Relations among Parental Acceptance-Rejection and Forgiveness and Vengeance: A Comparison between Pakistani Madrassa and Public School Students

This study investigated relations among adolescents' perceptions of parental acceptance and rejection, psychological (mal)adjustment, forgiveness, and vengeance in the predominantly Muslim country of Pakistan. Participants included adolescent males (Mage = 17, SD = 1.4, range = 15-19) from madrassas (educational institutions for Islamic instruction; n = 355) and public schools (n = 355). They responded to short forms of the maternal and paternal Adult Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaires (PARQ), the Adult Personality Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ), the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS), the Vengeance Scale (VS-10), and a Personal Information Form (PIF). Findings revealed that both the madrassa students and the public school students perceived their mothers (but not their fathers) to be warm and loving. The adolescents also reported fair psychological adjustment, and on average, were forgiving and non-vengeful. However, madrassa students reported perceiving their parents-especially their mothers-as more loving and accepting than did public school students. Additionally, madrassa students reported better psychological adjustment, a greater tendency to be forgiving, and a lesser tendency to be vengeful than did public school students. Maternal and paternal rejection were positively correlated with psychological maladjustment and vengeance, whereas maternal and paternal acceptance were associated with psychological adjustment and forgiveness among both groups of students. Psychological adjustment was a significant mediator of the relation between parental acceptance and the disposition toward forgiveness for both groups. Psychological maladjustment was not a significant mediator between paternal rejection and vengeance among madrassa students, but not public school students. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.

Early childhood malaria prevention and children's patterns of school leaving in the Gambia

BACKGROUND

Early childhood malaria is often fatal, but its impact on the development and education of survivors has not received much attention. Malaria impacts cognitive development in a number of ways that may impact later educational participation.

AIMS

In this study, we examine the long-term educational effects of preventing early childhood malaria. Does intermittent preventive treatment (IPT) during early childhood reduce the risk of dropout? If so, does this effect vary by school type - government school versus madrassa?

SAMPLE

We use data from a 2001 follow-up of a 1985-1987 malaria prevention randomized controlled trial in the Gambia. The sample consists of 562 youth born between 1981 and 1986.

METHODS

We use discrete-time survival analysis to identify the impact of the intervention on dropout risk over time.

RESULTS

We find that IPT has a positive impact on dropout for government school students, but not for madrassa attendees. The difference was striking: in government schools, the odds of dropout in the treatment group were one third of those in the control group.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that preventing early childhood malaria may reduce dropout at a relatively low cost. In this intervention, the drugs cost less than one dollar per year per child. While IPT is no longer practised in many countries due to concerns over drug resistance, these results support the conclusion that any type of effective malaria control programme protecting young children, such as consistent and correct use of bed nets, could improve educational attainment in areas where malaria is prevalent.