Türk göçmen ve Alman ailelerde anne-babalık uygulamaları ve okul-öncesi çocuklarının bilişsel becerileri

Sinem OlcayParenting Practices and Preschoolers? Cognitive Skills in Turkish Immigrant andGerman FamiliesToday, approximately 2 million Turkish citizens live in Germany, and similar to manyminority populations, Turkish immigrant children are academically less successful at schoolwhen compared to their German counterparts. Nevertheless, no studies have developmentallyinvestigated the factors that influence school performance of Turkish immigrant children inGermany. In this study, German and Turkish immigrant samples were compared on children?searly cognitive skills, mothers? parenting behaviors and the quality of home environment, andparenting variables were investigated as possible predictors of children?s cognitivedevelopment. The participants in the study were 65 German and 52 Turkish preschoolchildren, and their mothers who were matched in terms of education level (i.e., 10-to-12 yearsof schooling). Four different cognitive skills (memory, strategies, categorization and body-related vocabulary skills) that are thought to be related to early school performance weremeasured by a test. Parenting variables were measured by a self-report scale and time diary.MANOVAs and structural equation modeling analyses, respectively, revealed that cognitivescores of German children were significantly higher than those of Turkish immigrant childrenand predictors of these skills were different for the two groups. Provision of literacyexperiences at home and children?s solitary play significantly predicted cognitiveperformance of German children. For the Turkish sample, high levels of maternal responsivityand home literacy environment were significant predictors of children?s cognitive scores.However, a comparison of parenting variables revealed that Turkish mothers displayedresponsivity and home literacy experiences considerably less than German mothers. Takentogether, these findings implied that Turkish immigrant children are disadvantaged in terms ofearly cognitive development and this is partly due to the fact that they receive lowenvironmental stimulation.Keywords: Parenting, Cognitive Skills, Turkish Immigrants