Chinese-3
Chinese Immigrant Attitudes Toward Child Rearing, Including Cultural Notions of Authoritarian Parenting and Training Styles.
David Profitt
University of Dayton
It has been shown in various studies that Chinese parenting style is often considered "authoritarian" when compared to European-American parents (Chao 1994; Lin & Fu, 1990). Chao (1994) points out that the concept of authoritarian may be ethnocentric, and therefore misleading to traditional American readers. Chinese and American cultures are especially different in their philosophies of child rearing, and what Americans may consider a harsh parenting style, the Chinese may see as needful and loving. Studies show that for European-American children, a restrictive and controlling parenting style often leads to lower school achievement. However, Chinese students and Chinese-immigrant students who live under this rigid parenting style often excel in school, even to a greater level than American students. Because of this paradox, American views of parenting cannot be used to adequately predict a Chinese child’s achievement in school. Chinese parenting beliefs are complex and cannot be explained within the confines of traditional European-American parenting styles.
The American concept of authoritarian is often interpreted to include the attributes of hostility, aggression, mistrust, and dominance. For the Chinese and Chinese-immigrant, parental obedience and strictness is often interpreted to include the values of concern, caring, and involvement. Chinese parents don’t see themselves as dominating their children, but rather they see themselves as having organized control for the purpose of keeping harmony in the family structure (Chao, 1994). To better understand Chinese beliefs in child rearing, Chao (1994) studied the notion of chiao shun, a Chinese term containing the idea of training children in appropriate and expected behaviors. In this training, school performance and culturally approved behavior are stressed. Although done in what Americans would call a governing style, it is also done in love and with care, which can be further seen in the Chinese concept of guan. To the Chinese, care, concern, love and involvement are synonymous with control, expectations, and discipline. Both of these terms have permeated in Chinese culture from the original teachings of Confucius.
Confucian thought teaches that "(1) a person is defined by his or her relationships with others, (2) relationships are structured hierarchically, and (3) social order and harmony are maintained by each party honoring the requirements and responsibilities of the role relationship" (Chao, 1994, p.1113). The younger is subordinate to the older, who in turn caries the responsibility of governing, teaching and discipline. Within these confines, it can be stated that Chinese and Chinese-immigrant parents do not hold control over their children for the purpose of dominance and without emotional support, but rather they hold strict control over the child in a concerned and loving environment in order to keep the traditional role and harmony of the family structure. Chinese immigrants may score high on various authoritarian scales, but these scales often don’t reflect the Chinese influenced motivation for such behaviors nor the care or concern associated with their authoritarian style because traditionally, studies of parental ideologies have not looked at the concepts of chiao shun and guan.
Experiment
Method
Chao (1994) studied fifty Chinese immigrant mothers who had immigrated to the United States as adults and fifty European-American mothers from the Los Angeles area of California. Both sets of mothers were fluent in English, college educated, upper middle class, and had preschool children. Questions were derived from Block’s Child Rearing Practices Report. Parental control factor, authoritative, and authoritarian scales were used. The authoritative scale looked at encouragement of independence, expression of affection and rational guidance and the authoritarian scales looked at authoritarian control, control by anxiety, and supervision. The internal consistency of each scale was computed using Cronbach’s alpha. Testing showed a range of .45 to .53 for European American mothers and .60 and .67 for Chinese immigrant mothers. Although low, consistencies were higher for the Chinese immigrant mothers and in all cases, the low scores were due to the restricted ranges of the scores. In addition, two scales looking at both the chiao shun and guan ideologies of training were administered. These scales specifically looked at the mother child relationship and thoughts on child development and learning. For all the scales, each question administered was scored on a five point Likert-type scale.
Results
The Chinese immigrant mothers were significantly higher than European-American mothers on parental control, the authoritarian scale, and the Chinese ideologies of training. There were no significant differences between the two groups on the authoritative scale. Further, the Chinese immigrant mothers scored higher than European-American mothers on the Chinese ideologies of training scales after controlling for the authoritarian scores (Chao, 1994).
Discussion
The higher scores by Chinese immigrant mothers on the concepts of chiao shun and guan suggest that the Chinese differ from European-Americans on their concept of training, and that we can not fully describe Chinese thoughts on child rearing with terms such as authoritarian. The Chinese and American cultures do not share the same sociocultural history and therefor do not share the same beliefs with regard to this and other issues (Chao, 1994). It could be that Chinese immigrant mothers score high on authoritarian scales because both the authoritarian and chiao shun philosophies attribute to parents an authority that stresses a strict standard of acceptable conduct. However, the higher scores by Chinese immigrant mothers on the chiao shun variable shows that for the Chinese immigrants, the idea of strictness carries with it a greater depth and meaning than seen in American culture. Specifically, Chinese immigrant mothers are more involved in pushing for the success of their child and they consider themselves to be the central caretaker of the child more than European-American parents. Also, Chinese immigrant mothers stress the importance of close physical proximity to their children, and often sleep with their children, something that is not distinctive to traditional American culture. For the European-American mothers Chao (1994) studied, the word "training" carried inherent negative qualities. They would describe training as militaristic or regimented. For the Chinese immigrant mothers, training provoked a positive response associated with educating or inculcating. Training and control in the Chinese culture stem from concern and motivation for a child’s success, which is often not the case in traditional American culture.
This study looked at parenting attitudes of Chinese immigrant mothers with concepts indigenous to the Confucius based Chinese culture (Chao, 1994). Lin and Fu (1990) found significant differences between men and women on various child rearing variables, but their study was from the standpoint of traditional American culture. Future research looking at both the parents and including the chiao shun and guan philosophies would be able to further clarify the differences in the Chinese and traditional American cultures. Also, studies of adult Chinese immigrants who immigrated at a younger age may show a greater assimilation into American culture than found by Chao (1994), whose subjects all immigrated after the age of 19. This speculation is already supported by the fact that Lin and Fu (1990) found that Chinese immigrant mothers often had scores on a scale between Chinese and American mothers, showing the effect of acculturation to American ideals.
References
Chao, Ruth K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: understanding Chinese parenting through the cultural notion of training. Child Development, 65, 1111-1119.
Lin, Chin-Yau Cindy & Fu, Victoria R. (1990). A Comparison of child-rearing practices among Chinese, immigrant Chinese, and Caucasian-American parents. Child Development, 61, 429-433.
Filed under: EDC 531 Personality & Human Development Across the Lifespan
Copyright: June, 2002 - David Profitt
