A Study of the Relationship between Social Identity and Parenting Style Ilam city's mothers

Parent-child interrelations comprise one of the important discussions in psychology as well as social sciences with parenting styles as one of the critical topics of the mentioned areas (Bagherpoor Kamachali¡ 2007: 34). Undoubtedly¡ family is the most important organization and the bedrock of physical¡ mental¡ and social growth and welfare for a child¡ and the leading factor for their (physical¡ mental and¡ social) balance. Socializing and fraternizing with cultural laws¡ rules and values occurs naturally within the family¡ setting the stage for the child to turn into a social being through practicing preliminary intra-family interactions (Moosavi¡ 2003). In other words¡ each of the parents has their own share of responsibilities in seeing their child off and into a full-grown person¡ with most of the weight pertaining to child nurturing and positive influence falling on the mother. Maternal mental¡ physical and¡ social health as well as a healthy¡ well-defined identity¡ therefore¡ is crucial in raising healthy children¡ with the mother being an ever-present guide ever since the primary stages of a child’s life. To this end¡ in this study¡ the relation between parenting styles and aspects of social identity pertaining to Ilam city’s mothers has been brought under investigation. First¡ previous studies related to the area were reviewed and Giddens’stheory was selected as the framework for the investigation. As a next step¡ a total of six hypotheses were presented based on a theory riding on Giddens’s opinions.
Material and In order to put said hypotheses to test¡ 400 Ilam city’s mothers were chosen through multistage random sampling. The investigative method through which the study has been carried out is one of survey and questionnaire. The produced results of ETA testing reveal a correlation between the two variables under study¡ namely ‘aspects of social identity’ and ‘parenting style’¡ with ‘maternal social identity’ and ‘authoritative parenting style’ being the most important among all other correlations.
Discussion of results & Also the produced results at the logistic regression level and parental statistics reveal that 71.6¡ 76.1¡ 80¡ 74 percent (respectively) of the variables pertaining to the ‘authoritative’¡ ‘authoritarian’¡ ‘easy going’ and ‘permissive’ styles seem to be correctly predicted and classified. The results of the investigation confirm that there has been a significant decrease in the implementation of both ‘authoritarian’ and ‘permissive’ styles¡ in which the child is overlooked altogether whereas the two methods ‘authoritative’ and ‘easy going’ have been increasingly brought into use. The results further depict that an upgrade in maternal social identity brings about the ‘authoritative’ as the ideal style of choice in parenting by mothers. In fact¡ mothers with consistent identities tend to have a better understanding of their own abilities which in turn leads to a successful observation of both the ‘control’ and ‘affection’ aspects of parenting dynamics. A healthy growth of identity in mothers helps them establish warm¡ amicable relationships among family members (Steinberg¡ 2001). Results from the studies by Monadi (2010)¡ Khabaz (2010)¡ Marcia (2002)andLomeo (1999) are in line with one conducted here. In fact mothers who have already established a consistent sexual¡ national¡ ethnic and group identity¡ have implemented the ‘authoritative’ style in raising their children which represents the healthiest in intra-family relationships. On the contrary¡ identity crisis has led a second group to implement the ‘permissive’ style as the least appropriate way to raise children. In the end¡ the results from this study depict the consolidation of identity in Ilam city’s mothers and consequently¡ their best choice of style in parenting.