<u>Purpose</u>. The purpose of the proposed study is to investigate the differences and similarities in child-rearing practices among Chinese, Chinese-American, and non-Asian American parents. <u>Variables</u>. The independent variables are the parents’ ethnic background (Chinese, Chinese-American, or non-Asian American) and the child’s sex (male or female). The dependent variables are eight parental child-rearing practices dimensions: father’s and mother’s parental control, father’s and mother’s encouragement of independence, father’s and mother’s expression of affection, and father’s and mother’s emphasis on achievement. <u>Methodology</u>. The subjects of this study are the mothers and fathers of children from intact families enrolled in kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade. Forty-four Chinese Chinese, 46 Chinese-American, and 48 non-Asian Americans parent-couples participated in this study. The Chinese parent couples were recruited in Taiwan. The immigrant Chinese-American parent couples were recruited from the states of Maryland and Virginia. The non-Asian American parent couples were recruited in Virginia. The child-rearing variables were measured by four subscales, 28 items, from the Child-Rearing Practices Report (CRPR) developed by Block (1986). The subjects rated each item on a 5-point rating scale. A two way-MANOVA (3 x 2) (ethnic group x child’s sex), univariate ANOVA tests, Tukey tests, repeated measure analysis, Pearson correlation coefficients, and dependent ṯ-tests were used to analyze the data. <u>Findings and Conclusions</u>. The two way MANOVA yielded significant group effect on the parental variables <u>F</u>(16, 250)= 10.31, <u>p</u><.0001. Generally, it was found that Chinese and Chinese-American parents tended to rate higher on parental control, encouragement of independence, and emphasis on achievement than American parents. / Ph. D.

No description available.

Parenting, one of the most complex and fulfilling roles for most human beings creates not only a sense of responsibility, but also emotions with different meanings that contribute to the level of satisfaction that parents perceive from their parental role. Factors, other than socio-economic ones, create differences in the way people parent. And individuals from other cultural traditions may bring different values to their parenting practices. In an effort to find commonalities and differences in parenting and trying to put them in perspective in order to improve the interventions aimed to help parent-child relationships, this study proposed to investigate the relationships, this study proposed to investigate the relationship between mothering strategies and maternal satisfaction among three different ethnic groups of at-risk mothers: Latin Americans, Afro Americans, and Anglo Americans. The Latin American group reported supporting a lower use of physical punishment when disciplining a child than its counterparts the Afro American and the Anglo American groups. All three groups of mothers supported the use of reason as a means of disciplining when mothering their child. Most of the participants supported praising their children as a way of mothering. And, the majority of them disagreed with the use of permissive ways of mothering their children. The results from regression procedures suggested that ethnic group membership and the use of reason were the best predictors of maternal satisfaction. These results are discussed as well as implications for clinical practice. / Master of Science

Identifying family factors that influence parental choice of discipline has been a continuing topic of interest to researchers. The purpose of this study was to examine factors that predict child rearing strategies in a survey population of 330 mothers enrolled in the federal Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program in rural Montana and urban Los Angeles, and to answer the following questions: (1) What are the descriptive characteristics of the population under study? (2) What are the descriptive characteristics of the reported child rearing strategies? (3) Which combinations of individual parental characteristics best predict each self-reported child rearing strategy? (4) Which blocks of parental characteristics (i.e., demographic, psychological, Situational) as adapted from Belsky’s Multiple Determinants of Parenting Model, best predict reported use of each child rearing strategy? To answer the first two questions, means analysis and cross-tabulation analysis were used. The third question was answered by stepwise multiple regression analysis, and the fourth question by hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The Parenting Project survey questionnaire used in the research consisted of five self-reporting instruments: Demographic Information, sections of the Child Abuse Potential Inventory, Parental Satisfaction Scale, Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire, and Maternal Reactions to a Child’s Deviant Behavior Scale (MRCDB). There was a series of dependent variables for reported child rearing strategies from the MRCDB scale (i.e., spank, praise, reason, allow, and consequences). Independent variables were mother’s age, educational attainment, race-ethnicity, level of parent satisfaction, level of parental acceptance, level of flexibility in child behavior expectations, level of personal adjustment, marital status, occupational prestige, and region of residence. Analysis revealed that race-ethnicity, educational attainment, level of acceptance, level of flexibility, and region of residence were consistent predictors of child rearing strategies. Predictors came from all three blocks, which confirmed Belsky’s Model of Multiple Determinants of Parenting, and extended it to apply to child rearing strategies. No one block was identified as a stronger predictor than the others. / Ed. D.

This study explores the relationship between ethnicity and level of religiosity, and parental or caregiver practices of physical punishment as a discipline style.