Poster #171 - Children’s Perceptions of Parental Socialization Goals: A Multi-ethnic Comparison in China

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Integrative Statement

Parental socialization goals are important because they may guide parents’ practices, thereby influencing children’s development (e.g., Chao, 2000; Harwood, Schoelmerich, Schulze, & Gonzalez, 1999). Such goals often reflect cultural and societal values and have been found to differ across ethnic groups (e.g., Harding, Hughes, & Way, 2017; Qu, Pomerantz, & Deng, 2016). Although prior research has examined Chinese parents’ goals, it is predominantly based on Han Chinese, which represents 92% of the Chinese population. Little is known about ethnic variations in parents’ goals within China even though it is home to over a hundred million ethnic minorities from 55 groups.
This study examined children’s perceptions of parents’ socialization goals in Xinjiang, China. Focus was on the Han and the three largest and Muslim ethnic minority groups in this Northwestern province: the Hui, Kazakhs, and Uyghurs. Traditionally, Kazakhs are nomads; the Hui and Uyghurs (and Han in Xinjiang) engage in oasis agriculture. Whereas Kazakhs and Uyghurs speak branches of Turkic languages and have close-knit social networks due to their traditional way of life and salient minority identity, the Hui are more acculturated as they speak and write Chinese. The Han are influenced by their Confucian heritage and more exposed to Western influences (e.g., entertainment) in mainstream culture. We expected Kazakh and Uyghur parents to emphasize more on children’s social relationships and proper demeanor than Han parents, who emphasize more on individuality and well-being, with the Hui people lying in between. Achievement may be emphasized by both the Han due to Confucianism and ethnic minorities for social mobility. Gender differences were expected to be less pronounced for the Han given the One-Child Policy.
Participants were 1961 children (1182 Han, 285 Hui, 393 Kazakh, 101 Uyghur; mean age = 13.53 years; 52% girls) in 7th and 8th grade from three middle schools. They were asked to list and rank the five most important goals their parents had for them. Following prior research (Ng et al., 2012; Qu et al., 2016), children’s goals were coded into five mutually exclusive categories – achievement, self, well-being, social relationship, and proper demeanor.
MANOVAs were conducted separately on the proportions and rankings of the goal categories, with ethnicity and gender as the between-subject factors, followed by an ANOVA on each goal category and then post hoc tests. Results were generally consistent with expectations. The MANOVA on goal proportions yielded effects of ethnicity and gender, with no interaction (see Table 1 & 2). There were ethnic differences in self, well-being, and proper demeanor, but not achievement and social relationship, goals. There were also gender differences in achievement, self, and well-being, but not social relationship and proper demeanor, goals. MANOVA based on rankings of goals yielded results that largely mirrored those from the MANOVA based on goal proportions. Findings point to the importance of examining differences in parents’ socialization goals not only between Han and ethnicity minority groups, but also among ethnic minority groups, highlighting the roles of factors such as traditional way of life and minority status in parents’ goals.

Authors

• Mengrun Zhang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author

• Florrie Ng, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  Non-Presenting Author