The Comparison of Self-concept of Students with Parents Having Positive and Negative Attitudes in regard to Children's Gender

The family unit forms the basis for individual's personality, values and thinkingcriteria. Family has a key role in determination of individual's destiny and future.Individual's morals and the manners of lifestyle depend on family. Indeed, parentalattitude has a significant effect on individual's self-concept. This research is to studythe effect of the parental attitudes (parenting styles) on individual's self-concept. Themain questions of the study are as follows:1- Is there a relationship between parentalattitudes and individual's self-concept? 2- Is gender of the child an important factorin the development of self-concept? 3- Is there an interactional relationship betweenchild gender and parental attitudes and self-concept? Thus, 320 students (160 boysand 160 girls) were chosen randomly from four educational districts in Tehran. Theywere asked to participate in Tennesi self-concept test. The parents were asked tocomplete the Cooper-Smith test for evaluation of parental attitudes. The resultsshows that: 1- There is a significant relationship between parental attitudes and selfconcept.2- The gender of the child is an effective factor on individualt self-concept(notably, girls sense of self-concept is stronger than boys). 3- There are nointeractonal relationship between the gender of the child, parental attitudes and selfconcept.