An Exploration of Parenting Styles among Parents of Undergraduate Students in Selected Public Universities in Kenya

Abstract

Parents can have an impact on their children's psychosocial development through established patterns of parental control known as parenting styles. This makes parenting styles an ongoing subject of empirical enquiry. Baumrind’s Pillar Theory provides a useful theoretical lens for studying parenting styles. However, the original research was conducted in Western, middle-class, predominantly white families, which raises questions about the universality of its conclusions. Parenting styles must be culturally relevant. The present study sought to identify the parenting styles among parents of undergraduate students in selected universities in Kenya. Descriptive research design was used. The target population was 100,060 undergraduate students of three selected public universities in Nairobi County. These are: Nairobi University, Kenyatta University, and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. The sample size was 156 respondents. The Parental Authority Questionnaire was used to gather main data on parenting styles. Results showed that authoritative parenting was the most dominant parenting style (M=4.21), followed by permissive parenting style (M=4.16), while authoritarian parenting (M=1.91) and neglectful parenting (M=1.89) were the least practiced. The results demonstrate that authoritative parenting is the most manifest style among parents of undergraduate students in Kenyan universities, closely followed by permissive parenting. This reflects a parenting trend that balances structure with growing independence, which is developmentally appropriate given that university students are young adults. The study contributes to existing literature by localizing and contextualizing Western-developed theories of parenting and child development to an African university setting.