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Parental Cultural Identity, Stress, and Family Emotional Wellbeing in Afro-Caribbean Immigrant Families

Fri, March 22, 10:00 to 11:30am, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 3, Room 326

Integrative Statement

Background: Approximately 4 million immigrants from the Caribbean reside in the US and it is estimated that Black immigrants of Caribbean decent constitute 10-15% of the Black population in the US (MPI, 2014). Immigrants from the Caribbean vary in their racial composition, racial identification, language, and migration pathways to the US. As the Afro-Caribbean population has been steadily increasing in the US, understanding the factors that impact well-being in Black families of Caribbean descent is an important consideration in prevention research (Thomas, 2012). Yet, although Afro-Caribbean immigrants form a significant portion of America’s recent immigrants, they are often not viewed as having a highly distinctive experience from that of other immigrants and the broader Black population within the US. There is a paucity of research on the acculturation or adaptation of immigrant Afro-Carribean families in the US. This study sought to address a gap in developmental research by examining the influence of family cultural adaption on children’s and parent’s well-being. This study is guided by the Calzada’s cultural model of parenting and child development (Calzada et al., 2012).

Methods: This study focuses on baseline data of a randomized-controlled trial of a family-focused intervention for Pre-Kindergarten students and their parents. It includes 401 Afro-Caribbean immigrant families. Parental cultural adaptation status was assessed using the Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation Scale (AMAS; Zea et al., 2003). Parental emotional well-being was assessed with the Parenting Stress Index (Abidin, 1995) and CES-D depression scale (Radloff, 1977). Child self-regulation, internalizing and externalizing problems, and adaptive behaviors were assessed with the Behavioral Assessment System for Children-2nd Edition (BASC-2; Reynolds, et al., 2004) and Social Competence Scale (Gouley et al., 2008). Linear and Logistic regression analysis were conducted.

Results: The categorization of the AMAS resulted in four groups: integrated/bicultural (n = 251; 63%), separated (n = 130; 32 %), marginalized (n = 5; 1 %), and assimilated (n = 15; 4 %). Because of the small sample sizes for the marginalized and assimilated groups, we limited group comparisons on parent and child well-being to the integrated/bicultural and separated groups. Cultural adaptation groups (integrated/bicultural and separated) did not differ on parental and children’s emotional wellbeing. These associations were also not moderated by family poverty or parental educational status (see Table 1). Next, family factors that might contribute to Afro-Caribbean children’s emotional well-being were examined. Parental educational, employment, parental depression, and parental distress were consistent predictors for child self-regulation, and internalizing and externalizing problems.

Conclusions: Parents’ separated acculturation experience or low adaptation to US main stream culture was not associated with self-regulation, internalizing and externalizing problems in Afro-Caribbean young children. Yet, similar to existing cross-cultural literature, family and parental predictors of child well-being were found. This study contributes to the scarce litertuare on Afro-Carribbean immigrant families and contributes to our understanding of cultural adaptation for these families. Results also have implications for the development and adaption of family-centered prevention and intervention programs for immigrant families of Carribbean decent.

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