The Relation Between College Education and Beliefs about Parent Discipline

Abstract Although researchers have speculated about why education relates to parenting practices, such as spanking, there is very little direct evidence for why this relation exists. This study examined the relation between education and parent discipline beliefs in a novel way by comparing college freshmen and seniors at a large public university, thus allowing for a clear comparison of education groups before adults become parents and lower education becomes a proxy for something else (e.g., h