Parenting Attributions and Attitudes in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Abstract

SYNOPSIS Objective This article used the Parenting Across Cultures Project to evaluate similarities and differences in mean levels and relative agreement between mothers’ and fathers’ attributions and attitudes in parenting in 9 countries. Design Mothers and fathers reported their perceptions of causes of successes and failures in caregiving and their progressive versus authoritarian childrearing attitudes. Gender and cultural similarities and differences in parents’ attributions and attitudes in 9 countries were analyzed: China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, or the United States. Results Although mothers and fathers did not differ in any attribution, mothers reported more progressive parenting attitudes and modernity of childrearing attitudes than did fathers, and fathers reported more authoritarian attitudes than did mothers. Country differences also emerged in all attributions and attitudes that were examined. Mothers’ and fathers’ attributions and their attitudes were moderately correlated, but parenting attitudes were more highly correlated in parents than were attributions. Conclusions We draw connections among the findings across the 9 countries and outline implications for understanding similarities and differences in mothers’ and fathers’ parenting attributions and attitudes.

Do Chinese and American Children's Interpretations of Parenting Moderate Links between Perceived Parenting and Child Adjustment?

“…However, recent findings by other investigators suggest that differences between American parents and Chinese parents may be decreasing (e.g., Bornstein, Putnick, & Lansford, 2011;Chang, Chen, & Ji, 2011). As indicated earlier, the effects of authoritarian parenting are widely debated, and may vary across cultural and ethnic groups and across areas of functioning (e.g., emotional adjustment versus academic performance).…”

Corporal Punishment, Maternal Warmth, and Child Adjustment: A Longitudinal Study in Eight Countries

“…To attempt to capture some of this cross-national variability, we compared results for groups that have been shown in previous research with the sample used in the present analyses to have more versus less authoritarian beliefs about parenting, encompassing parents’ views regarding strictness, respect for authority, and children’s obedience (Bornstein et al, 2011; Lansford & Bornstein, 2011). Of the countries included in the present study, there were conceptual as well as empirical reasons for grouping Colombia (Di Giunta, Uribe Tirado, & Márquez, 2011), Jordan (Al-Hassan & Takash, 2011), Kenya (Oburu, 2011), the Philippines (Alampay & Jocson, 2011), and the African Americans from the United States (Lansford, Bornstein et al, 2011) as contexts with more authoritarian attitudes about parenting.…”

“…Of the countries included in the present study, there were conceptual as well as empirical reasons for grouping Colombia (Di Giunta, Uribe Tirado, & Márquez, 2011), Jordan (Al-Hassan & Takash, 2011), Kenya (Oburu, 2011), the Philippines (Alampay & Jocson, 2011), and the African Americans from the United States (Lansford, Bornstein et al, 2011) as contexts with more authoritarian attitudes about parenting. Parents in these groups tend to emphasize the hierarchical nature of parent-child relationships and the importance of children’s obedience and compliance (Bornstein, Putnick, & Lansford, 2011). In the context of such relationships, corporal punishment may relate differently to children’s adjustment than in contexts characterized by less authoritarian parent-child relationships, as is more common in China (Chang, Chen, & Ji, 2011), Italy (Bombi, Pastorelli, Bacchini, Di Giunta, Miranda, & Zelli, 2011), Sweden (Sorbring & Gurdal, 2011), and European Americans and Latin Americans in the United States (Lansford, Bornstein et al, 2011).…”

The Role of Parental Maltreatment and Parental Social Control on Self-Reported Violent Offending in Indonesia and the U.S.: Does Gender Make a Difference?

“…In terms of place, parenting practices, including parental supervision and disciplinary practices, are embedded within a cultural context that determines the nature of the parent-child relationship [87]. Previous research on the association between ethnicity and/or culture of parents and delinquent offending has been mixed.…”