Examines the beliefs and values held by Russian child care teachers, mothers, and university students about appropriate childrearing. The study sample included 21 teachers of infants and toddlers in child care centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg, 53 mothers of children in those centers, and 36 female undergraduate and graduate students in Moscow State University’s Department of Psychology. Questionnaires covered such topics as childrearing practices that were believed to produce valued outcomes or to spoil a child and superstitions about ways in which harm could come to a child. The study’s findings illustrated the striking contrasts between mothers’ and teachers’ versus students’ childrearing ideas. For example, compared to mothers, students were less interested in exerting control over children, less concerned about spoiling children, less supportive of conformity to rules, less superstitious, and more interested in fostering inquisitiveness in children. These differences in values and beliefs are likely to pose challenges for those students who pursue careers as school psychologists, who would need sensitive communication with children, teachers, and parents.
