Shanghai, Busan, Two Children The Relationship Between Self-and Parental Rearing Research

The study is trying to explore the relationship between relational self and parenting styles. Relational selves are composed of attribute-and role based conceptions of the self in the context of the relevant significant others. These attributes and roles are derived idiographically as well as from cultural role prescriptions. The family is the main surrounding for children's mental development. Being the significant others during early childhood, Parents play an important role in helping children shaping and developing children's self concept. The study is to compare the relational selves, parenting style and their relationship between two different culture contexts: Shanghai in China and Busan in Korea. 33 Shanghai children and 15 Busan children were investigated,by using Kinetic Family Drawing ,Kinetic School Drawing and Child Rearing Practices Report, the main results are as following:1) Girl's self figure was larger than boys'in the context of school, bud there was no size difference between boys and girls in the context of family.2) To some extend, culture contexts had some influence on children's relational selves. Korean children's self figures were drawn farther to father than Chinese. In the context of family, Chinese boys'self figures were smaller than Korean boys, but Chinese girls'self figures were lager than Korean girls. The self figures of Chinese boys were drawn closer to mother than Koran boys, but the self figures of Chinese girls were drawn farther to mother than Koran girls.3) In mothers'parenting styles, the scores of Chinese mothers were higher than Korean mothers on rejection and encouragement of achievement. On mothers'acceptance, induction, control, punishment and power, Chinese boys'mothers got higher scores than Korean boys'mothers, but that of Chinese girls'mothers were lower than that of Korean gilrs'mothers. On encouragement of achievement, both Chinese boys'and girls'mothers had higher scores than Koran boys'and girls'mothers.4) In fathers'parenting styles, the scores of Chinese fathers were higher than Korean fathers on induction and encouragement of achievement. But on power was opposite. On fathers'acceptance and punishment, the scores of Chinese boys' fathers were higher than that of Korean boys'fathers, but that of Chinese gilrs'fathers were lower than Korean girls'fathers. On induction and encouragement of achievement, both Chinese boys and girls'fathers had higher scores than Korean boys and girls'fathers.5) In the context of family, the distance between self figure and mother was positively correlated with mother's rejection, and that was negatively correlated with mother's induction. The distance between self figure and father was negatively correlated with father's control, and that was negatively correlated with father's power. Father's relative figure size was positively correlated with father's power. In the context of school, the number of schoolmates was positively correlated with mother's encouragement of achievement. The relative figure size of schoolmates was positively correlated with mother's encouragement of achievement and power.