A Qualitative Study Of Parent-Adolescent Conflicts In Chinese And American Families

This thesis explores and compares the dynamics of parent-adolescent conflicts in Chinese and American families. By interviewing 28 Chinese and 20 American informants, this study attempts to identify cultural, relational, and emotional reasons underlying the shared or differing conflict behaviors.This thesis first gives an overview of important definitions and concepts of conflict, conflict management theories and parent-adolescent relationships. The influences of cultural and contextual elements are also incorporated into the understanding of the important concepts. Given the intertwined relationship between culture and conflict styles, this research also pays special attention to the new characteristics of the contemporary Chinese society, particularly in terms of the transformation of traditional Chinese values.Guided by the grounded theory and through the qualitative interviewing approach, this research distills and analyzes the data in two categories. One is from the perspective of features of parent-adolescent relationship in the two cultures respectively, and the other is from the perspective of specific styles or strategies of managing parent-adolescent conflict. Talking about conflict, silence or sulking, accommodating, withdrawal, and avoidance of third party help are proposed by the author as the five common strategies in dealing with parent-adolescent conflict.The last section of the thesis summarizes the research, and also points out its limitations and makes suggestions for future study.