ADOLESCENTS' PERCEPTION OF PARENTAL PRACTICES FROM THE GENDER PERSPECTIVE

Cultural gender representations are learned through socialization processes within a socio-cultural context. Parents are the main socializing agents of stereotyped beliefs about gender which exert an influence on the child-rearing practices. A questionnaire called Percepciones del Alumnado sobre las Practices dv Criunza de Madres y Padres (PAPC), prepared ad hoc for this research was used to assess the perceptions of adolescents about the parenting styles of fathers and mothers. A sample of 1837 students from 1st and 3rd of Compulsory Secondary Education and 1st of Non-Compulsary Secondary Education (Bachillerato) participated in this study. Regarding the reliability of the instrument, results indicated a(Mother) = .828 and a(father)=.812. Turning to its validity, measured through the Exploratory Factor Analysis, results indicated that there were two factors that explained a 45.88% of the total variance, called Uso del Castigo Psico y/o Verbal y OmisiOn y AsunciOn de Responsabilidades. Both girls and boys from different cultures perceived that mothers were more concerned with the control of inappropriate behaviour than fathers, with mothers using both punitive strategies and those that appealed to responsibility 9M(Mother)=12.43, M-father =11.72, t=11.40, p<.001, respectively). Lastly, in relation with the sex variable, significant differences were observed. Boys claimed to receive more physical and verbal punishments than the both from mothers (N=12.12, t=2.75, p.05) and fathers (NI =10.88,, = 12.62, t = 8.08, p<001).