Culture and Parenting Xinyin Chen, Rui Fu, and Wai Ying Vivien Yiu

Theoretical and Methodological Issues in THE STUDY OF CULTURE AND PARENTING
There are a number of theoretical and methodological issues in the study of culture and parenting. For example, the definitions of culture vary remarkably in the literature. As a result, it is largely unclear what should be included in the construct of culture and what aspects of culture are relevant to understanding parenting styles and practices. Different theoretical frameworks and approaches, often incompatible with each other, have been used to study culture and parenting, which is a main source of controversies and confusions. Moreover, researchers disagree on how to obtain appropriate and accurate information on culture in empirical studies that would help us interpret the findings in a straightforward manner. We discuss some of these issues in this section.
Culture: Conceptualizations and Research Approaches
Culture has been defined as a variety of phenomena, ranging from the man-made part of the environment (e.g., community settings), the shared life style of a group of people (e.g., sleeping arrangements for infants), the values and beliefs that are endorsed in a society concerning how individuals should behave (e.g., filial piety in parent-child relationships), to the meaning system that individuals use to understand the world (Cole and Cagigas, 2010; Oyserman, 2017). These definitions vary in many aspects, such as levels of human functioning that culture should focus on. The broad definition of culture as the man-made environment may not be practically useful for research because the impact of human activities exists in most, if not all, parts of the daily life environment. It is difficult to conduct studies based on this definition to capture the effects of culture. Thus, many researchers seem to prefer the narrower definition of culture focusing on beliefs and values that are shared and commonly endorsed by people within the society (Hofstede, 1994). This definition works well for comparing individuals in different societies on culture-related attitudes and behaviors; the prevalent or predominant attitudes and behaviors of the individual in the society (e.g., mean scores) may indicate general cultural orientations or norms. For example, generally greater support reported by Asian parents than by North American parents for using power-assertive strategies in childrearing may reflect the higher value that Asian cultures place on parental authority in the family (Chao, 1994). This type of finding helps us understand the different socialization conditions of Asian and North American children.
However, the notion of shared culture creates serious challenges for developmental researchers who are interested in how culture affects socialization and development at the individual level because it is difficult to establish logical and empirical links between the collective endorsement of cultural values by a group and behaviors that are displayed by individuals. For example, although research shows that Asian parents are more likely than European American parents to endorse power-assertive and authoritarian parenting and that Asian students may outperform European American students in mathematics and science (Chao, 1994; Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, and Darling, 1992; Stevenson and Lee, 1990), the relations among cultural values, authoritarian parenting, and children’s academic achievement are not clear (Chen, Dong, and Zhou, 1997).
An approach that researchers commonly use to address the issue related to the “sharing” aspect of culture is to treat it as an individual-level construct, such as a personal trait (Triandis, 1995). In this approach, each individual is viewed as having a unique culture, presumably due to personal characteristics that affect his or her reactions to the influence of external cultural factors. Using this approach, researchers may measure “culture” by observing individual responses to culturally relevant stimuli (e.g., tasks that are used to activate a particular cultural mindset, expectation, or experience) or by using self-report questionnaires such as those about collectivism versus individualism (views and attitudes about whether the interests of the group or society should be considered more or less important than those of individuals) or independent versus interdependent self-construals (understanding of the self as unique and separate from others or as intertwined with social context; Chiao and Ambady, 2007; Oyserman, 2017; Singelis, 1994). The data allow for direct analysis of relations between cultural variables and parenting or child behaviors.
However, the conceptualization of culture as a personal trait, and the corresponding research approach, may not be particularly interesting to developmental researchers who are concerned with culture as a context for socialization and human development (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006; Hinde, 1987; Whiting and Edwards, 1988). The contextual effect is unlikely to be adequately captured by an individual cultural trait, as one of possibly many individual traits, and its relations with other psychological attributes or behaviors. The question is to what extent the contextual aspect of culture is reflected in a personal trait. Individual reactions to specific tasks that are used to activate a particular cultural mindset (Chiao and Ambady, 2007; Oyserman, 2017) are inevitably confounded with other personal characteristics and experiences. Relatedly, many cultural traits, such as collectivism versus individualism and independence versus interdependence, conceptually overlap with other personality or behavioral characteristics, such as sociability, communality, social assertiveness, and autonomy. There are virtually no reasonable standards to categorize some traits as cultural and others as non-cultural. Consequently, maintaining conceptual and methodological clarity is challenging in research.
Given this background, research using multiple approaches and methods will be important for us to achieve a relatively comprehensive understanding of culture and parenting. In addition to cross-cultural comparisons, for example, studies of the acculturation of domestic migrants and international immigrants may provide valuable information about how cultural experiences (e.g., accommodation to the new values, maintenance of the original values, integration of diverse values, Berry, 1997; Bornstein, 2017, in press) modify parenting attitudes and behaviors. Lee (1995) assessed the participation of Chinese immigrant parents and children in Canada in cultural activities (e.g., listening to Western versus Chinese music, celebrating Western versus Chinese festivals, interactions with Western versus Chinese friends) as an index of acculturation. The results showed that acculturation was associated with parents’ and children’s social and psychological adjustment in the new environment.
The macro-level social change that is currently occurring in many traditionally agricultural countries, due to modernization, globalization, and technological development, also provides opportunities to explore cultural factors in the modification of parenting and child behaviors. Kağıtçıbaşı and Ataca (2005), for example, found that, as Turkey became more urbanized over three decades, Turkish parents changed their socialization goals; parents became more interested in joint leisure activities with their children and were more likely to appreciate and encourage child autonomy and independence. Chen and Li (2012) examined parenting attitudes of rural parents in China who became urban residents during urbanization. Parents in urbanized families (families that changed the status from rural to urban residency) were more likely than parents in rural families to encourage initiative-taking, self-direction, and social participation in childrearing (e.g., “I encourage my child to take the lead in initiating activities.”, “I encourage my child to express his or her opinions in school and other public places.”, “I encourage my child to actively participate in social activities.”). Moreover, parental encouragement of initiative-taking was associated more strongly with children’s sociable-assertive behavior and social adjustment outcomes in the urbanized group than in the rural group, suggesting that urban cultural values might strengthen the function of parental support for initiative-taking, perhaps through enhancing parental specific guidance and assistance and children’s receptiveness to the parenting effort (Chen and Li, 2012).
Culture, Parenting, and Human Development: Major Perspectives
Cultural influences on socialization and human development have been discussed traditionally from two major perspectives: Bronfenbrenner’s socioecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006) and Vygotsky’s cultural-historical perspective (Vygotsky, 1978). The socioecological perspective focuses on culture as a part of the environment that affects individual behaviors. The early version of the perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) considered culture a distal influence on the child in the outmost layer of the environment, along with laws, social class, customs, and broad ideologies. However, current views have integrated cultural beliefs and values with proximal socialization forces including childcare, education, and the family (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006; Tietjen, 2006).
Consistent with this perspective, Super and Harkness (1986, 2002) proposed that cultural beliefs and values are reflected in the “developmental niche” that includes three interacting subsystems: the physical and social settings, the historically constituted customs and practices of childcare and childrearing, and the psychology of the caregivers, particularly parental ethnotheories shared within the community. In this model, culture affects parenting beliefs, attitudes, and practices directly as well as indirectly through organizing the physical and social setting conditions (e.g., the living space and daily life schedules for children) and culturally regulated customs of childcare and childrearing (e.g., sleep arrangements for infants, different roles of fathers and mothers in child care and education). The three subsystems of the developmental niche may contribute to human development in a manner of dynamic interactions among themselves and between them and child disposition (Super and Harkness, 2002).
Vygotsky’s (1978) cultural-historical theory asserts that culture is an integral part of human social and psychological functions. Individual psychological functions, such as thinking, memory, and problem-solving, are based on, and constrained by, culturally represented mental tools, such as language and symbols. Moreover, culture provides guidance for socialization processes in the internalization of language and other symbolic tools from the interpersonal level to the intrapersonal level and in the organization and reorganization of psychological functions. In a study of the implications of transformations in sociocultural structures of the former Soviet Union in the early 1930s, Luria (1976) demonstrated that the participation of young people and adults in rural villages in new social and cultural activities (e.g., active group discussion and decision-making in collectivized labor and daily life) significantly affected their communication and interaction practices, social relationships, and life goals and experiences. The transformation of socialization conditions and experiences might lead to changes in individual socio-cognitive functioning (e.g., shift from concrete practical, or “graphic-functional,” thinking that was constrained by the immediate and physical features of objects to more mediated and abstract thinking).
The cultural-historical perspective has guided cultural and cross-cultural research in many countries, particularly those traditionally agricultural countries in Africa, Asia, and South America (Beach, 1995; Rogoff, 2003) Greenfield, Maynard, and Childs (2003), for example, examined mother-daughter interactions in weaving in two cohorts (1969-70 and 1991-93) of Zinacantec Maya children in Mexico and found that, as the society shifted from a subsistence-based agricultural lifestyle to a commercial lifestyle, the pattern of mother-daughter interactions changed from scaffolding by the mother to more independent trial-and-error learning.
Largely building on Vygotsky’s cultural-historical framework, Chen and colleagues (Chen, 2012; Chen and French, 2008) proposed a contextual–developmental perspective focusing on social interaction as a context for human development. This perspective taps into socialization processes in parent-child interaction. Specifically, according to Chen and French (2008), parents and children evaluate and respond to each other’s behaviors during their interaction according to cultural norms and expectations. Social evaluations and responses in turn serve to regulate parenting and child behaviors, which jointly affect the development of parent-child relationships and children’s socioemotional and cognitive outcomes. In this perspective, an important mechanism of parental influence on child development is the evaluation-response process in which parents display attitudes that reflect their understanding of cultural norms and values. Whereas parental positive attitudes, such as approval and encouragement, inform children that their behaviors are regarded as appropriate and should be maintained and enhanced, parental negative evaluations and responses create pressure on children to modify their behaviors. Children who are “ready” (Maccoby and Martin, 1983) and have adequate social-cognitive abilities may comply with parents and act as parents expect. However, failure of children to do so may cause frustration, distress, and other negative emotions in both parents and children, which may lead to negative parent-child relationships and externalizing problems if the emotions are directed toward others, internalizing problems if the emotions are directed toward the self, or both. Parenting, or, broadly, socialization toward culturally valued goals, is likely to be more effective when parents understand children’s abilities and characteristics and exert influence accordingly.
With age, children can play an increasingly active role in their socialization and development by responding to parental demands and behaviors in parent-child interaction. Children’s responses are also directed, to a large extent, by cultural norms and values (e.g., filial piety in traditional East Asian cultures, autonomy in Western societies) that they learn over time from family members, peers, media, and other sources. Whereas parenting affects children’s behavior and development, children’s attitudes in turn serve to regulate parenting. For example, children’s resistance and defiance in parent-child interaction press their parents to change their parenting attempts and practices. The failure of parents to adjust their behaviors or to reach agreement with children may result in coercive family dynamics (Patterson, 1982) and ultimately maladaptive parent-child relationships and other developmental problems. The contextual-developmental perspective on bi-directional social evaluation and regulation processes in parent-child interaction helps us understand the issues related to relations between culture and parental socialization goals and attitudes, cross-cultural differences in parenting styles and practices, and culturally distinct outcomes of parenting.