Conflict and adolescent autonomy among Chinese-Canadian immigrant mother-child dyads: An intracultural study of the influence of acculturation disparity

This intracultural study explored the assumption that higher levels of acculturation disparity may seriously disrupt the quality of parent-adolescent relationships (e.g., intergenerational stress & conflict) (Kagitcibasi, 1989; Lazarus, 1997), among a sample of Chinese-Canadian immigrant mother-adolescent dyads. Specifically, the following two research questions were explored: (1) Is high, versus low, acculturation disparity associated with more frequent reports of mother-adolescent conflict? And (2) is high, versus low, acculturation disparity associated with more negative maternal responses to adolescent misbehaviours dealing with expressions of autonomy?; The participants included 164 Chinese-Canadian immigrant and 30 third-generation Anglo-Canadian (for cross-cultural comparison/baseline) mothers and their first-born adolescent children (aged 13 to 16 years) living in Toronto, Ontario. All Chinese-Canadian dyads emigrated from Mainland China within the previous 6 years. Mothers and adolescents independently completed a paper-and-pencil questionnaire package (available in Mandarin or English) that included measures of demographic information, both behavioural and psychological acculturation (BAS; Szapocznik, Scopetta, Kurtines, & Aranalde,1978; YMEI; Cameron, Sato, Lalonde, & Lay, 1997), mother-adolescent conflict (CBQ & IC; Robin & Foster, 1989), age expectations for adolescent behavioural autonomy (Teen Timetable; Feldman & Quatman, 1988; Feldman & Rosenthal, 1990, 1991), and maternal responses to hypothetical vignettes depicting both moral (e.g., lying) and autonomy-related (e.g., choice of clothing) types of adolescent misbehaviours (Smetana, 1989; 1995a, 1995b; 2000).; Quantitative analyses of the data revealed that higher levels of acculturation disparity were associated with mothers' and adolescents' reports of a greater quantity of conflicts, particularly conflict involving interpersonal issues. However, higher levels of acculturation disparity were not associated with mothers' and adolescent's reports of the overall emotional intensity of these conflicts. The results of this study also failed to support the hypothesis that higher levels of acculturation disparity would be associated with more negative maternal responses to adolescent misbehaviours dealing with expressions of behavioural autonomy. Finally, some interesting cross-cultural differences were revealed between the Anglo- and Chinese-Canadian samples. These results are discussed in terms of the importance of exploring intracultural variance and the impact of discontinuous cultural contexts on parent-adolescent relationships, and of exploring acculturation disparity as a useful tool, both methodologically and clinically.