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This study examines the relations among parental beliefs and practices about mathematics, children's beliefs about mathematics, participants' gender, and family socioeconomic status (SES). The study was conducted in Chile, a country with significant gender gaps in standardized test results in mathematics, with boys receiving significantly higher scores than girls. One hundred eighty Chilean kindergarteners (M[subscript age] = 5.6 years) of low and high SES completed both implicit and explicit measures of their beliefs about mathematics. Children's mothers and fathers also completed adult versions of these tests, as well as measures of home numeracy practices. This combination of child and parental assessments (both mother and father), including both implicit and explicit measures, provided a wider range of measures than in previous studies. On implicit measures of math-gender stereotypes, boys showed the math = boy stereotype significantly more strongly than girls did. Both fathers and mothers showed this stereotype on both implicit and explicit measures. Fathers also linked me = math (math self-concept) more strongly than mothers on both implicit and explicit measures. Kindergarten girls' implicit math self-concept was explained by a combination of parents' math self-concepts and SES. Taken together, these results show that by 5 years of age children are already developing beliefs about "who does math" in their culture, and that parental beliefs and practices are significantly linked to children's stereotypes and self-concepts about mathematics before they enter formal schooling.

The current study analyzed maternal and paternal differential influences on numeracy performance in kindergarten children. Participants were 180 Chilean children from backgrounds of low and high socioeconomic status (SES), their mothers, and their fathers. A path analysis was used to explore the influences of both maternal and paternal numeracy practices on children's numeracy performance and the influences of maternal and paternal expectations and anxiety on those activities. Research Findings: Results showed that mothers and fathers who endorse higher numeracy expectations for their children and who report lower levels of math anxiety also report engaging more frequently in advanced numeracy practices with their children. Mothers'--but not fathers'--engagement in numeracy practices at home predicted children's numeracy performance. Also, low-SES mothers engaged more frequently in numeracy practices with their children, and mothers in general engaged more often in numeracy activities with girls than with boys. Practice or Policy: These findings improve understanding of how maternal and paternal processes relate differently to numeracy performance in kindergarten children. Moreover, these results highlight the need to take into account parents' numeracy attitudes and practices, as well as their SES, when designing interventions directed at increasing family support for math achievement.