Family Life Course Development Framework Applied: Understanding the Experiences of Vietnamese Immigrant Families

Abstract

Baumrind's (1971) conceptualization of authoritarian parenting style has been utilized to characterize the parenting practices of Vietnamese American parents, who are known to practice strict discipline and have high expectations of their children. Research has documented the success of Vietnamese parents utilizing authoritarian practices with their children, especially in academic endeavors. Yet, research has tended to generalize the success of authoritarian practices for all Vietnamese American youth. There is a gap in the literature on the success of developmental outcomes for Vietnamese American adolescents. The point of interest is to investigate whether authoritarian parenting practices are effective for Vietnamese American adolescents as they once were as children. For adolescents, forming an identity is an important developmental task. Adolescents are influenced by their peers and question the traditional values of their families, which can lead to intergenerational conflict. Therefore, it is hypothesized that Vietnamese American adolescents who are more acculturated to the dominant culture, with parents who adhere strictly to authoritarian parenting practices, may experience higher levels of family conflict. Therefore, exploration of how authoritarian parenting practices can affect Vietnamese American adolescent's developmental processes, which include but are not limited to areas of academic success, acculturation levels, and mental health, is important.

Covid-19 and Women’s Triple Burden: Vignettes from Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia

“…In Vietnam, the chasm in the gender divisions of reproductive roles is deep-rooted in strict cultural practices founded upon Confucian ideology (Gao 2003;Ha 2014;Hoang and Yeoh 2012). It is commonplace for men to work, socialise with friends, and return home momentarily to eat food prepared by their wives before heading back to the bars and pubs.…”

Female Student Migration: A Brief Opportunity for Freedom from Religio-Philosophical Obedience

“…Vietnamese Confucianism regulates social order and gender roles, emphasizing conformity to behavioral correctness of women and of men (Nyitray 2004). Underlined by notions of family unity, obligations, hierarchal relations and filial piety (Gao 2003;Ha 2014;Hoang and Yeoh 2012), women's inferiority and men's superiority powerfully permeate all aspects of Vietnamese family, social, and political life. Men, as master and authority, set the rules for their households and social ethics, in business and political governance (Ma and Marquis 2016;Rhee et al 2012).…”

Family Development Theory 30 Years Later

“…Research attempting to be more inclusive has focused on same-sex couples or the family from a feminist perspective (Demo & Allen, 1996;Gravenhorst, 1988;Hostetler & Cohler, 1997), in addition to non-White populations such as African American (Littlejohn-Blake & Darling, 1993) and Japanese American families (Krause, Ingersoll-Dayton, Liang, & Sugisawa, 1999). South African (Maconachie, 1989) and Vietnamese (Ha, 2014) populations are examples of cross-cultural studies using FDT.…”