3-075 - Culture and family process in diverse families

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The United States is becoming increasingly racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse; currently half of U.S. children younger than 1 are non-white. Although the family setting is central to the promotion of healthy development, much of the extant literature on families has primarily focused on white children. Ethnic minority children, immigrants, and families with mixed racial compositions remain understudied.

The symposium addresses this gap in the literature by presenting three papers that use data from ethnically and culturally diverse samples across three stages of child development. The first paper uses a sample of Mexican-origin adolescent mothers to examine discrimination and acculturative stress from pregnancy through 5-years postpartum. Family cumulative stressors predicted greater intrusive interactions and maternal depressive symptoms, and less maternal sensitivity, controlling for family income. The second paper uses two samples of Latino families with children in early and middle childhood to examine mothers’ and fathers’ psychological acculturation and links to their own and the other parent’s parenting behaviors. Consistently across both samples, fathers’ psychological acculturation is associated with more positive paternal and maternal parenting behaviors. The third paper uses a sample of Caucasian families with adopted children from South Korea to examine how family processes (general and culture-specific) contribute to well-being and behavioral development from middle childhood to adolescence. Many parenting behaviors change over time, including an increase in racial socialization which is, in turn, related to adolescent adjustment. The research presented in this symposium will shed light on the dynamic interplay of culture, adaptation, and family processes.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Chair

• Anna Gassman-Pines, Duke University

Discussant

• Ann C Crouter, Pennsylvania State University

Individual Presentations

• Sociocultural Stressors, Parenting Behavior, and Child Well-Being: A Longitudinal Examination from Pregnancy to 5-Years Postpartum - Presenting Author: Katharine Zeiders, Univ of Missouri, Columbia; Adriana J. Umana-Taylor, Arizona State University; Laudan B Jahromi, Teachers College; Kimberly Updegraff, Arizona State University

• Psychological Acculturation and Parenting Behaviors in Latino Immigrant Families - Presenting Author: Anna Gassman-Pines, Duke University; Ann T. Skinner, Duke University

• Family process, cultural socialization, and adjustment among internationally adopted Korean adolescents - Presenting Author: Richard M Lee, University of Minnesota; Adam Beaupre, University of Minnesota; Xiang Zhou, University of Minnesota; Kayla N. Anderson, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Alison Hu, University of Minnesota