Values and Character Building Promoted by Indonesian Parents at Home: Evidence from World Value Survey

Values provide principles throughout life that help children build good character and establish a solid foundation to live their lives even during hard times. Variations of parenting styles depending on how they were raised and what values were passed down through generations. The variation of background, culture in Indonesia, and internet access may affect parenting style and children's character development. This study analyses the effect of family backgrounds on perception of the importance of social values to be learned by their children. This study used the World Value Survey Indonesia data. The most popular values chosen by parents to be learned by children are good manners (86%), religiosity (76%), responsibility (74%), and independence (58%). Tolerance and respect (46%), hard work (40%), and obedience (31%) are the second most popular values. Meanwhile, the least popular values are persistence (22%), thrift (21%), altruism (14%), and imagination (6%). Multiple logistic regression showed mixed results on how parents' backgrounds are associated with their perspectives. This study highlights several findings. Younger parents are less likely to choose imagination to be learned by their children. They are also less likely to choose hard work and prefer human-related values. Parents with daily access of information from the internet are more likely to choose tolerance and respect. Parents with higher education tend to choose work-related values and less likely to choose human-related values. Male parents are more likely to choose the least popular values. Geographical factors also affect values preferred by parents in several ways and it is most probably related the culture