Personal and Family Sources of Parents\u2019 Socialization Values: A Multilevel Study

This study was focused on parents\u2019 socialization values, namely the values that parents want their children to adopt, and their sources. In a sample of 325 Italian families with one adolescent child (14-18 years), it aimed at comparing fathers\u2019 and mothers\u2019 socialization values and assessing parents\u2019 own personal values and family value climate as antecedents of the values parents would like their children to endorse. For each family both parents and the adolescent were involved and asked to complete the Portrait Values Questionnaire individually. The Anova results showed significant differences between fathers\u2019 and mothers\u2019 socialization values: in particular, fathers gave more importance to openness to change and self-enhancement values in their children\u2019s rearing than mothers did. Using multilevel analysis, as fathers and mothers were nested within families, we found significant and positive relations between parents\u2019 personal values and all their socialization values, as well as between family value climate and some of the parents\u2019 socialization values. Conversely, cross-level interactions between parents\u2019 personal values and family value climate did not contribute to predict the values parents want their children to adopt. Implications of this research and its possible developments are discussed