Familism, Educational Aspiration, and Social Efficacy Among Three Groups of Chinese-heritage Youth

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Successful navigation across multiple cultures is an important developmental task for all youth, including native ethnic majority youth who experience and promote the evolution of their own dominant culture, native ethnic minority youth who negotiate with a national majority culture, and immigrant youth who are a minority in the host culture. However, the sociocultural adaptation processes and factors that influence the processes across diverse youth are understudied (Berry et al., 2006; Fuligni et al., 2009). The present research will fill the gap by comparing the sociocultural development of Chinese American youth, ethnic minority youth in China, and ethnic majority youth in China (referred to as immigrant, native minority, and native majority youth, respectively, here after).

Survey data were collected from 420 youth, including 109 immigrant youth (39.45% male, Meanage = 15.94 years, SDage = 1.39 years); 127 native minority youth (39.37% male, Meanage = 16.80 years, SDage = .70 years); and 192 native majority youth (53.13% male, Meanage = 16.89 years, SDage = .67 years). Data on parental education level was collected. Additionally, youth reported on their parents’ use of psychological control (alphas ranged from .77 to .92; Olsen et al., 2002), future educational aspiration (one 4-point item capturing less than high school to graduate education), familism cultural value (alphas ranged from .73 to .85; adapted from Kim et al, 1999), and social efficacy (alphas ranged from .72 to .74; adapted from Muris, 2001).

Immigrant youth reported significantly lower familism but significantly higher parental psychological control than the native majority youth (ps = .004 and .031, respectively). Immigrant youth also reported significantly lower social efficacy than both native minority and native majority youth (ps = .009 and .008, respectively). For immigrant youth, parental education positively predicted youth educational aspiration (β = .21, p < .05), whereas youth’s age positively predicted their social efficacy (β = .20, p < .05). Youth familism was negatively associated with their social efficacy (r = -.12, p < .05). For the native minority youth, gender predicted social efficacy that males rated themselves to be more socially competent than females (β = .20, p < .01). For the native majority youth, social efficacy was negatively predicted by perceived parental psychological control (β = -.26, p < .01), but was positively predicted by parental education level (β = .17, p < .05).

Despite living in a more economically developed country and having much better educated parents than their counterparts, the immigrant youth reported lower in both familism and social efficacy than native youth in China. In addition, familism was negatively associated with social efficacy for immigrant youth, suggesting their unique challenges in relating to both their ingroup and outgroup members. However, immigrant youth and native minority youth were not impacted by parental psychological control as negatively as the native majority youth in China. These findings suggested both similarities and differences, as well as risks and resilience in sociocultural development of youth, whose immigrant and ethnic statuses differ, despite the sharing of Chinese cultural heritage.

Authors

• Xin Li, Texas A&M University - College Station
  Presenting Author

• Jun Wang, Texas A&M University - College Station
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeffrey Liew, Texas A&M University - College Station
  Non-Presenting Author