How Parent’s Style and Value of Interdependence Relate to Acculturation in the United States

Amanda Clarke & Dr. Argero Zerr

Abstract

Interdependent people are interconnected, contextual, and relational, whereas independent people are separate, autonomous, and self-contained (Markus, 1991). Individualist cultural models are prevalent in affluent western industrialized nations; collectivistic models are standard in eastern and southern nations (Suizzo, 2007). According to Barry (2003), acculturation is a multidimensional process where some ethnicities become bicultural, maintaining their cultural origins and adopting some of the practices and beliefs of the mainstream culture (e.g., Barr, 2003; Bornstein, 2004; Garcia, 2002; LaFromboise, 1993). There has been research to investigate the link between parents’ values of interdependence for their children, including how those values may differ across parents with varying acculturation levels. The present study will examine the relationship between parenting style and parents’ values of interdependence in their children. Does acculturation moderate this relationship? I hypothesize that immigrant parents’ value in interdependence will decrease as their level of acculturation increases in the United States. Participants in this study were Males, 16%, and Females, 84% caregivers ranging from 21 to 56 years old. Participant ethnicity included: White 84%, Hispanic/Latinx 30%, Asian 8%, and Black/African American 4%. Participants were recruited online via social media websites, email lists and newsletters, newspapers, and the local community. Participants completed measures online using Qualtrics, including the PAN Acculturation Scale (PAN; Soriano & Hough, 2000), The interdependence subscale of the Self-Construal Scale (SCS; Singelis, 1994), a portion of the Mexican American Cultural Values Scale (MACVS; Knight et al., 2010). In the Family Values Checklist (unpublished measure), the family values examined were family support, obligation, and family as a reference.

Details

Session 1

9:30am – 11:00am

Grand Salon

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