Abstract

The article analyzes the attitude of parents of preschool children to the primary school education. Special attention is paid to a choice of the optimal age for children to enter school. Furthermore criteria on which parents rely in choosing a school for their children are also reviewed as well as the views of parents on the basic functions of school and their requirements for professional and personal qualities of a school teacher. The article continues a series of works on the sociology of preschool children, conducted by researchers of the Institute for Sociology of Education RAE and is based on the materials of a sociological poll of parents whose children attend Moscow kindergartens.