Modernity and childrearing in families of Gujarati Indian adolescents

Abstract

O ver the last two decades, researchers have devoted increasing attention to the role of cognitive factors in parenting. These cognitive mediational models focus on the role of attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge in in uencing parenting behaviours. A cognitive factor that contributes to cultural variation in parenting is attitudinal modernity-a broad concept that refers to the "Westernization" of attitudes in such diverse areas as gender role conceptions, political attitudes, attitudes toward authority, the family, and religious beliefs. Modernity has been most useful in describing the attitudes of individuals from countries undergoing the rapid social and economic changes that accompany industrialism and urbanization. The present study focused on India-a country currently undergoing such changes. Despite the wide range of modern and traditional beliefs among contemporary Indian parents, our understanding of the determinants of these individual differences is limited. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relation between modernity and parental childrearing practices, as well as to examine the relation between adolescent modernity and parental childrearing. Mothers, fathers, and adolescents in 50 Hindu, Gujarati families completed questionnaires about the modernity of their attitudes and were interviewed about parental childrearing practices. Parental and adolescent modernity were highly correlated. Moreover, parental modernity predicted the nature of parental childrearing values and practices, and parental childrearing values predicted adolescent modernity. Although the ndings varied somewhat for mothers versus fathers, parental modernity was associated with individualistic childrearing values and practices, and parents who valued individualistic characteristics in their adolescents had sons and daughters who reported the highest levels of modernity. Implications for understanding the role of mothers and fathers in the socialization of modernity are considered. P endant les deux dernières décennies, les chercheurs ont porté une attention croissante au rôle que joue le facteur cognitif dans la manière d'élever les enfants. Ces modèles cognitifs médiateurs se concentrent autour du rôle joué par les attitudes, les croyances et la connaissance dans l'in uence sur le comportement des parents. Un des facteurs cognitifs qui contribue à la variation culturelle dans le comportement des parents est la modernité dans les attitudes-un concept large qui se réfère à "l'occidentalisation" des attitudes dans des domaines aussi divers que les conceptions sur le rôle du sexe, des attitudes politiques, des attitudes face à l'autorité, des attitudes vis à vis de la famille et des croyances religieuses. La modernité a été très utile pour décrire les attitudes des individus des pays soumis à des changements sociaux et économiques rapides qui accompagnent l'industrialisme et l'urbanisation. La présente étude a été focalisée sur l'Inde-un pays qui subit actuellement de tels changements. Malgré la grande envergure des croyan...

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