Abstract: Cultural differences of parenting goals exist widely. Theories of these differences have been switching from group-level to individual-level, and from uni-dimension to dual-dimension. Relating researches have focused on the examination of these theories as well as the effects of parenting goals on parenting styles, parenting strategies and children development of different cultural groups. The two most used measuring methods of parenting goals are structural questionnaire and open-ended listing, which are suitable for different kinds of studies. Researches in the past decades have problems such as over-generalization, neglect of children’s role and effects, etc., which have to be solved in future researches

Key words: parenting goals, cultural differences, parenting behaviors, children development