This study was designed to (1) investigate mothers' view of out-of-school sporting activities for children and (2) analize its relations to their intellectual training-orientation and to influence of children's grades.
Questionnaires were distributed among primary school children's mothers in Hiroshima City, 700 of which were completely returned and available for the analysis.
Following findings were obtained.
(1) Mothers' intellectual training-orientated scores increase as children grow up, while their physical training-orientated scores remain unchanged. This fact confirmed us that mothers' intellectual training orientation becomes predominant in their view of education along with children's development. But no evidence was found to support that intellectual training-orientation suppressed physical training orientation.
(2) Mothers acknowledge more harmfulness of sporting activities as their children grade up, though their acknowledgement of its usefulness remain unchanged through all grades. It seems possible to interprete that increase in intellectual training-orientation is more positively related to the cognitive harmfulness of sports.
(3) In proportion to their grade, more children attend special private schools for intellectual training and/or sports clubs. However we can find no significant relations between participation in out-of-school intellectual activities and in physical ones.
Mothers of the former children show greater intellectual training-orientation than their counterparts. And mothers of the latter show greater physical training-orientation and higher cognitive usefulness of sporting activities.