Browsing by Subject "Parenting style"

Traditionally seen as a time for increasing independence and autonomy, the college experience is often the first major, long-term physical separation from parents (Chickering, 1969; Chickering & Reisser, 1993). For previous generations, living away from home provided conditions for autonomy development partially based on infrequent contact with parents. In contrast, the rapid evolution of communication technology in the recent past allows today's generation of college students to connect to their parents instantly and frequently through a variety of electronic means including cellular phone calls, text messages, emails, video chats, and social media. The current study used self-report data from 180 residential college students at a mid-sized private institution in the southeastern United States to explore parent-child communication patterns as they relate to parenting styles and the development of emotional autonomy and adjustment to college. Emotional autonomy was measured with items from the Emotional Autonomy Scale (EAS; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986). Following Beyers, Goossens, Van Calster, & Duriez (2005), a separation scale (derived from the EAS subscales of parental deidealization, nondependence on parents, and individuation) was used as a measure of emotional autonomy. Two scales from the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (Baker & Siryk, 1989) measured students' academic and social adjustment to college.

Results indicated that, in a given week, students reported an average contact frequency (with both parents combined) of 10.92 cell phone calls, 49.88 text messages, and 6.04 email exchanges. Contact was initiated by students and parents at roughly the same rates, and females had more contact with parents than males, in general. Facebook was more popular than Twitter and Instagram for connecting with parents through social media, and the majority of students felt either neutral or positive about being "Facebook friends" with their parents. Overall, students reported high satisfaction with both the frequency and the quality of communication with their parents. Greater levels of parental closeness significantly predicted higher satisfaction with the parent-child Facebook friendship.

The relationships between the traditional parenting styles of permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian parenting (Baumrind, 1991) were investigated in relation to communication patterns, autonomy, and adjustment. Helicopter parenting was also included as a predictor variable, though it is considered separate from the traditional parenting styles (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012). Results of hierarchical regression analyses indicated that parents' higher scores on authoritarian parenting and helicopter parenting predicted more frequent cell phone contact with parents. Parental closeness also emerged as a significant, positive predictor of frequency of cell phone and total communication. Students who talked on their cell phones more frequently overall (not including parental contacts) tended to talk to their parents more often on the phone, and the same went for texting, as well.

Helicopter parenting also predicted lower emotional autonomy, which was in line with the only previous study of helicopter parenting in emerging adulthood (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2012). Surprisingly, authoritative and permissive parenting significantly predicted lower emotional autonomy, while authoritarian parenting was related to greater autonomy. Analyses investigating frequency of cell phone contact with parents as a moderator of this relationship indicated that more frequent phone conversations predicted decreased autonomy when parents were more authoritative. High levels of authoritarian parenting, on the other hand, resulted in higher levels of autonomy regardless of how often students talked on the phone with parents, while high contact with less authoritarian parents predicted decreased autonomy. Frequency of cell phone contact with parents was unrelated to academic and social adjustment to college. Findings are discussed in light of previous research and situated within a framework proposing that technological advances in communication have contributed to lengthening the path to adulthood.

My dissertation comprises three studies on topics in selective migration and economic assimilation of new immigrants. The first study examines the influence of selective migration on Asian Americans’ academic success. Conventional explanations attribute their academic advantage to a distinctive academic culture and their socioeconomic status (SES), but ignore the importance of the relative attainment of parents formed in the pre-immigration context (i.e., the high relative educational attainment of parents compared to their non-immigrant counterparts in sending countries) in explaining Asian Americans’ academic success. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study and the Barro-Lee dataset, this chapter shows that Asian parents’ relative attainment predicts their children’s advantage in college enrollment over whites. Part of the advantage from parents’ relative attainment is through youths’ academic culture (e.g., parental educational expectations and youths’ effort, school behaviors, and attitudes). The findings in this chapter suggest the cultural explanation for Asian Americans’ academic advantage could be overstated.

The second study investigates the emigration intentions of Chinese adolescents from a supply-side perspective. Most existing studies employing data in destination countries provide an incomplete image of the selected features of immigrants. Values and norms often attributed to immigrants, such as high educational expectations, may be shaped by experiences during pre-emigration, rather than originating from distinct cultural values or the immigration experience itself. With data from Chinese Education Panel Study, this study finds parents whose children intend to emigrate employ different parenting strategies (via family norms and parental involvement) than children with no intention to emigrate. Adolescents with emigration intentions are also positively selected based on familial income, parental education, and mother’s occupational status, but negatively selected on father’s occupational status. These findings help establish a more comprehensive image of selective migration among Chinese adolescents who potentially emigrate and suggest that distinctive norms and values of emigrants could be shaped by parenting strategies during the early planning stages of emigration.

The third study examines how new immigrants utilize potential resources from religious organizations to help their entrepreneurial businesses in the United States (U.S.). Although a number of qualitative studies have previously identified the resource attainment through ethnic churches among immigrant entrepreneurs, such evidence is limited in quantitative analysis and the role of co-ethnicity is unclear. With the data from the New Immigrant Survey, this study shows that regardless of ethnic backgrounds and religious congregations, immigrant entrepreneurs with limited familial resources have a higher level of church involvement, and higher co-ethnicity in churches also increases church involvement of immigrant entrepreneurs. These findings suggest that immigrant entrepreneurs may actively seek resources in ethnic churches. From a policy perspective, religious organizations that target immigrants in ethnic communities can potentially benefit immigrant entrepreneurs by providing co-ethnic resources and help them overcome initial barriers during economic assimilation.

As a whole, my dissertation concerns about socioeconomic mobility of new immigrants. It contributes to the research on Asian Americans’ academic advantage by integrating the pre-immigration contexts and provides a supply-side explanation on how distinctive cultural elements of potential Chinese emigrations could be selected in the pre-immigration childrearing process. Moreover, it also contributes to the research on immigrant entrepreneurship by providing quantitative evidence that religious organizations could supply resources to start-up businesses of new immigrants and help their economic assimilation in the U.S. context.