Educational Research Journal

Abstract

The present study compares the views of 198 parents and 51 teachers of a sample of 4-year-old children on early learning and development and their reciprocal roles in promoting such learning. Generally parents and teachers have similar rankings for eight overall categories of early learning and development. The major difference is for preacademics, that parents rank as the most important category and teachers rank as amongst the least important. Mother's occupation was the only family background variable to affect the rankings. Comparisons between parents and teachers by type of preschool and locality indicate a similar pattern to the overall sample. Moreover, parents and teachers agree that teachers are primarily responsible for preacademics and self-expression, parents for self-sufficiency and social skills with adults, and both groups hold joint responsibility for language and social skills with peers. Neither group takes primary responsibility for promoting motor-physical and self-assessment skills.

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