The relationship of parents' filial piety beliefs to their children's filial piety beliefs and mathematics performance

Filial piety is a key concept in Confucian culture that may shape Chinese students' learning motivation and performance. It is important to explore how Chinese students' filial piety beliefs are constructed within the family climate and further related to their achievement. Thus, this study aims to examine the relationship of Chinese parents' filial piety beliefs to their children's filial piety beliefs and mathematics learning performance. A total of 1195 primary school students from three public schools in China and one parent of each student participated in this study. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the questionnaire data collected from students and parents. The results confirm the important role of parents' filial piety beliefs in shaping their children's filial piety beliefs and learning outcomes. The results also show that parents' reciprocal filial piety positively predicted their children's reciprocal and authoritarian filial piety beliefs. Parents' authoritarian filial piety was positively and negatively related to their children's authoritarian and reciprocal filial piety beliefs, respectively. Students' mathematics achievement was positively affected by their reciprocal filial piety beliefs. Both parent and child authoritarian filial piety were negatively related to children's mathematics achievement. A bootstrap analysis confirmed the mediating role of children's filial piety in the relationship between parents' filial piety and children's mathematics performance. Our results can provide guidance for parents with regard to optimizing their beliefs and educational practices.