research design was used to conduct the study. From the total of 10,270 target populations of West Wollega Oromo parents, 212 respondents were selected through disproportionate stratified random sampling technique. Quantitative data generated through the close-ended questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent sample t-test, while qualitative data obtained via open ended questionnaire were analyzed in words. The results revealed that West Wollega Oromo parents’ child rearing highly encourages collectivism as their parental goal, while there was minimal encouragement level for individualism as parental goal; particularly in urban areas. Regarding parental beliefs, the majority of parents believe that establishing restrictive relationship with their children is an ideal child rearing, while a few parents were in favor of interactive relationship with their children. Moreover, the majority of parents believe that physical and verbal punishments are more important than verbal advice at times mistake is committed by children. Yet, the majority of the respondents believe that children’s idea expression should be controlled by the adults, while a few believe that children should express their ideas with freedom. It is recommended that professionals like developmental psychologists should play their role in training parents to help them improve their parenting practices and thereby foster healthy development physically, socially and psychologically through having interactive relationship than restrictive relationship with their children.