The Meanings of Parent-Adolescent Relationship Quality Among Chinese American and Filipino American Adolescents

Abstract

The prior chapters (and a growing body of research) suggest important ethnic differences in parenting practices and parent-adolescent relationship quality. This work documents systematic ethnic and cultural group differences in survey measurement of key constructs of parenting, yet little is known about the cultural meanings of parenting that are held by young people. Studies based on European American families in the United States have shown that "good parenting" includes the characteristics of warmth, affection, responsiveness, involvement, and firmness, and that such parenting practices promote independence and autonomy in children (Lawton, Schuler, Powell, & Madsen, 1984; Steinberg, 2001). However, studies of Asian and Asian American families suggest that "good parents" are those who provide and sacrifice for, nurture, and monitor adolescents' activities (Xiong, Eliason, Detzner, & Cleveland, 2005), whereas good behavior on the part of children includes collectivistic qualities of family obligation, filial piety and reciprocity (Cooper, Baker, Polichar, & Welsh, 1993; Ho, 1986), and acceptance of or obedience to parental authority (Chen & Yang, 1986; Hsu, 1981). These cultural differences are thought to be the basis for ethnic group differences in the meaning and implications of parenting practices for adolescents. Little prior research directly investigates the meanings associated with parent-adolescent relationships or parenting practices from the perspectives of Asian Americans. However, the results of prior survey-based research suggest the possibility of a deeper understanding of the ways that Asian American adolescents understand and experience relationships with parents. For example, the prior chapter shows that parental sacrifice is a central component of parental support for Chinese American and Filipino American adolescents. The results of Chapter 3 show that Chinese American adolescents report lower parental warmth than European American adolescents. The second chapter indicates that, in the national sample studied, measures of parental support hold similar meaning for European and Filipino American adolescents (although for boys there may be subtle differences in the salience of paternal behaviors within an overall construct of paternal support). However, the same measures were not applicable to Chinese American adolescent boys or girls, who may have markedly different conceptual structures for understanding parental support. Chao and Padmawidjaja (in Chapter 3; see also Wu & Chao, 2005) suggest that Asian American adolescents' reports of parenting may be guided by their understanding of their families' Asian cultures as well as by dominant U.S. cultural images of parent-adolescent relationships. Thus, a qualitative investigation of the ways Asian American adolescents describe and understand their relationships with parents may provide a more complete understanding of the results of prior studies. Parenting practices are said to reflect the quality of relationships between parents and children (Chao, 2001). In this chapter we present results from a study designed to elicit understandings of parental support from Asian American adolescents. In order to capture adolescents' perspectives on supportive parenting, we conducted focus group interviews with Chinese American and Filipino American adolescents, asking them what it meant to have a good relationship with parents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)(chapter)