СТАВОВИ РОДИТЕЉА ПРЕМА УЧЕЊУ ЕНГЛЕСКОГ ЈЕЗИКА СВОЈЕ ДЕЦЕ
PARENTAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS THEIR CHILDREN‘S ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

Summary/Abstract: Parental involvement in children‘s schooling has become a major issue in contemporary education in recent years. The paper looks at one aspect of this involvement, namely, parents’ attitudes to their children learning the English language. According to the theory of intentional behavior, intention is the direct antecedent of behavior, and the first aim of this study was therefore to establish the structure of parental attitudes and examine whether intention constitutes a distinct component. The second aim was to examine parents’ general attitude, as attitudes have predictive value. The sample consisted of 115 parents of secondary school and/or university students. Respondents completed a mini-battery, and the obtained data was analysed using SPSS 21 statistical software. Parental attitudes were mostly positive, and were found to comprise the following: 1) the behavioral aspect of attitudes and intentions, i.e. concrete actions taken by parents with regard to their children learning English; 2) passivity and indifference towards language learning or its antithesis, proactivity, 3) the enhancement of an individual’s worth, and 4) nationalism or its antithesis, liberalism and openness towards potential language changes. Results indicate that parents in our sample are making (or believe they are making) an effort to become involved in their children’s learning of English, which is promising given that research shows that parental involvement has a positive effect on learning outcomes.

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