Role, Responsibility and Care: A Study of Training in Chinese American Parent-Child Affirmation Discussions

• In Event: Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

In a seminal article on Chinese parenting, Chao (1994) introduced the importance of Confucian thought in understanding immigrant Chinese American parenting; specifically, the concept of guan. Manifested as parental training, guan characterizes Chinese notion of parental care, concern and involvement predicated on role, responsibility, and harmonious relations (Chao, 1994). Yet, recent empirical research with Asian American families suggests that this concept of training is not fully captured in previous theories and paradigms of parenting, such as Baumrind’s (1971) parenting styles (Cheah, et al., 2013; Choi et al., 2013; Kim et al., 2013). To address this gap, the present study seeks to investigate the relations between training observed in parent-child discussion, cultural orientation, and parenting styles.

Specific hypotheses investigated were as follows:
1.) Training is negatively associated with parent Western cultural orientation
2.) Training is positively associated with parent Chinese cultural orientation
3.) Training is positively associated with authoritarian parenting style and negatively associated with authoritative parenting style.

The present sample included 1st generation Chinese American immigrant parents (N =110; 101 mothers, nine fathers) and their children (7-11 years old, M = 9.16 years, 48.5% girls). The majority of parents were born in China (N=108); two exceptions were a parent born in Hong Kong and another in Vietnam. Parents received 15.1 years of schooling on average (SD = 4.10). The average length of stay in the US for parents was 12 years (SD = 7.35). All parents engaged in a 3-min affirmation discussion task, in which parents were asked to help their child understand how much they love and care for them. 15 affirmation codes were coded as present or absent for each proposition (i.e., subject-verb construction) by three independent raters. A composite training code (Table 1) included: behavioral expectation, moral rule, criticism, emotional consequence and emotion teaching. Parents also self-reported on cultural orientation (CSAS; Chen & Lee, 1996) and parenting styles (PSDQ; Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen & Hart, 1995).

Results from multiple regression analyses indicated that consistent with our hypothesis, American cultural orientation was found to be negatively associated with training (β = -10.06, p < 0.05). That is, Chinese American parents who were less acculturated engaged in more training behaviors. On the other hand, no associations were found between training and Chinese cultural orientation (β = -3.25, p = 0.23). Training was unrelated to authoritarian (β = 3.92, p = 0.21) and authoritative parenting styles (β = -3.35, p = 0.15).

To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine training, a theorized indigenous parenting style in Chinese families (Chao, 1994), using observational data of parent-child interactions. Observed parenting practices of training may be more culturally divergent than value-based measures of guan in relation to parenting styles, explaining the independence between training and parenting styles. Though American cultural orientation was associated with training, Chinese cultural orientation was not. One interpretation is that more acculturated Chinese American immigrant parents flexibly adopt American parenting behaviors, thus decreasing frequency of training.

Authors

• Lionel Hsien Meng, University of California - Berkeley
  Presenting Author

• Aya Williams, University of California - Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jinli Wu, Georgetown University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xue Fang Deng, Wellesley College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Qing Zhou, University of California - Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stephen H Chen, Wellesley College
  Non-Presenting Author