autonomy, rights, and parenting in changing chinese ... · contexts kim lun sharon to department of...
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AUTONOMY,RIGHTS,ANDPARENTINGINCHANGINGCHINESECULTURALCONTEXTS
by
KimLunSharonTo
DepartmentofAppliedPsychologyandHumanDevelopment
UniversityofToronto
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
University of Toronto
© Copyright by Kim Lun Sharon To (2017)
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AUTONOMY,RIGHTS,ANDPARENTINGINCHANGINGCHINESECULTURALCONTEXTS
KimLunSharonTo
DepartmentofAppliedPsychologyandHumanDevelopment
UniversityofToronto
Abstract
Drawing on both a universalistic perspective (self-determination theory) and a cultural
psychological perspective (Greenfield’s theory of cultural change), the papers presented
in this dissertation examine the joint role of universal psychological processes and
cultural transformation in accounting for variations and similarities in parenting,
children’s rights attitudes, and their outcomes in diverse settings within China. One
hundred and twenty-eight Chinese adolescents (12-16-year-olds) and their mothers from
urban and rural China - two settings that have been rapidly changing at a different pace
over the past decades with the rise of modernization - participated in the current study.
The first paper focuses on how cultural parenting practices are transmitted across
generations, and their impact on Chinese adolescents’ psychological well-being. The
second paper narrows the focus and examines how the socialization environment and
other socio-demographic factors may contribute to the development of children’s rights
conceptions amongst Chinese mothers and adolescents. Comparing mothers and
adolescents from different settings coexisting within the same nation, encompassing
urban social ecologies of the Gesellschaft form to the rural social ecologies of the
Gemeinschaft form (Greenfield, 2009), these studies provide insight into how the extent
of urbanization impacts parenting practices, beliefs and attitudes, and consequently
affects children’s development in a non-Western cultural setting. Overall, findings from
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both of the studies demonstrated converging evidence supporting the universalist claim
that children in a variety of cultural contexts benefit from family environments which are
responsive and promote children’s needs to exercise autonomy. Findings also suggested
that there has been a shift in cultural parenting practices in China (with a different pace of
change in urban versus rural areas), consistent with Greenfield’s theory of cultural
change.
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Acknowledgements
I am indebted to a great number of people for their assistance with this thesis. There
are many people towards whom I would like to express my gratitude for their
contribution towards the completion of this thesis.
To my supervisor, Dr. Charles Helwig, you have been a constant source of
encouragement and mentorship over the course of my undergraduate and graduate career.
I feel extremely fortunate to have worked so closely with you for so many years. You
have been a source of great support for my research and my professional development, as
well as of sound advice. Your outstanding example, teaching and mentoring was crucial
for the completion of this dissertation, and will have far reaching impacts in my academic
and professional life.
To my thesis committee, Dr. Michele Peterson-Badali and Dr. Kang Lee, thank you
for your incisive feedback, stimulating discussion, and practical guidance and support.
To my dear colleagues and friends who undertook this journey with me. It would
have been impossible or me to express how much your constant support, passion for the
field, and friendship meant to me throughout these years.
To Raymond and my family, thank you for your unfailing faith in me. I owe all of
you my deepest gratitude for your unconditional love and unbridled support to allow me
to pursue my dream.
Last but not the least, I would also like to thank all the children and parents who
participated in this study, as well as our research collaborators and assistants in China.
Without all of you, accomplishing this dissertation project would not have been possible.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements............................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................................v List of Tables................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures.................................................................................................................... ix List of Appendices...............................................................................................................x
General Introduction............................................................................................................1 Debate of Universality versus Cultural Relativism.................................................1 Grand Divide of Individualism-Collectivism versus Variations and Movements within Culture..........................................................................................................3 Cultural Transmission versus Constructivist Approaches to Values and Beliefs....4 Modernization, Social and Cultural Changes and Human Development................5 Overview of Research Studies.................................................................................9 Anticipated Contribution.........................................................................................9 Paper 1: Socio-Cultural Change and Parenting in China: Autonomy Support, Democratic Family Climate, and Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being Abstract..................................................................................................................11 Introduction............................................................................................................12 Baumrind’s Parenting Typologies.............................................................12 Dimensional Theoretical Approach as Motivated by Self-determination Theory........................................................................................................15 Intergenerational Transmission of Parenting.............................................19 Greenfield’s Theory of Sociocultural Shift................................................20 Social Change in China and Human Development....................................22 Different Pace of Development in Urban versus Rural China...................26 Increased Rural-to-Urban Migration..........................................................27 Objectives of the Present Study and Hypotheses.......................................28 Method...................................................................................................................31 Participants and Research Sites..................................................................31 Procedures..................................................................................................34 Measures....................................................................................................35 Results....................................................................................................................38 Chinese Mothers’ Report of Their Current Parenting................................39 Adolescents’ Report of Their Mothers’ Parenting.....................................39 Comparisons Between and Correspondence Among Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Report of Parenting..............................................................40 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Among Variables.........................42 Associations Between Parenting and Adolescents’ Psychological Well-
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Being..........................................................................................................45 Chinese Mothers’ Retrospective Recall of the Way They Were Parented48 Comparisons of Chinese Mothers’ Current Parenting with Their Retrospective Recall of How They Were Parented...................................48 Correlates of Mothers’ Current Parenting..................................................51 Discussion..............................................................................................................54 Parenting in Contemporary China.............................................................56 Correlates of Mothers’ Current Parenting..................................................59 Mothers’ versus Adolescents’ Reports......................................................60 Parenting in Future China..........................................................................61 Paper 2: Children's Rights Attitudes Amongst Adolescents and Mothers in China Abstract..................................................................................................................63 Introduction............................................................................................................64 Parents’ and Children’s views on Children’s Rights.................................68 Socialization Correlates of Children’s Rights Attitudes............................71 The Present Study and Hypotheses............................................................74 Method...................................................................................................................76 Participants and Procedures.......................................................................76 Measures....................................................................................................77 Results....................................................................................................................80 Initial Investigation of Potential Oppositional or Reactive Patterns..........80 Descriptive and Correlational Analysis.....................................................83 Adolescents’ Perspectives on Children’s Rights.......................................84 Mothers’ Perspectives on Children’s Rights.............................................85 Adolescents’ versus Mothers’ Perspectives on Children’s Rights............85 Hierarchical Regression Analyses: Predicting Adolescents’ and Mothers’ Attitudes Toward Children’s Rights..........................................................88 Discussion..............................................................................................................92 Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Attitudes Toward Children’s Rights..............92 Socialization Correlates of Adolescents’ Attitudes Toward Children’s Rights.........................................................................................................98 Correlates of Mothers’ Attitudes Toward Children’s Rights...................100 Conclusions..........................................................................................................102
General Discussion..........................................................................................................105 Socialization Pathways to Well-Being and the Development of Rights Conceptions..........................................................................................................105 From Global Cultural Orientations To Dynamic Shifts and Movements within Culture and Over Time.............................................................................107
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Constructivist Approaches to Values andBeliefs.................................................109 Different Pace in Value Versus Behavioral Changes..........................................110 Mothers’ Versus Adolescents’ Reports................................................................112 Implications for Research and Future Directions........ .......................................114 From Cross-Sectional to Longitudinal Studies........................................114 From Self-reports to Observational Reports of Autonomy- Supportive Parenting................................................................................116 From Quantitative to Qualitative Studies................................................117 Conclusion...........................................................................................................118References........................................................................................................................120 Appendices.......................................................................................................................141
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List of Tables
Table 1. Parental education and occupational levels (in years and in categories).............33
Table 2. Mean (M), Standard Deviations (SD) of POPS and Democratic Climate Scale as reported by (a) Mothers for their Current Parenting, (b) Adolescents for their Mothers’ Current Parenting, and (c) Mothers for How They were Parented (Retrospectively).......41
Table 3. Mean (M), Standard Deviations (SD) and Correlations Among Mother Self-reported and Adolescent Reported Parenting and Family Democratic Climate................42
Table 4. Mean (M), Standard Deviations (SD), and Pearson Correlations of All Study Variables Related to Family Socialization Environment and Adolescents’ Psychological Well Being For The Full Sample.......................................................................................44
Table 5. Regressions for Adolescent-reported Parenting and Family Climate Variables on Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being............................................................................47
Table 6. Regression Examining Correlates between Mothers’ Retrospective Reports of how They were Parented and Mothers' Current Parenting................................................53
Table 7. Means, Standard deviations (SD), Pearson Correlations of Adolescents’ and Mothers’ Reported Family Socialization Environment and Children’s Rights Attitudes.82
Table 8. Relations between mothers’ attitudes toward children’s rights and their self-reported parenting..............................................................................................................89
Table 9. Relations between Mothers’ Children's Rights Attitudes and their Self-reported Parenting............................................................................................................................90
Table 10. Mothers' Retrospective Recall of Parenting and Current Attitudes Toward Children's Rights................................................................................................................91
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ListofFigures
Figure 1. Mean score of (a) autonomy support, (b) responsiveness, (c) democratic climate, and (d) tolerance of dissent as reported by urban, rural-to-urban and rural mothers (retrospective recall of parenting and self-report of current parent….................50 Figure 2. Rights X Age Group X Respondent Interactions……………………………...87
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List of Appendices
Appendix A. Perceptions of Parents Scales (POPS)…………………………...……….141
Appendix B. Democratic Environment Questionnaire (DEQ)………...……………….144
Appendix C. Children's Rights Attitudes (CRA) questionnaire……………......………145
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General Introduction
This dissertation comprises two separate, but related, studies. The first one
focuses on how cultural parenting practices are transmitted across generations, and their
impact on Chinese adolescents' psychological well-being. The second study narrows the
focus and examines how the socialization environment and other socio-demographic
factors may contribute to the development of children’s rights conceptions amongst
Chinese mothers and adolescents. In both studies, the unique cultural setting of
contemporary China is the background upon which the research is set. In conjunction
with the intergenerational comparisons and the consideration of developmental pathways,
the impact of socio-cultural changes on these processes will be explored.
Debate of Universality versus Cultural Relativism
In the past few decades, developmental psychologists have conducted extensive
research on the socialization factors that are essential for positive and healthy
development. Generally, responsiveness and autonomy-supportive parenting are arguably
the most central qualities in parenting that have been found to be associated with a range
of beneficial psychological, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes for children (e.g.,
Soenens & Vansteenkiste, 2005; Weiss & Schwarz, 1996). Proponents of self-
determination theory, for example, maintain that autonomy (i.e., one’s ability to act
autonomously in accordance with ones’ values), along with relatedness and competence,
are basic universal human needs whose satisfaction are essential for well-being (Ryan &
Deci, 2011). Emerging literature on relationships between perceptions of personal
autonomy, democratic climate and psychological well-being further suggests that a
socialization environment which promotes personal choice, freedom of expression, and
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meaningful involvement in decision making, may promote positive human development
(Jia et al., 2009; To, Helwig, & Yang, 2017).
However, it has been argued that most research studies conducted thus far are
based on samples drawn entirely from Western, educated, industrialized, rich and
democratic (“WEIRD”) societies (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). Notions of
autonomy and rights as well as theories like self-determination theory have been
criticized as originally derived from Western cultural settings that may have little
relevance to, or may not be compatible with, cultural beliefs in other cultures. For
example, some researchers adhering to theoretical perspectives within cultural
psychology (e.g., Greenfield, Suzuki, & Rothstein-Fisch, 2006; Markus & Kitayama,
1991; Shweder & Bourne, 1984; Triandis, 1989) have used a number of different but
related and dichotomous terms to characterize cultural variations in self-construals and
self-other relations. To name a few, individualism versus collectivism, independent
versus interdependent developmental pathways, and egocentric versus sociocentric
selves, are amongst some of the common cultural dichotomies that have been popularized
in cross-cultural research. As proposed by cultural psychologists, different conceptions of
the self and morality are believed to be held by individuals within individualistic and
collectivistic societies. In individualistic societies, the self is seen as separated from
others with an orientation towards principles or notions of individual rights and personal
autonomy. In contrast, in collectivistic societies, the self is seen as sociocentric with an
orientation towards duty and obedience to authority, preservation of social harmony, and
the upholding of traditional roles (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). It has been proposed that
individuals from collectivist cultures place a much stronger emphasis on interdependence
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and conformity, and hence often put group goals and harmony over personal goals and
desires. These theorists have therefore called into question whether the support of
autonomy, emphasis on individual freedom and rights, as well as the promotion of
democratic participation within social institutions such as the family are relevant for
people whose core values and beliefs differ from those of individualistic cultures. These
debates between universalists and cultural relativists have generated a ripple of emerging
research examining whether theories and notions of rights and autonomy are universally
applicable and relevant for individuals from cultures other than the mainstream Western
context. This subject will be further explored in the following papers.
Grand Divide of Individualism-Collectivism versus Variations and Movements
within Culture
The dichotomous constructs (e.g., individualism-collectivism) discussed above
are based on the underlying assumption that cultures are distinctly divided, and that self-
construals are stable and homogeneous within culture. While such general cultural
characterizations have been popular and influential in research in the 1980s, cultural
dichotomies of this sort have increasingly received criticism as oversimplifying the
complexities of culture and human cognition (see, for example, Helwig, 2005; Hermans
& Kempen, 1998; Smetana, 2002; Turiel, 2002; Turiel, Killen, & Helwig, 1987). In fact,
it has been proposed that cultural orientations may not be mutually exclusive or stable
over time (Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002). With the globalizing trend of
social, economic and political transformation, it has been suggested that a culture’s
position on the cultural orientation spectrum may shift over time in accordance with a
society’s socioeconomic development (Greenfield, 2009). Variations within cultures and
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amongst different social contexts and domains should also be considered (Nucci, Camino,
& Sapiro, 1996; Smetana, 2002). Therefore, there has been a call for shifting attention
from studying cultures and individuals using such broad, static global constructs to the
study of cultural processes, particularly in the face of globalization and social changes
(Hermans & Kempen, 1998).
Cultural Transmission versus Constructivist Approaches to Values and Beliefs
A related issue that will be addressed in the following papers is how values and
beliefs are developed. On the one hand, the cultural transmission model suggests that
conceptions of self and morality are largely transmitted directly to individuals through
social participation in cultural practices and shared rituals (e.g., Shweder, 1999; Shweder
& Sullivan, 1993). This perspective suggests that there would be little change within
cultures, as individuals tend to internalize prevailing cultural practices and ideologies
rather than sometimes being in opposition to them (Helwig, 2005). It is therefore assumed
that children and parents alike would share similar views and beliefs, both of which
would be largely consistent with the prevailing cultural norms. This perspective of the
direct transmission of cultural values is likely congruent with cultural psychologists’
argument that there would be distinct differences in the conceptions of autonomy and
rights as well as parental beliefs and practices amongst individuals from different cultural
orientations.
On the other hand, the constructivist approach (Nucci, 2001; Turiel, 1998)
proposes that children construct their social and moral concepts from their own
experiences and in interaction with their socialization contexts. The diverse social
contexts and situations experienced by an individual do not only serve as a function of
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transmitting values and beliefs, but also as a context that may instantiate tensions or
conflicts with individuals’ developing sense of autonomy. It is through their daily
experiences in social encounters and reflections on their experiences that children
develop their own reasoning and judgments, which may or may not be in accordance with
the existing cultural beliefs systems, norms, and practices (Turiel, 2002). This approach
views individuals as active agents in their own socialization; thus, the construction of
beliefs and reasoning must be seen as an active and emerging process.
Modernization, Social and Cultural Changes and Human Development
In light of the debates in the literature cited above, the two papers presented in
this dissertation aim to contribute to our understanding of how autonomy, rights, and
parenting may be understood in the cultural settings of urban and rural China.
Specifically, two main themes related to cultural parenting practices (Paper 1) and the
development of children’s rights conceptions (Paper 2) will be explored. These two topics
were chosen as we expected that parenting practices and children’s rights attitudes are
both issues that are dynamically influenced by factors such as culture (general cultural
contexts and social change), socialization contexts (e.g., family environment), as well as
individual experience (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Although developmental psychologists
have studied both of these topics in Western and non-Western cultural settings, with
parenting being much more extensively researched than children’s rights conceptions, the
fundamental processes of how development interacts with social changes in non-Western
cultural contexts is much less understood. In fact, most studies have assumed constancy
in the environment and individual’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. However, with the
global movement towards urbanization and industrialization, the understanding and
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conceptualization of children’s rights and well-being has been evolving (Stearns, 2016).
This is the result of the changing definition of “basic” needs for children’s well-being and
the shifting attitudes and views of the parental and societal role as it relates to children’s
positive and healthy development. This shift in societal beliefs about children has been
gradual, accompanied by modernization and multiple significant events that marked these
shifts which are reflected in policy implementation (Stearns, 2016). For example,
children used to be viewed as “property” belonging to their parents before the 18th
century. With the rise of rights advocacy groups, the beginning of rights language in
public discourse about children, and the ratification of the United Nations Convention on
the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989, new attention has been paid to children’s
development (Aries, 1996; Stearns, 2016). This was then followed by the shift from an
emphasis on rights that are mainly nurturance-based to the extension of autonomy-based
self-determination rights to children (Stearns, 2016). This perspective portrays children as
autonomous individuals with evolving capabilities who can freely express themselves and
decide in matters affecting them. This shift from parental authority to a nurturance-based
approach, followed by a child-centered approach, in which children are given
opportunities and freedom that their parents may have never had as children, marks a
tipping point in history and has implications for children’s social, cognitive, and
psychological development (Stearns, 2016).
Adolescents in China, especially those from urban settings, have grown up in a
climate of vast social and economic transformation that is much different from the social
environment in which their parents grew up. It is therefore of particular interest to explore
whether these parents, despite their very different experience of socialization, have
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changed their parenting practices in accordance with these shifts in views of children, or
whether they have largely continued parenting practices congruent with the way they
were raised. Very few studies, however, have explored the effects of social change on
these shifts in parenting beliefs and behaviors, attitudes about children’s rights, and
children’s changing socialization environment and development (e.g., opportunities to
experience rights, development of rights conception, psychological health). Some recent
research has begun to investigate the dynamic interactions between the influence of social
norm change as resulting from modernization and the continual influence of long-
standing traditional values and practices (Inglehart & Baker, 2000). Others have
attempted to redefine the cultural dichotomies of individualism-collectivism by further
differentiating the constructs (e.g., the normative and relational I-C (Kagitcibasi, 1997),
and horizontal and vertical I-C (Triandis, 1994)). Greenfield’s (2009) theory of social
change and human development proposed different developmental pathways found in
different societies according to their level of modernization and socioeconomic status and
delineates how a society adapts its values to these changing environments. With its
consideration of movement within culture, this theory provides a useful framework for
understanding the implications of socio-environmental change on shifting cultural values
and parenting practices.
China affords a unique cultural context ideally suited to explore the above
questions. The Confucianist culture has dominated China for thousands of years. Its
ideologies have become a central part of the Chinese cultural spirit and continue to
influence present Chinese society as well as the way Chinese people think and act in their
everyday lives (Wang, 2014). Traditional Confucian ethics, for example filial piety, has
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governed not only how people view relationships and interact within the family, but also
how they behave in other systems (e.g., school) and larger society (Pye, 1992). Given the
rapid and unprecedented economic growth and demographic transformations in the post-
Mao era, it is vital to investigate how Chinese families and societies have evolved with
this modernization, and at the same time how they may have maintained a continuity with
traditional values and practices. I am also interested in examining how urbanization and
social changes have influenced societal norms, as reflected in parental and adolescents’
attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
While modernization has drastically changed the landscape in urban areas, many
rural areas within China remain poor, traditional, and mainly agricultural economies
(Peerenboom, 2002). Moreover, the loosening of policy in migration has led to a dramatic
increase of rural to urban movement, with many rural youth venturing into the cities in
search of opportunities (Knight & Song, 1999). As a result, China provides a distinctive
setting where we could study families who are from a highly modern, developed, and
fast-changing urban areas, along with those who are from a much more traditional, rural
setting with much less exposure to Western influences, as well as those who are in
transition. Thus, the different pace of change in urban and rural China allows us to
examine how parenting and children’s rights conceptions may differ in different settings
coexisting within the same nation. The research findings are expected to shed light on
questions about the universal aspects of the development of autonomy and children’s
understandings of their own rights within varied cultural settings.
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Overview of Research Studies
The following two papers present studies of adolescents and mothers in both rural
and urban China. Paper 1 examines how cultural parenting practices transmit across
generations, and their impact on adolescents' psychological well-being. It is proposed that
parenting practices change over time as they adapt to the needs of the changing
socioeconomic conditions (Greenfield, 2009). Traditional parenting practices and values
face new environmental demands that emerge with social change, and may not be
adaptive to the demands of the new socioeconomic conditions. However, autonomy
supportive and responsive parenting is hypothesized to be universally beneficial for
children regardless of the cultural backgrounds and the changing environments. This
research aims to study the impact of social changes as manifested in the shifts in
parenting practices and their consequences on human development, as reflected in the
self-reports of adolescents regarding their psychological well-being.
Paper 2 narrows the focus to issues specific to children’s rights. While shifts in
societal views on children’s rights have been reflected in the ratification of the UNCRC
(1989), to this date, we still know very little about the fundamental processes in the
development of children’s rights conceptions in diverse cultural settings. In this paper, we
examine how the family socialization environment and sociodemographic factors (e.g.,
origins, current setting, gender) may play a role in the development of children’s rights
attitudes.
Anticipated Contribution
To date, research on the implications of parenting and children’s rights attitudes
was conducted mostly in Western cultural contexts. Through an investigation of values,
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attitudes, beliefs and practices in both mothers and adolescents in urban and rural China,
these studies will allow us to have a glimpse of past and current Chinese parenting,
providing insight into how parents form their parenting practices, and how thinking about
rights is developed. Together, these two papers will contribute to the emerging literature
on how socio-environmental factors, including social changes, need to be considered in
conjunction with developmental pathways and the fulfillment of autonomy needs in
diverse cultural settings. We believe that a developmental and ecological approach to
research that takes into account developmental and social changes is a potent tool that can
inform the design of parenting and institutional programs and policy that connects
individual, family, society, and culture.
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Paper 1
Socio-Cultural Change and Parenting in China: Autonomy Support, Democratic
Family Climate, and Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being
Abstract
This study examined urban and rural Chinese adolescents’ (12-16 years) and their
mothers’ reports of maternal autonomy support and responsiveness, overall family
democratic climate and tolerance of dissent (N =256, with 64 mother-adolescent dyads
per setting). Relations between these dimensions of parenting and adolescents’
psychological well-being were examined. Drawing on both a universalistic perspective
(self-determination theory) and a cultural psychological perspective (Greenfield’s theory
of cultural change), this study examined the joint role of universal psychological
processes and cultural transformation in accounting for variations and similarities in
parenting and its outcomes in diverse settings within China.
Using retrospective recalls of how mothers were parented, changes of parenting
over a generation were also examined. We found that urban mothers reported parenting in
ways that are more autonomy supportive, democratic, and tolerant of dissent than both
rural mothers and their own mothers, whereas rural mothers only reported being more
tolerant of dissent compared to their own mothers. Regarding to relations between
parenting and adolescents’ psychological well-being, democratic family climate, as
perceived by adolescents, was found to be associated with higher adolescent life
satisfaction and fewer depressive symptoms in both urban and rural settings of China.
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Introduction
Baumrind’s Parenting Typologies
Since Baumrind's (1966, 1971) seminal work classifying different parenting
styles, there has been an exponential amount of research conducted over the last several
decades exploring the correlates of these parenting styles. Parenting style that is
categorized as authoritative involves practices that value and encourage autonomy, open
communication, and children’s ideas and input while also adhering to the firm
enforcement of rules (Grolnick, 2002). Authoritative parenting, characterized by high
levels of both responsiveness (warmth) and demandingness (control), has been
consistently found to be associated with a range of beneficial social, emotional, and
academic outcomes for children. Conversely, parenting that is characterized as
authoritarian or “psychologically controlling” (Barber, 1996) involves overcontrol in the
form of intruding and manipulating the child’s emotional development (e.g., through the
use of shaming or excessive guilt), or stresses blind obedience over rational discipline.
These forms of parenting, characterized by high demandingness yet low responsiveness,
have been found to negatively affect healthy child development and to be related to both
internalizing symptoms (such as depressive symptomology and low self-esteem) as well
as externalizing problems such as delinquency and low internalization of moral norms
(e.g., Assor, Roth, & Deci, 2004; Barber, 2002).
One of the criticisms of Baumrind’s classifications of parenting styles concerns
the applicability of typologies in different cultures (Chao, 1994; Grolnick, 2003).
Findings from cross-cultural studies suggested that optimal parenting may vary
depending on culture due to the different cultural values and socialization goals of
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parents. Hence, the question of whether the positive outcomes of authoritative parenting
and the negative sequelae associated with authoritarian parenting hold across cultures has
been a topic of debate. For example, scholars adhering to the theoretical perspectives
within cultural psychology have taken a culturally relativistic perspective on the self and
parenting (Greenfield, Keller, Fuligni, & Maynard, 2003; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). In
these approaches, conceptions of self and morality are depicted as largely transmitted to
individuals through cultural ideologies and participation in shared rituals and practices
(Shweder et al., 2006). The individualism-collectivism (I-C) distinction, for example,
arguably has been the most widely used construct in cross-cultural psychology to explain
cultural differences in attitudes, behaviors, self-construals, and family dynamics
(Kâğitçibaşi, 1994; Kim, 1997; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). For instance, building upon
the I-C distinction, Markus and Kitayama (1991) suggested that people in individualistic
societies, such as those in North America and Europe, tend to have more independent
self-construals and hence view the self as autonomous and independent from others,
leading to a moral focus on personal choice and the assertion of individual needs. In
contrast, people in collectivistic societies, which include much of Asia, South America,
and Africa, have a higher interdependent or sociocentric conception of the self. The
sociocentric self is believed to be more adaptive to the more hierarchical structure of
many traditional societies, and is associated with a corresponding moral orientation
emphasizing maintenance of harmony, strict adherence to the existing social norms and
roles, as well as respect for authority and hierarchy.
Supporting these cultural relativist perspectives, some scholars have suggested
that parental control/authoritarian parenting may have different meanings across cultures
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and hence may not carry the same negative consequences for children's development
amongst children from interdependent and collectivist cultures (Chao & Tseng, 2002).
For instance, Chao (1994, 1996) pointed out that in Chinese culture, there is a notion of
guan (“training”) in parenting, which places a strong emphasis on children’s obedience,
adherence to socially desirable behaviors, and respect for parental authority. While it has
some overlapping components with Baumrind’s conceptualization of authoritarian
parenting (e.g., parental strictness and control, rejection of the child’s autonomy) and
hence often has been misinterpreted as “authoritarian,” it also differs in important ways
including its emphasis on parental involvement and support. Moreover, unlike
authoritarian parenting, guan is seen as motivated by love and concern by the parent and
is often regarded as a highly important component of Chinese parenting in raising a well-
adjusted child (Chao, 1994). Particularly due to an understanding of the competitive
academic environment that they are in, Chinese adolescents may view and interpret
moderate strictness and control as an expression of parental concern, care, and positive
involvement for the sake of ensuring their future well-being (Wang, 2014). Hence, it has
been suggested that the notion of guan is commonly viewed as having a positive
connotation in Chinese culture (Tobin, Wu, & Davidson, 1989). Accordingly,
Baumrind’s original conceptualization of parenting styles, based on her observations of
typical Western cultural parenting, has been criticized as not fully capturing the cultural
nuances of parenting in Chinese or other non-Western cultures (e.g., Chao, 1994, 1996).
However, several recent studies attempting to examine these cross-cultural
theories have failed to demonstrate the hypothesized relationship between authoritarian
parenting and positive outcomes for children, as well as the positive interpretation of
15
parental control in collectivist cultures, especially when authoritarian parenting is defined
as including a harsh, rigidly punitive, or psychologically-controlling parental manner. In
contrast to the assertion of Chao (1994), recent studies show that children and
adolescents, including those from collectivistic cultures, criticize several forms of
parental control commonly used in Asian cultures, such as psychological control (e.g.,
shaming, use of social comparisons) and they do not view these practices as a sign of
parental care and concern (Helwig, To, Wang, Liu, & Yang, 2014; Sorkhabi, 2012). In
fact, in a recent and comprehensive review, it was concluded that there were consistent
associations between authoritarian parenting and negative and conflictual family
dynamics, as well as poor maternal mental health across different ethnic groups
(Sorkhabi, 2012). However, more directive forms of parenting (including parental
monitoring and communication of clear boundaries) have been associated with positive
child outcomes in both Western and non-Western cultures (Sorkhabi, 2012), so long as
these forms of parenting are instantiated in a responsive and autonomy-supportive way
(e.g., with rational discipline, warmth and concern for the child).
Dimensional Theoretical Approach as Motivated by Self-determination Theory
Whereas Baumrind’s model of parenting typology was based on two dimensions
(responsiveness and demandingness), parenting styles are in fact multi-dimensional
constructs, as the debates over parenting style and culture reviewed in the last section
suggest (Chao, 1994; Sorkhabi, 2012). Authoritative parenting, for example, involves a
constellation of characteristics including parental acceptance, warmth, involvement,
psychological autonomy, and behavioral control (Steinberg, 1990). Trends in recent
parenting research hence have moved away from studying parenting using global
16
constructs, and instead have called for more specificity in defining the components that
make up these parenting styles, and research examining the distinct contribution of
individual parenting dimensions to outcomes for children in different cultures (Darling &
Steinberg, 1993). This move to disaggregate the parenting typology has led to a dramatic
increase in research examining the correlates and outcomes of different specific parenting
dimensions.
One of the key dimensions of parenting comprising authoritative parenting is the
notion of autonomy support. Authoritative parents support children’s autonomy in several
ways, including being attentive and responsive to children’s perspectives and emotional
needs and individuality, and providing them with meaningful choices over key aspects of
their lives (Rudy & Grusec, 2001). A theoretical perspective that highlights the
importance of autonomy is self-determination theory (SDT). SDT proposes that
psychological autonomy (i.e., the freedom of an individual to self-determine their own
behavior according to their own values and interests), together with a sense of
competence and relatedness, are basic, universal psychological needs holding across
culture and time (Deci & Ryan, 2013). As autonomy is the focus of this dissertation, the
subsequent review will focus on research findings regarding this need (although
relatedness and competence have shown similar general patterns, see Ryan & Deci,
2011). Hence, socialization practices that foster children’s needs for psychological
autonomy, characterized by parenting practices that respect children as autonomous
agents, are hypothesized as crucial in promoting psychological well-being (Ryan & Deci,
2001).
17
In line with the propositions of SDT, an emerging body of research conducted in
diverse settings, including Western and non-Western, individualist and collectivist
cultures, and urban and rural societies, consistently suggests that adolescents who
perceive their parents to be autonomy supportive and responsive also reported better
psychological adjustment (see Ryan & Deci, 2006). For example, Vansteenkiste and
colleagues (2005) examined the implications of parental autonomy support on students’
well-being and adjustment in China, a cultural context often characterized as
collectivistic and in which autonomy is often believed to be less important than in the
West (Pye, 1992). Contrary to this view, Vansteenkiste et al. (2005) found autonomy to
be positively correlated with psychological well-being and negatively correlated with
depression amongst Chinese university students. Similarly, Chirkov et al. (2003) moved
beyond simple dichotomies between individualistic versus collectivistic cultures by
adding another dimension, comparing vertical versus horizontal societies (i.e., societies
which value equality and mutual respect versus those that emphasize hierarchy and
obedience). Despite differences in cultural practices engaged in by individuals from four
diverse cultures (i.e., South Korea, Russia, Turkey, and the United States), the
relationship between perceived autonomy need satisfaction and psychological well-being
was maintained across cultures and gender. Both studies found that although there was a
stronger emphasis on interdependence and conformity in collectivist cultures or more
vertical societies, personal autonomy was nevertheless important and had the benefits of
enhancing psychological well-being. Similarly, perceived parental responsiveness
(caring) has been consistently found to predict less psychological distress and behavioral
problems among adolescents (Bogenschneider & Pallock, 2008). Indeed, responsiveness
18
was found to be a complementary dimension that often goes hand in hand with parental
autonomy support; parents who are more caring or responsive to their children also are
more responsive to their developmental needs for autonomy (Peterson-Badali, Morine,
Ruck, & Slonim, 2004; To et al., 2017).
Moreover, recent studies have found that not only is autonomy supportive and
responsive parenting related to adolescents’ psychological functioning, but specifically
democratic aspects of autonomy make a unique contribution to the psychological well-
being of adolescents; these findings apply even to those from non-Western cultural
settings such as China, where democratic values are not commonly promoted (To et al.,
2017). That study examined specific aspects of democratic family environment as
reflected in the promotion of children’s freedom of expression, participation in family
decision-making, and respect for due process in instances where the child is accused of
wrongdoing. These aspects of democratic family environment were found to be
associated with urban and rural Chinese adolescents’ reports of greater life satisfaction
and lower levels of depression (To et al., 2017). These relations between democratic
features of social organization, such as support for autonomy and personal choice, and
psychological well-being, have also been replicated in other settings, such as schools (Jia
et al., 2009; Way, Reddy, & Rhodes, 2007). Opportunities for choice and decision
making in the classroom were significantly associated with adolescents’ psychological
health, self-esteem and fewer depressive symptoms among both American (Way et al.,
2007) and urban Chinese adolescents (Jia et al., 2009). Taken together, these findings
provide support for self-determination theory’s claim that adolescents from a non-
19
Western, collectivistic culture also may benefit from socialization environments that are
autonomy supportive, responsive and democratic.
Intergenerational Transmission of Parenting
Given that parents who are more responsive, autonomy supportive and promote a
more democratic family environment contribute to better psychological outcomes in their
children, in the next sections we will look further into the factors that are related to the
development of parenting practices, including the role of social-cultural context and,
especially, the issue of cultural change. One question addressed by this thesis is how
cultural parenting practices are transmitted across generations, and the impact of socio-
cultural change on this process, as exemplified by the case of China.
Traditionally, two prominent perspectives have guided most research on the
intergenerational transmission of parenting: social learning theory and attachment theory.
Both theories take an enculturation view, emphasizing the effects of social transmission,
and have been widely used to explain why many children grow up replicating the
parenting styles in which they were raised. From the social learning perspective, children
learn and internalize parenting practices through experiential learning, observation and
imitation of parental models (Bandura, 1977). Through the lens of attachment theory,
Bowlby (1988) suggested that a child’s experience with their parents or primary caregiver
leads to the development of an internal working model that forms the foundation for
future relationships. It is hypothesized that this internal representation will then act as a
prototype and influence the way one interacts with others (e.g., their own children).
According to these theories, we would then expect that parents would likely adopt similar
parenting practices that they themselves experienced while growing up.
20
On the other hand, more recent ecological frameworks (e.g., Bronfenbrenner &
Morris, 2006; Crockett & Silbereisen, 2000) posit that there could be various stable and
dynamic factors occurring on multiple, interacting levels that can shape cognition and
behaviors (including the way we parent). In addition to the direct influence and modeling
from parents, there are different levels of influencing factors at the biological,
psychological, social, cultural and historical levels that interact dynamically with each
other and change over time as a person develops and becomes a parent. Although there
are some relatively stable contextual factors (e.g., residing in an urban vs. rural setting,
socioeconomic status and parental education levels) that appear to play a significant role
in predicting the quality and style of parenting (Campbell & Gilmore, 2007; Chen et al.,
2000; Hoff, Laursen, & Tardif, 2002), recent studies have called for research into more
dynamic factors, such as modernization and sociocultural shift, that might influence
societal views of appropriate parenting (Conger, Belsky, & Capaldi, 2009). Research
from this perspective has shown that, instead of being a passive recipient of their
socialization and simply replicating their own experience, individuals play an active role
in constructing their parenting beliefs and practices as they experience changes in their
social environment (Campbell & Gilmore, 2007; Chen & Chen, 2010; Elder, 1994;
Greenfield, 2009).
Greenfield’s Theory of Sociocultural Shift
Moreover, it has been argued that society, culture, values and human behaviors
(including parenting) are not static. Greenfield’s (2009) theory of social change and
human development postulates relationships between ecological change and cultural
change, and that cultural orientations are adaptive to and influenced by the environmental
21
conditions. Specifically, she argues that collectivistic values, such as emphasis on the
welfare of the group/community over individuals, are adaptive to Gemeinschaft
environments (“community”; characterized by relatively poor, rural, subsistence-based
environments with low levels of technology and formal education; Tönnies, 1887/1957).
On the other hand, individualistic values, such as a focus on personal choice, privacy and
materialism, are adaptive to Gesellschaft societies (“society”; characterized by relatively
wealthy, urban environments with high levels of technology and formal education;
Tönnies, 1887/1957). As urbanization has been accompanied by advancement in
technological development and increased higher education in urban populations, the
world has generally and gradually moved away from the Gemeinschaft toward the
Gesellschaft direction. Greenfield’s (2009) theory hence provides a framework for
understanding the implications of urbanization for shifts in cultural values and
orientations, as well as corresponding parenting practices.
It has been proposed that the boundaries between the two distinct cultural
orientations are more fluid and dynamic than what was previously theorized, especially
within developing societies (Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2008). Indeed, many have begun to
examine the coexistence of individualism and collectivism at the macro-societal level, as
well as the integration of independent and interdependent socialization goals at the micro
level – in which both might vary across societal contexts and development (Tamis-
LeMonda et al., 2008). Similarly, different parenting practices may co-exist as families
respond and adapt to the global changing environment toward an urban lifestyle. Hence,
there has been a call to move away from polarizing cultures and toward understanding
how social and cultural changes, as a result of globalization and different policy
22
implementations, may have shaped parental socialization goals, beliefs, and practices. In
the face of the rapid social, cultural, and economic changes that are currently underway in
contemporary China, this shift in cultural conceptualization is particularly relevant for
understanding how personal and sociocultural factors may interact and influence the
parenting of today’s children in China, and in turn, influence children’s psychological
well-being. These new perspectives also point to the importance of considering cultural
contexts and the effects of social change when studying the universality and function of
autonomy supportive and democratic socialization environments.
Social Change in China and Human Development
The impact of social change appears to operate at multiple levels. As Greenfield’s
theory of social change and human development and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological
framework suggest, adolescent development is affected by the dynamics of the immediate
social contexts that they experience on a daily basis, also known as microsystems (e.g.,
families), which are in turn affected by macro-level (e.g., societal) environment and
changes. Therefore, in order to understand how social changes may have impacted
adolescent development in a particular sociocultural context, we need first to understand
the sociocultural and historical context of the adolescents’ environment.
Within traditional China, Confucianism-prescribed parenting has been argued to
be adaptive in an agricultural and socialist environment in which collective efforts are
essential for the common good of the community (Lin, Huang, & Wang, 2015). Qualities
like obedience and following orders from authority are not only consistent with
traditional cultural values, but have also been highly valued in settings where most
workers would secure their life-long employment in the work units of a state-owned
23
company, which was the case in the past for most workers in China (Cai & Wang, 2010).
However, the economic reform and open-up policy (started in 1978) has begun a new
historical chapter in China. Under the reform policy, China has undergone a dramatic
transition from state socialism into a market-oriented economy. This economic change
comes along with the demand for very different qualities and skills in the labor market, as
well as a culture that is influenced by a myriad of social forces and ideologies. Other
values and ideologies such as capitalism, individual choice, and freedom were introduced
and began to coexist with traditional Chinese values (Wang, 2014). This confluence of
ideologies has likely influenced Chinese parents to reflect upon the way they were raised
and, by extension, to possibly adapt their child-rearing practices (Wang, 2014). As
Flanagan (2000) suggested, social change challenges established patterns of behaviors
and thinking, leading individuals to question and reflect upon their current practice.
Parents in China, especially those who reside in urban areas, witnessed drastic
intergenerational change as they became parents of today’s children. It is likely that, as
Chinese parents became aware of changing societal demands in a competitive and
market-oriented society, they also became alert to the fact that traditional Chinese
parenting (that aims to instill cooperative, obedient behaviors) is no longer compatible
with the qualities of labour that the market demands (which value characteristics like
individual initiative-taking, competitiveness, creativity, and independence in order to
thrive (Naftali, 2016).
As parents react to social and cultural change by questioning and re-evaluating
established parenting practices and beliefs, they construct their own way of parenting that
is more attuned and sensitive to the needs of their children as well as societal demands
24
(Greenfield, 2009). Indeed, parenting in contemporary China has been observed to be
gradually shifting away from the traditional stereotypical image of authoritarian parenting
to practices that increasingly emphasize the cultivation of children’s own sense of self
and qualities like creativity and independence (e.g., Chen & Chen, 2010; Way et al.,
2013). In a cohort-design study, Chen and colleagues studied parental childrearing
attitudes between parents of elementary school children in two cohorts (1998 and 2002)
in urban China. While parents of both cohorts did not differ from each other regarding
their emphasis on academic achievement (both highly valued its importance), parents in
the later cohort reported themselves to be higher in parental warmth and autonomy
support, as well as lower on power assertion than those in the earlier cohort (Chen &
Chen, 2010). It appears that there is a gradual shift in parenting in China, especially in
fast-changing urban settings, that is consistent with Greenfield’s proposition that
parenting is adapting to changing social ecologies. Indeed, when Lu and Chang (2013)
conducted semi-structured interviews with urban Chinese parents, none of the parents
reported beliefs or practices that are fully congruent with traditional Chinese parenting.
Instead, the majority of parents reported parent-child relationships that were egalitarian,
democratic and child-centered.
This transformation of parenting beliefs and behaviors, especially in the urban
areas, also has been accompanied and affected by the state’s implementation of the one-
child policy in 1980. After this policy was enacted, Chinese parents expressed feeling the
pressure to invest all of their resources into their sole offspring to ensure their success
(Naftali, 2016). To achieve this goal, many urban parents turned to various resources,
from magazine articles by parenting experts to social media, for answers on how to best
25
parent their only children. Messages that were widely spread through these media were
heavily influenced by Western ideologies and much of the content was about encouraging
parents to expand their childrearing goals beyond the behavioral and psychological
qualities that are traditionally valued (Naftali, 2016). Nevertheless, the shift in parenting
practices and beliefs was not purely one sided. In fact, parents in China have been
receiving a mixture of different kinds of messages from the popular media. On the one
hand, academic scholars and educators in China have been advocating the importance of
parents’ attending to children’s psychological needs and promoting their
individualization. On the other hand, extreme authoritarian parenting emphasizing the
importance of maintaining hierarchical intergenerational relationships has been
popularized by the writers of books such as Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and
Brothers and Sisters of Peking University (originally titled Beat Them Into Peking
University), which advocated authoritarian forms of parenting as essential for raising
successful children (Chua, 2011; Xiao, 2011). Moreover, Chinese parents expressed
continuing support for the virtue of filial piety and traditional collectivistic values that
emphasize relatedness as being equally important to cultivate in their children (Lin et al.,
2015). These mixed and, at times, contradictory views and beliefs about parenting
contribute to contemporary Chinese parents’ uncertainty about the “proper” way of
raising their children (Naftali, 2014). Consequently, as scholars (e.g., Tamis-LeMonda et
al., 2008) suggested, parenting in China was observed to have shifted from the pure
traditional form of practice and is now characterized by the dynamic coexistence of the
individualistic and collectivistic developmental goals of autonomy, relatedness, and the
importance of child obedience.
26
While it is impossible to go back in time to examine what parenting was like in
China before the social and economic reforms, in the present study, I attempted to obtain
a glimpse of parenting in the previous generation through mothers’ retrospective recall of
how they were parented. I am interested in examining whether and how mothers are
incorporating their experience of social changes into their current parenting practices. As
Chinese mothers begin to adapt and change their parenting practices as a result of macro-
level societal changes, it is also of particular interest to examine whether and how these
changing parental practices may also impact adolescents’ development. Putting together
the proposition of SDT and the shift in focus toward more autonomy supportive
parenting, I am interested in exploring how these changes in parenting recently observed
in contemporary China may also contribute to the well-being of today’s Chinese
adolescents.
Different Pace of Development in Urban versus Rural China
The socioeconomic, ideological (i.e., parenting beliefs and behaviors) and
demographic changes described above have, however, mainly taken place in urban China.
Rural areas, especially cities which are far away from the coastal region, have remained
undeveloped, economically disadvantaged, highly traditional, and lacking in higher
educational opportunities (Knight & Song, 1999), corresponding well to Greenfield’s
(2009) Gemeinschaft environment. Compared to urban China, rural areas experienced
much less impact brought about by the reform of the market economy. Moreover, rural
Chinese parents are allowed to have more than one child to help the families with farm
work. In research with Western samples, social context has been found to play a
significant role in predicting both parenting and adolescents’ outcomes. For example,
27
socioeconomic disadvantage has been found to be associated with less warm and more
controlling parenting (Scaramella, Neppl, Ontai, & Conger, 2008). In research conducted
in China, Chen and his colleages (2010) found that as urban parents perceived more
social change (including work-related opportunities, self-improvement in work) than their
counterparts in the rural area, their urban adolescents also correspondingly reported lower
levels of parental control and greater encouragement of independence in comparison to
the rural adolescents. The current study sought to examine potential differences between
perceptions of parenting in urban and rural areas within China, thus examining both a
Gesellschaft and a Gemeinschaft environment (Greenfield, 2009) under the umbrella of a
shared cultural context. The different pace of change in the urban and rural areas would
thus allow us to examine how parenting may differ in different settings coexisting within
the same nation that broadly correspond to the Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft distinction,
and in turn, how these differences may impact adolescents’ psychological well-being.
Increased Rural-to-Urban Migration:
In addition to the distinctly different experience between people in the urban and
rural regions of China, the full-scale reform towards a market economy and the loosening
of restrictions on migration have together led to a dramatic increase of rural-to-urban
migration (Ma, 2002). Since the implementation of the reform and open door policy,
there has been a significant amount of foreign investment into the manufacturing industry
in China (Ma, 2002). In response to the unprecedented growth of the economy and an
increased demand for labor in the urban cities, many rural residents moved to urban areas
to seek greater job opportunities and the possibilities of a better life. Therefore, parents of
todays’ urban children are not a homogenous group. Instead, they are composed of
28
parents from different origins, with many of them having moved from rural regions to the
urban cities at some point in their life (Ma, 2002). While some previous studies (e.g.,
Fuligni & Zhang, 2004; Wen & Lin, 2012) have differentiated and identified setting
differences in urban and rural China (or examined a specific migrant population), no
studies that I am aware of have also examined the impact of social migration for parents
who have already settled and reside in the urban setting, and how parents’ place of origin
(urban versus rural) may have an impact on their current parenting behaviors. Whereas I
expect that rural mothers would be exposed to the least influence of the societal reforms,
and urban mothers born and raised in the urban areas to be exposed to the greatest impact
of the reforms, mothers who moved from rural areas to urban cities may be in an
intermediate phase, having had a mixed socialization experience. Mothers who moved
from rural to urban areas as a child may still be using more traditional parenting practices
and upholding socialization goals that are more consistent with the traditional values and
beliefs in their daily interactions at home. In the meantime, they also would have
experienced the most drastic change in their surrounding societal environment as they
develop and become parents themselves within the milieu of fast-changing urban China.
Objectives of the Present Study and Hypotheses
The purpose of the current research was twofold. First, I desired to investigate
what parenting in urban and rural China looks like in contemporary China. As discussed
earlier, I am interested in discerning how mothers from different origin-current setting
combinations (urban, rural-to-urban, and rural) may differ from each other in their
childrearing practices. I expected that the three groups would differ from each other in
terms of autonomy supportive and democratic parenting, with urban mothers being the
29
most autonomy supportive and democratic, and rural mothers being the least supportive
of these types of parenting. On the other hand, I expected that mothers of the three groups
would not differ from each other in terms of their nurturance and responsiveness (Chen et
al., 2010).
Previous studies either have focused on adolescents' perceptions of parenting, or
examined parents' self-reports of their parenting practices. Yet, few studies have looked
at both reporters (e.g., mothers and their children) and compared their perceptions of
parenting and the relative contribution of these perceptions to adolescents' psychological
well-being. The current study examined the perspectives of both the mother and the
adolescent respondents, and explored whether and how mothers and their adolescent
children may differ in their views of parenting. The little extant prior research measuring
both mothers and adolescents’ report on parenting has shown non-significant to moderate
correspondence between their reports of parenting, with mothers reporting themselves to
be more autonomy supportive and less controlling than their children’s reports. In these
studies, adolescents’ ratings generally have been found to be more valid than those of
their mothers (Cheung, Pomerantz, Wang, & Qu, 2016; Gonzales, Cauce, & Mason,
1996). Given that adolescents’ perceptions of parenting have been found to be of central
importance within SDT accounts of psychological well-being (Chirkov & Ryan, 2001), I
expected that adolescents’ reports, as coming from individuals who directly experience
the socialization practices, would be more highly correlated with their psychological
well-being than would their mothers’ reports.
Controlling for the effects of demographic variables, I also aimed to advance the
understanding of the role of mothering and democratic family climate on adolescents’
30
psychological functioning. Based on SDT, I expected that both responsive parenting and
the provision of personal autonomy would be related to adolescents' psychological well-
being. As suggested by findings of recent research (e.g., To et al., 2017), I further
expected that democratic family environment would have unique functional significance,
above and beyond general autonomy support and responsiveness, for adolescents’
psychological well-being.
Given the hypothesized relationships between parenting and adolescents’ health
and well-being, the second goal of the current study was to examine how different
parenting dimensions may have changed over time and how different demographic and
socialization variables of the mothers may influence the way they currently parent. On
the one hand, according to social learning and attachment theory, I expected that mothers’
own socialization experience would serve as a prototype and predict how they currently
parent. On the other hand, I also expected that other variables (e.g., the experience of
urbanization for urban-residing mothers) may lead mothers to reflect on their own
experience and construct parenting beliefs that are more in line with the developmental
needs of adolescents in a changing society.
Specifically, I looked at the mothers’ current setting (i.e., whether they currently
live in urban versus rural areas of China), their origins (i.e., whether they were born in
urban versus rural areas of China), parental education level, and their retrospective recall
of parenting and family climate, to examine which variables may predict their current
parenting practice. While there are no studies I am aware of examining how parents’
origin and their migration from rural to urban areas may affect parenting, I hypothesized
that rural-to-urban mothers would continue to be influenced by the traditional Chinese
31
parenting and hence would parent in a less autonomy-supportive fashion than their urban
counterparts. In comparison, urban mothers who were born and grew up in a modern,
urban setting may have more exposure to a Gesellschaft social ecology, and hence may
be more responsive to their children’s autonomy needs. Regardless of urban/rural setting,
I also expected that the way mothers were parented would directly influence their current
parenting practices, with mothers who were raised by autonomy supportive parents being
more autonomy supportive as they themselves become parents, and those who recalled
responsive parenting would show more current responsiveness to their children.
However, given the dramatic changes that have taken place in urban China in the past
few decades, I also expect that contemporary Chinese parenting, especially in the urban
areas, overall would demonstrate a significant shift from the traditional Chinese parenting
these mothers themselves may have experienced in the previous generation.
Method
Participants and Research Sites
The total sample consisted of 128 Chinese adolescents and their mothers from two
research sites (in urban and rural China), with 64 adolescent-mother dyads from each
setting. Among the adolescent participants, 64 were early-adolescents (M = 12.45, SD =
.95) and 64 were mid-adolescents (M = 15.28, SD = .66), with gender evenly distributed
within each setting and age group combination. Because the urban sample contained
dyads that were approximately evenly distributed between those whose mothers were
originally from urban Chinese settings (30 dyads) and those whose mothers migrated to
urban settings from rural areas at some point in their lives (34 dyads), I was able to
compare maternal origin (i.e., urban versus rural-to-urban) in our analyses. The
32
adolescents in both the urban and rural-to-urban maternal origin group were born and
raised in the urban area, whereas those in the rural group were born and raised in the rural
area, as was true of their mothers.
The sample was drawn from schools in two distinct locales in China: the city of
Nanjing in Jiangsu province and the rural area of Feicheng in Shandong Province. These
research sites were selected to represent different milieux within China and to provide a
contrast between adolescents and mothers who were from a modern, economically
developed city and those who were from a much more traditional, agriculturally-based,
rural community with far less exposure to Western influences. The urban Chinese
subsample was drawn from schools serving a largely middle-class population located in
the city of Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu province and one of the largest commercial
centers in the East China region. Residents of Nanjing, like those in other modern cities
in China, overall have a much higher standing of living, level of education, and exposure
to foreign cultures than people living in rural areas. Average per capita wage for residents
of Nanjing is 40, 286 yuan, or US$6,486 (Nanjing Statistical Yearbook, 2013). Parental
education (in years) and occupational levels were listed in Table 1. Parental occupation
(both mothers and fathers) was scored on a 5-point scale (Ren & Edwards, 2015), with
“1” indicating an individual who is unemployed (including being a homemaker), “2” as
non-technical or semi-technical worker (e.g., farmers, factory workers), “3” as technical
worker (e.g., owners of small stores, drivers, technicians and mechanics), “4” as semi-
professional (e.g., elementary teachers, managers and public servant), “5” as professional,
officer and administrator (e.g., doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers of higher education,
researchers, middle- and high-rank government officials). The average occupational level
33
for the urban group was 4.03 (SD = 1.18) and the average occupational level for the rural-
to-urban group was 3.67 (SD = 1.11).
The rural sample came from two schools located in the rural area of Feicheng in
Western Shandong Province. The region from which the sample was drawn was chosen
to be representative of a typical rural and agricultural region in China, and thus
substantially less developed economically and more traditional in character than the
larger urban centers. The average occupational level was 2.19 (SD = .42). The majority
(76%) of Chinese rural parents were farmers by occupation. Overall, mothers and fathers
in Nanjing (both urban and rural-to-urban parents) had attained a significantly higher
educational and occupational level than their counterparts in the rural area (see Table 1).
Table 1. Parental education and occupational levels (in years and in categories).
Urban Urban-to-Rural Rural Mother’s Educational Level (years) 14.75a
(SD = 2.86) 12.79b
(SD =3.32) 7.87c
(SD =2.13) Father’s Education Level (years) 14.69a
(SD = 3.34) 14.06a
(SD = 2.32) 9.84b
(SD=2.03) Education
Never received any education 0% 0% 1% Grade school only 2% 5% 25% Middle school only 8% 10% 52% High school only 5% 22% 19% Post-secondary education (e.g., college/associate degree) 20% 31% 2% University degree 40% 27% 0% Master’s/Doctoral degree 13% 4% 0% Unknown education level 12% 1% 1%
Occupational level 4.03a (SD = 1.18)
3.67a (SD = 1.11)
2.19b
(SD = .42) Note.Superscriptsareusedtoindicatepost-hoccomparisonsbetweenthethreeorigin-settingsintermsoftheireducationallevels.Ratingssharingthesameletterswithineachrowdidnotdiffersignificantlyfromoneanother,whereasratingshavingdifferentletterswithineachrowdifferedsignificantlyfromoneanother.
34
Procedures
Participants were recruited from participating public schools in China but tested
within their homes in order to allow for more extensive data collection sessions and the
involvement of parents. Parents who had expressed interest in participating in the study
were contacted by telephone and details of the research study were explained during the
phone call. A visit was paid to the home of interested families at a time convenient to
them. Questionnaires were administered in two separate rooms for each mother-
adolescent dyad. Parental informed consent and adolescents’ assent (verbal and written)
was obtained prior to data collection. All participants were told that participation would
be on a wholly volunteer basis, that confidentiality would be guaranteed, and that
participation could be discontinued at any time.
Participants (adolescents and their mothers) were given, first, an interview
examining their spontaneous conceptions of salient children’s rights issues. Interviews
were conducted in Chinese (Mandarin) by our Chinese collaborator or trained research
assistants. Participants were told that there were no right or wrong answers. All
interviews were audio-recorded with the permission of the interviewees, and
subsequently transcribed verbatim in Chinese for coding. While the interviews conducted
were not part of the current research, these results have been reported in a conference
presentation (To & Helwig, 2015). Subsequently, participants completed a set of self-
report questionnaires. During completion of the questionnaire, a trained native research
assistant was present to clarify any questions that might arise. Urban Chinese families
received two movie tickets and rural Chinese families received RMB150 (approximately
24 USD) as a token of appreciation for their participation. All procedures in this study
35
were reviewed and approved by the University of Toronto Research Ethics Board. On
average, adolescents took approximately 30 minutes and mothers took approximately 40
minutes to complete the questionnaires.
Measures
To ensure accurate understanding and readability of the questionnaires (especially
for the rural parents), Chinese translations of all measures used in this study were first
pilot tested with four urban and four rural Chinese adolescent-mother dyads.
Incorporating feedback from the participants, we then modified some of the wording in
order to improve readability and comprehension of the questionnaires. Standard back-
translation techniques (Brislin, 1970) were then employed to ensure the accuracy of the
translations.
Autonomy support and responsiveness. Adolescent participants were given the
Perception of Parents scales (POPS, originally derived from Robbins, 1995; see
Appendix A) to assess their perceived maternal autonomy support and responsiveness
(warmth and involvement). The scales consisted of nine items about autonomy support
(e.g., “My mother allows me to decide things for myself”) and twelve items about
responsiveness (e.g., “My mother puts time and energy into helping me”). Items in this
questionnaire were rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (not at all true) to
7 (very true). The internal consistency (Cronbach’s alphas) for the adolescent reported
autonomy support and responsiveness subscales were acceptable (alpha for autonomy
support = .81 and for responsiveness = .83).
Mothers were asked to fill out two versions of the Perception of Parents scales
(POPS). One was modified to measure mothers’ self-report of their own current
36
parenting, and another one measured mothers’ retrospective report of how they perceived
that they were parented when they themselves were adolescents. Since the POPS were
originally created for children to report on their parents’ parenting, minor wording
changes were made in the mother self-reported POPS to minimize social desirability
concerns (e.g., one of the reversed items, “My mother doesn’t seem to think of me often”,
was not reversed in the self-report scale and rephrased as “I think of my child often”.)
Since there is no differentiation between past and present tense in Chinese language, the
POPS used by mothers when reporting their experiences of how they perceived being
parented was the same as the one filled out by their adolescents. The only difference was
that mothers were asked to recall how they were parented when they were at their
adolescents’ age. The internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alphas) for the mothers’ self-
reported current autonomy support and responsiveness were .69 and .76 respectively. The
internal consistencies for mothers’ retrospective recall of how they were parented were
.81 (autonomy support) and .85 (responsiveness).
Democratic climate and tolerance of dissent. To examine the unique role of
democratic family environment, both adolescents and mothers filled out the five-item
democratic family climate measure (To et al., 2017; see Appendix B). This scale
measures particular democratic dimensions of family life and structure, such as children’s
freedom of expression (e.g., “There is mutual respect between me and my parents even in
areas in which we disagree”), perceptions of due process (e.g., “My parents will listen to
my explanation and offer a fair hearing if I am accused of wrongdoing”), and
involvement in decision making (e.g., “In my family, I am given the chance to help make
decisions”). Each item is assessed on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not at all
37
true) to 7 (very true). Similar to the POPS, mothers were asked both to self-report their
current family democratic climate, as well as their retrospective perceived family
democratic climate when they were adolescents. Reliabilities of the 5-item democratic
family climate scale were .71 (for adolescent report), .62 (for mother self-report) and .80
(for mothers’ retrospective report). An additional item measuring tolerance of dissent (“It
is possible to criticize my parents’ decisions”) was presented in conjunction with the
democratic climate measure but was analyzed separately, given the unique predictive
power of this item as found in prior studies (e.g., Khoury-Kassabri & Ben-Arieh, 2009;
To et al., 2017).
Psychological Well-being. Finally, adolescent participants completed three
measures of psychological well-being. Given the hypothesized relations between parental
control of autonomy and internalizing symptomology (Chirkov & Ryan, 2001; Hasebe,
Nucci, & Nucci, 2004), participants were given the 10-item version of the Children’s
Depression Inventory (CDI short; Kovacs, 2011). Each item on the CDI consists of a set
of three statements describing a symptom of depression. Responses were scored in order
of increasing severity from 0 to 2. As another measure of common internalizing
symptomology, participants were also given the short form of the Revised Children’s
Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS-2; Reynolds & Richmond, 2008). RCMAS-2 short
form is a 10-item Likert-type questionnaire used to measure child trait anxiety.
Participants answered questions about their worries on a 4-point scale, ranging from 1
(Never) to 4 (Always) for each question. As a more general measure of well-being,
participants were given the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, &
Griffin, 1985). Participants indicated agreement with each of the statements (e.g., “I am
38
satisfied with my life”) on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7
(Strongly Agree). All of these measures have been determined to be valid for mainland
Chinese populations in prior research (e.g., Qin, Pomerantz, & Wang, 2009; To et al.,
2017; Yang, Ollendick, Dong, & Xia, 1995). Reliabilities of these measures in the current
study were acceptable (Cronbach’s alpha = .64 for CDI, .81 for RCMAS-2, and .73 for
the Life Satisfaction Scale).
Results
In this study, while I tried to categorize the heterogeneous group of urban mothers
into several different groups according to the age at which they migrated to urban areas,
preliminary analyses showed that groups that migrate at different ages did not
significantly differ from one another. Hence, to increase the statistical power for analyses,
I only differentiated urban mothers who were born and raised in urban areas from those
who were born in rural areas and migrated to urban areas.
While parental education and occupational levels may act as confounds when
comparing the three origin-setting groups in the following analyses, these variables are
largely orthogonal amongst the groups. In fact, these demographic variables are central to
the characteristics of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft forms of social ecologies and hence
are intended to be part of the categorical comparisons. Therefore these demographic
variables were not treated as covariates in the following between-group comparisons.
Subsequent analyses examined Chinese mothers’ and adolescents’ reports of
current parenting, correspondences between mothers’ and adolescents’ reports,
correlations between adolescents’ and mothers’ reports and adolescent psychological
39
well-being, relations between mothers’ current reports of parenting and their retrospective
reports of how they were parented, and lastly, correlates of mothers’ current parenting.
Chinese Mothers’ Report of Their Current Parenting
To examine the current landscape of parenting and family climate in
contemporary China, we first looked at how mother participants reported on how they are
currently parenting their adolescents. Univariate analysis of variances (ANOVAs, see
Table 1a) were conducted and revealed that mothers from the three different origin-
setting groups (urban, rural-to-urban, and rural) differed significantly from one another in
their self-reported parenting. As seen in Table 2a, post-hoc analyses comparing mothers
from the three origin-setting groups indicated that urban mothers reported themselves to
be significantly more autonomy supportive and responsive than rural-to-urban and rural
mothers did. Urban mothers also reported themselves to be significantly more democratic
and tolerant of dissent than rural mothers, whereas rural-to-urban mothers did not differ
from the other two groups on these variables. Taken together, these findings confirm the
expectations that urban mothers would parent in a more autonomy supportive and
democratic way than rural mothers, and that rural-to-urban mothers would generally
parent in ways that were in between the other groups on these measures.
Adolescents’ Report of Their Mothers’ Parenting
Adolescents’ reports of their mothers’ current parenting practices were
investigated with univariate analysis of variance (ANOVAs) in order to determine
whether adolescents of mothers from different origin-setting groups differed in their
reports. As shown in Table 2b, the three groups only differed significantly in the area of
tolerance of dissent. Specifically, adolescents of mothers from the urban and rural-to-
40
urban groups reported their mothers to be more tolerant of dissent than did rural
adolescents. However, the three groups did not differ from each other in their reports of
parental autonomy support, responsiveness, and democratic family climate.
Comparisons Between and Correspondence Among Mothers’ and Adolescents’
Report of Parenting
In order to answer the question of whether reports of parenting from mothers and
adolescents differed significantly from each other, repeated measures analyses of
variance (ANOVAs) were conducted (with setting, maternal origin, adolescent’s age
group and gender as between subject factors). Findings for mother-adolescent dyadic
comparisons showed that mothers' self reports of their parenting differed significantly
from adolescents' reports (see Table 3). Mothers consistently rated themselves to be more
autonomy supportive (F(1, 123) = 3.99, p < .05), democratic (F(1,123) = 4.67, p < .05),
and tolerant of dissent (F(1, 123) = 21.00, p < .001) than the way their adolescents
reported them to be (see Tables 2a and 2b). Mothers and adolescents did not differ,
however, in their reports of responsiveness.
The extent to which adolescents’ reports of parenting corresponded with mothers’
self-reports was evaluated using simple correlations. The correspondence between
adolescents’ and mothers’ reports of autonomy supportive parenting and tolerance of
dissent was in the low-moderate range (rs = .20 and .18 respectively, p < .05), whereas
the correspondence between the reports was non-significant for responsive parenting and
democratic family climate (rs = .08 and .12 respectively, ns) (Table 3).
41
Table 2. Mean (M), Standard Deviations (SD) of POPS and Democratic Climate Scale as reported by (a) Mothers for their Current Parenting, (b) Adolescents for their Mothers’ Current Parenting, and (c) Mothers for How They were Parented (Retrospectively)
(a)Mother(Self-reportCurrent) (b)Adolescent-report(mother)
Urban
Rural-to-Urban Rural F
ηp2
Urban
Rural-to-Urban
Rural
F
ηp2
M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
AutonomySupport 6.08a .62
5.54b .83
5.22b .73
10.48***
.15 5.58 0.96
5.41 1.16
5.12 .95
1.94(ns)
.03
Responsiveness 6.29a .66
5.59b .84
5.75b .68
6.08** .10
5.82 1.09
5.83 .99
5.61 .82
.84(ns) .01
DemocraticClimate 6.10a .91
5.49ab .79
5.49b 1.00
3.51*
.06
5.7 1.26
5.15 1.47
5.32 .9
1.46(ns)
.02
ToleranceofDissent 5.64a 1.27 4.86ab 1.67 4.32b 1.51 6.07** .10 4.30a 1.95 4.68a 1.77 3.14b 1.76 9.12*** .14
(c)Mother(Retrospective)
Urban
Rural-to-Urban
Rural F ηp2
M SD M SD
M SD
AutonomySupport 4.73 1.15 4.8 1.24 5.22 0.89
2.73(ns) .05
Responsiveness 4.94a 0.84
5.00a 1.16
5.83b 0.82
12.32***
.18
DemocraticClimate 4.67a 1.09 5.09ab 1.40 5.49b 0.97
4.32* .07
ToleranceofDissent 3.96 1.38 4.11 1.41 3.48 1.81 1.84(ns) .03
Note.Ratingscalesareona7-pointscale,with1=“notatalltrue”to7=“verytrue.”Note.Superscriptsareusedtoindicatepost-hoccomparisonsbetweenthethreeorigin-settingswithineachparentingdimension.Ratingssharingthesameletterswithineachparentingdimensiondidnotdiffersignificantlyfromoneanother,whereasratingshavingdifferentletterswithineachparentingdimensiondifferedsignificantlyfromoneanother.Note.*p≤.05,**p≤.01,***p≤.001.
42
Table 3. Mean (M), Standard Deviations (SD) and Correlations Among Mother Self-reported and Adolescent Reported Parenting and Family Democratic Climate
Mother Self-report Adolescent Report t (Cohen's d) r
M SD M SD Autonomy Support 5.49 .79
5.28 1.03 * (d = 0.18) .20*
Responsiveness 5.81 .76
5.68 .92 ns (d = 0.11) .08 Democratic Climate 5.61 .94
5.34 1.16 * (d = 0.20) .12
Tolerance of Dissent 4.77 1.59 3.84 1.91 *** (d = 0.41) .18* Note. *p ≤.05, **p ≤.01, ***p ≤.001.
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations Among Variables
Pearson-product moment correlations were used to examine relations among
variables. Table 4 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations of all study
variables related to mothers’ current parenting and adolescents’ psychological well-being
for the full sample. The univariate distributions for each measures of psychological well-
being were approximately normal. Skewness and kurtosis for each variable was examined
and determined to be within acceptable limits (Tabachnick & Fidel, 2001).
In the present study, we hypothesized that parenting variables would be associated
with adolescents’ psychological well-being. These hypothesized relations were generally
supported. Adolescent-reported autonomy support, responsiveness and democratic
climate were all correlated positively with depression (reversed) and life satisfaction.
Adolescents’ anxiety (reversed) was positively correlated with their report of family
democratic climate, but negatively correlated with their report of tolerance of dissent at
home. However, mother-reported family environmental variables were found not to be
significantly correlated with any measures of adolescent-reported psychological well-
being. Since only adolescent-reported (but not mother-reported) parenting and family
43
environmental variables were associated with adolescent-reported psychological
adjustment, only adolescent-reported variables were used in the following regression
analyses.
44
Table 4.
Mean (M), Standard Deviations (SD), and Pearson Correlations of All Study Variables Related to Family Socialization Environment
and Adolescents’ Psychological Well Being For The Full Sample
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1. Autonomy Support (A) --
2. Responsiveness (A) .84*** --
3. Democratic Climate (A) .71*** .67*** --
4. Tolerance of Dissent (A) .27** .19* .20* --
5. Autonomy Support (M) .20* .17 .27** .25** --
6. Responsiveness (M) .08 .08 .27** .02 .61*** --
7. Democratic Climate (M) .03 .01 .12 .09 .62*** .58*** --
8. Tolerance of Dissent (M) .05 .04 .09 .18* .46*** .26** .33*** --
9. Depression (R) .36*** .32*** .39*** -.07 .15 .16 .09 -.04 --
10. Anxiety (R) .15 .13 .18* -.20* .14 .15 .12 -.09 .44*** --
11. Life Satisfaction .42*** .36*** .41*** .03 .17 .13 .13 .08 .38*** .36*** --
Mean 5.28 5.68 5.34 3.84 5.49 5.81 5.61 4.77 1.72 2.85 4.94
SD 1.03 .92 1.16 1.91 .79 .76 .94 1.59 .23 .51 1.08
Note. (M) = mother-reported; (A) = adolescent-reported; (R) = reverse scored. *p ≤.05, **p ≤.01, ***p ≤.001.
45
Associations Between Parenting and Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being
In order to control for demographic variables in the regression model, we first
investigated which of the demographics were significantly related to the outcome
variables. Symptoms of depression were found to vary with gender, female participants
(M = 1.77, SD = .21) reported a higher level of depression symptoms compared to the
male participants (M = 1.66, SD = .24); F(1, 116) = 6.44, p < .05, ηp2 = .05. In addition,
early-adolescents (M = 2.95, SD = .58) displayed more anxiety symptoms than mid-
adolescents (M = 2.74, SD = .42); F(1, 116) = 5.32, p < .05, ηp2 = .04. A main effect of
setting was not found, demonstrating that neither levels of depression, anxiety nor life
satisfaction varied according to the urban or rural setting. Hence setting was not included
in the following hierarchical regression analyses.
Next, several hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine
relations between family environment variables and adolescents’ psychological well-
being. Demographic variables (e.g., adolescents’ gender, age group) were entered in the
first step as controls and also to allow evaluation of the predictive power of the parenting
variables over and above that of the demographic variables. In order to avoid over-fitting
of the model, only demographic variables that have significant relations with the outcome
variable were included in the first step of the regression model. All of the variables of
interest (i.e., all parenting variables) were included in the following steps to explore the
relation between various parenting dimensions and adolescents’ psychological well-
being. Demographic family climate was entered at Step 3 in order to determine whether
this family environment variable would have predictive power with respect to
psychological well-being above and beyond what would be predicted by general
46
measures of parental autonomy support and responsiveness that were entered in Step 2.
To check for multi-collinearity, tolerance statistics and variance inflation factors were
examined for all regression models and none was > 5.0. Thus, the multiple regression
analyses were not considered to be biased (Neter, Wasserman, & Kutner, 1990).
The regression models of adolescents’ reported life satisfaction and depression
using maternal autonomy support and responsiveness as predictors in Step 2 were
significant, with autonomy supportive parenting predicting greater life satisfaction and
lower levels of depression. In the third step of the regression analyses, democratic family
climate also was a significant predictor in the positive direction, predicting greater life
satisfaction and lower depression, above and beyond what was predicted by general
measures of parental autonomy support and responsiveness (Maternal autonomy support
was no longer significant after the addition of democratic family climate in Step 3 in both
models, see Table 5). For the regression model for anxiety symptoms, neither the addition
of parental autonomy support and responsiveness nor democratic family climate in the
second and third step improved the predictive power of the model. Together, the
predictor variables accounted for 21% of the variance in adolescents’ life satisfaction
scores, 19% of their depression scores, and 9% of their anxiety scores (Table 5).
47
Table 5. Regressions for Adolescent-reported Parenting and Family Climate Variables on Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being
Life Satisfaction Depression (R) Anxiety (R) Variables ΔR2 ΔF β ΔR2 ΔF β ΔR2 ΔF β Step 1
.05 6.10*
.04* 5.33* Adolescents' Gender
.16
Age Group -.23*
Step 2 .18 13.18***
.16 7.90*** .07 1.89 Autonomy Support .28
.19 .05
Responsiveness -.03 -.04
.01 Step 3 .21 3.95*
.19 4.72* .09 1.81
Democratic Family Climate .23* .26*
.17 Total R2 .21 .19 .09 Note. *p ≤.05, **p ≤.01, ***p ≤.001.
48
Chinese Mothers’ Retrospective Recall of the Way They Were Parented
To obtain a glimpse into the “traditional” Chinese parenting and family climate in
the previous generation, mothers were asked to recall how they were parented as
adolescents. Univariate analysis of variance (ANOVAs) were used to test whether
mothers from the three different origin-setting groups (urban, rural-to-urban, and rural)
differed from one another in their reports of how they were parented. As shown in Table
2c, mothers from the three groups differed significantly from one another in terms of
their recall of parental responsiveness and democratic family climate, but not in terms of
their recall of their parental autonomy support and tolerance of dissent. Post-hoc analyses
indicated that both urban and rural-to-urban mothers recalled their parents to be
significantly less responsive to their needs compared to rural mothers’ recall. In terms of
family climate, urban mothers recalled their parents to be significantly less democratic
compared to the rural mothers’ reports, but reports from the rural-to-urban mothers did
not differ significantly from the other two groups.
Comparisons of Chinese Mothers’ Current Parenting with Their Retrospective
Recall of How They Were Parented
To compare how parenting in urban and rural China may have changed over time
(as reflected in maternal self-reports), we compared Chinese mothers’ current parenting
with their retrospective recall of parenting (see Tables 2a and 2c). Given their greater
exposure to modern or Western ideologies regarding childrearing practices, we
hypothesized that urban mothers would be more critical of traditional parenting practices
(i.e., practices that are more authority-oriented and less autonomy supportive or
democratic than more modern styles of child-rearing). This was expected to lead to a
49
greater shift in perceptions of parenting among urban mothers in comparison to their
counterparts from the rural areas. Whereas both urban and rural-to-urban mothers
reported themselves to be significantly more autonomy supportive (urban: t(19) = -4.39,
p <.000, Cohen’s d =1.02; rural-to-urban: t(33) = -3.62, p =.001, Cohen’s d = 0.65), more
responsive (urban: t(19) = -7,17, p <.000, Cohen’s d = 1.63; rural-to-urban: t(33) = -3.36,
p <.005, Cohen’s d = 0.60) and more democratic (urban: t(19) = -5.67, p <.000, Cohen’s
d = 1.28; rural-to-urban: t(33) = -2.00, p =.05, Cohen’s d = 0.39), rural mothers did not
see themselves to be significantly different from their own parents in these parenting
dimensions (autonomy support: t(63) = .02, p = .98, Cohen’s d = 0.003; responsiveness:
t(63) = .90, p = .37, Cohen’s d = -0.11; democratic climate: t(63) = -.02, p = .99, Cohen’s
d = -0.002) (see Figure 1a, b, c). On the other hand, all groups (urban, rural-to-urban and
rural) of mothers reported themselves to be significantly different from their own parents
in terms of their tolerance of dissent (urban: t(19) = 3.46, p < .005, Cohen’s d = 0.77;
rural-to-urban: t(33) = 2.91, Cohen’s d = 0.51, p < .01; rural: t(63) = 3.88, p < .001,
Cohen’s d = 0.49) (see Figure 1d).
50
Figure 1. Mean score of (a) autonomy support, (b) responsiveness, (c) democratic climate, and (d) tolerance of dissent as reported by urban, rural-to-urban and rural mothers (retrospective recall of parenting and self-report of current parent.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Urban Rural-to-Urban Rural
MeanRespnosiveness
Mothers'retrospectivereportMothers'self-report*** **
(b)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Urban Rural-to-Urban Rural
MeanToleranceofDissent
Mothers'retrospectivereportMothers'self-report
*******
(d)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Urban Rural-to-Urban Rural
MeanAutonomySupport
Mothers'retrospectivereportMothers'self-report*** **
(a)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Urban Rural-to-Urban Rural
MeanDem
ocraticClimate
Mothers'retrospectivereportMothers'self-report*
****(c)
51
Correlates of Mothers’ Current Parenting
In order to examine how mothers’ demographic background and socialization experience
may predict the way they currently parent, four hierarchical regression analyses were conducted.
Measures of parental autonomy support, responsiveness, democratic family climate, and
tolerance of dissent were regressed on four blocks of independent variables separately.
Demographic variables (i.e., their current setting (1 = urban), origins (1 = urban), and educational
levels (in years)) were entered at the first step in the model. In all regression analyses,
background variables contributed significantly to the model. Specifically, significant main effects
were found for mothers’ origin in all models (see Table 6). As shown in Table 2a, mothers who
were born in urban areas reported themselves to be significantly more autonomy supportive,
responsive, democratic, and tolerant of dissent than their counterparts from the rural areas.
Mothers’ current setting contributed significantly only to the regression models of autonomy
supportive and responsive parenting. Urban mothers, regardless of their origins, were
significantly more autonomy supportive and responsive than rural Chinese mothers.
Controlling for demographic variables, maternal socialization experience (i.e., mother’s
recall of how autonomy supportive and responsive their parents were) accounted for additional
variance in the prediction of mothers’ current parenting. As shown in Table 6, recalled parental
autonomy support significantly predicted mothers’ current autonomy supportive and democratic
parenting, as well as their tolerance of dissent, whereas recalled parental responsiveness
significantly predicted their current responsiveness to their own adolescent children at the second
step. Neither the addition of perceived democratic family climate nor tolerance of dissent in the
third and fourth step improved the predictive power of the models for mothers’ current autonomy
supportive parenting, responsive parenting, and democratic family climate, and hence were
52
removed from the final models. For mothers’ reported current tolerance of dissent, although their
recall of democratic family climate was not a significant predictor in the third step, their recall of
parental tolerance of dissent in the fourth step was found to be a significant predictor, above and
beyond what was predicted by more general measures of parental autonomy support and
responsiveness. Together, the predictor variables accounted for 29% of the variance in mothers’
current autonomy supportive parenting, 36% of their responsiveness parenting, 26% of the family
democratic climate, and 33% of their tolerance of dissent (Table 6).
53
Table 6.
Regression Examining Correlates between Mothers’ Retrospective Reports of how They were Parented and Mothers' Current Parenting
Autonomy
Responsiveness (C) Democratic Climate (C) Tolerance of
Support (C) Dissent (C)
Variables ΔR2 ΔF β ΔR2 ΔF β ΔR2 ΔF β ΔR2 ΔF β
Step 1 .17 7.51*** .12 5.09** .07 2.92* .11 4.55** Current Setting .39** .27* .22 .11 Mothers’ Origin .27** .33*** .24* .23* Mothers’ Educational Level -.13 -.20 -.09 -.01
Step 2 .12 8.89*** .24 20.61*** .19 13.87* .12 8.10*** Autonomy Support (R) .31* -.01 .34** .34* Responsiveness (R) .07 .56*** .15 -.20 Step 3 (.00) .05 (.02) 2.75 (.02) 2.70 .00 .00 Democratic Climate (R) -.04 Step 4 (.00) .44 (.01) 1.75 (.01) 1.93 .10 15.55*** Tolerance of Dissent (R) .35*** Total R2 .29 .36 .26 .33
Note. (C) Mothers’ self-reported current parenting; (R) = Mothers’ retrospective reports of how they were parented. *p ≤.05, **p ≤.01, ***p ≤.001.
54
Discussion
This study examined several dimensions of socialization in the family, including
parental autonomy support and responsiveness and family democratic climate, in
contemporary China as well as in retrospective recalls of parenting in a previous
generation. Relations between these dimensions of socialization in contemporary China,
both urban and rural areas, and Chinese adolescents’ psychological well-being were
examined. In the second part of the study, we examined how different parenting
dimensions may have changed over the generation, as well as the demographic and
socialization factors that may have contributed to contemporary Chinese mothers’
parenting.
China has often been characterized as a collectivistic country, with traditional
cultural values that emphasize hierarchy and group harmony over personal autonomy
(Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Shweder, 1999). This has led to a debate on whether
theoretical propositions about parenting derived from self-determination theory (SDT),
such as the role of autonomy supportive and responsive parenting in children’s optimal
development and psychological well-being, are universally valid and applicable to non-
Western cultures. The results of the present study, together with the empirical evidence
yielded by research conducted in diverse cultural settings (for a review, see Deci & Ryan,
2013), provide converging evidence suggesting that autonomy supportive and responsive
family environments are associated with positive psychological outcomes and
adjustment. These findings were further replicated across rural social ecologies of the
55
Gemeinschaft form and urban social ecologies of the Gesellschaft form in a non-Western
cultural environment in this study (Greenfield, 2009).
Moreover, the current study both confirms and extends the findings of previous
research of SDT by investigating the unique contribution of democratic family climate to
adolescents’ psychological well-being. We found that family environments that are
perceived as more democratic, as indicated by adolescents who perceive their parents as
recognizing their freedom of expression, or taking into account their opinions in family
decisions, and as demonstrating respect for due process and fairness, are associated with
adolescents’ reports of greater satisfaction with their lives and fewer depressive
symptoms. These findings persisted even after controlling for demographic variables and
general parental autonomy support and responsiveness in the regression analyses,
demonstrating the unique contribution of democratic family environment to adolescents’
healthy psychological functioning. This is consistent with evidence found in longitudinal
studies conducted in urban China (e.g., Cheung, Pomerantz, Wang & Qu, 2016; Wang,
Pomerantz & Chen, 2007), providing converging evidence to a causal relation between
autonomy support and psychological well-being.
Despite the different pace of modernization in different parts of China, we found
that parental autonomy support and responsiveness as well as democratic family
environment were all highly correlated with psychological health in both our urban and
rural samples, supporting the SDT proposition that autonomy is a universal need and that
its functional significance for psychological well-being is not restricted to Western or
urban cultural contexts with Gesellschaft social ecology. These findings are particularly
intriguing since discussions related to notions of democracy and personal autonomy are
56
often discouraged in China, where the political atmosphere is ostensibly Communist.
Nevertheless, the current research points to the converging findings that socialization
practices that support the fulfillment of children’s needs for autonomy and personal
freedoms, and that empower children to have their own voice in matters related to them,
may be an important avenue to enhancing children’s psychological well-being, regardless
of variations in social ecologies (Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft) or the general cultural
normativeness of these practices.
Parenting in Contemporary China
Unlike the distinct cultural stereotype of China as characterized by Confucianism
or as reflected in some dichotomous perspectives on Individualism/Collectivism, we have
found dynamic variations in parenting within Chinese culture. Rather than being
homogenous, Chinese parenting appears to fall along the spectrum with collectivism or
traditional practices on one end and more modern, autonomy supportive practices on the
other end. These variations are associated with a variety of factors, including mothers’
place of origin, their current environment, and their own socialization experiences.
The current research suggested that modernization, particularly in the urban areas,
is swiftly shifting and changing the norms of Chinese parenting practices. Even though
the influence of Confucius emphasizing patriarchy and filial piety in parenting has
prevailed and greatly influenced daily family and social interactions in China throughout
most of its history, the norms and dynamics of family interactions appear to be shifting.
For example, both urban and rural contemporary Chinese mothers’ accounts of their
childhood revealed that they recalled their parents to be less tolerant of their
disagreements, compared to their own current parenting. This may be taken as further
57
evidence of a macro shift in parenting in China, in both urban and rural regions,
characterized by some movement away from the hierarchical, authoritarian ways of
interacting with their children towards a more egalitarian, authoritative parenting style
that is more accepting of criticism and different opinions amongst the family members.
Indeed, many have suggested that since the introduction of the One-Child Policy in 1979,
parenting has drastically changed across the country (Naftali, 2016). With attention and
resources in the family all focused on the one and only child, these single children have
often been portrayed as a generation of “little emperors,” having a strong say in many
family decisions (Jing, 2000). Even though the one-child limit was mostly enforced in
urban areas and rural parents were allowed two children, the family size is still
significantly smaller than what it used to be. This may help explain parents’ movement
away from the traditional, more authoritarian style of parenting toward more acceptance
of opposing views from their adolescent children.
In contrast, there were no differences between rural mothers’ reports of their
current parenting and their reports of their mothers’ parenting in terms of autonomy
support, responsiveness, and democratic family climate. The difference pace of change in
parenting uncovered in the current study across urban and rural settings suggests that this
shift toward more autonomy supportive and democratic parenting in urban areas may be a
result of, and response to, the drastic modernization and changing social conditions
evident in urban China and other Gesellschaft social ecologies (Greenfield, 2009). These
findings appear to be consistent with Greenfield’s proposition that urban mothers
recognize that the current Gesellschaft environment in urban China requires a different
type of parenting, and hence they have adopted parenting practices that are more adaptive
58
to the Gesellschaft environment and hence also more responsive to children’s need for
autonomy. It appears that they also have started to recognize and respect children’s
democratic rights in the family as they become parents themselves (Naftali, 2014).
As expected, we found that socialization practices that support the fulfillment of
autonomy needs were more common and were endorsed to a higher extent in the urban
than the rural environment. As reflected in mothers’ self-reports, the parenting of urban
mothers was more responsive to children’s needs, more supportive of their autonomy,
more democratic, and more tolerant of dissent than that reported by rural mothers. These
differences are consistent with the different socialization requirements of the more
modern, Gesellschaft social ecology of the urban area where individualistic values are
adaptive, when compared to the relatively unchanged, Gemeinschaft rural environment
where children’s autonomy of self-actualization is traditionally less valued (Greenfield,
2009). It appears that the changes brought about by the economic and social reform have
created ripple effects, influencing the cultural norms. To summarize, these changes have
led urban Chinese mothers to practice in a manner that is more sensitive to the
psychological needs of their children, more receptive to egalitarian discussions in the
family, and more open to regarding their children as part of family decision making,
despite their reports that they experienced such parenting to a much lesser extent when
growing up.
The rural-to-urban mothers represent a unique group who both continue to be
influenced by Confucian traditions as well as being exposed to modern and Western
ideologies as they became parents, thus setting them apart from either the urban mothers
or the rural mothers. Positioned within such a mixed socialization experience, this group
59
of mothers appear to be in an intermediate stage between traditional parenting and more
modern values and socialization goals, pointing to the dynamic nature of parenting
practices and beliefs in contemporary China. The differences that were found in parenting
attitudes due to both setting and place of origin suggest that categorical or dichotomous
distinctions between cultures (as reflected, for example, in Individualism and
Collectivism) are an oversimplification that is no longer applicable in a changing society
undergoing drastic transformation such as contemporary China. Instead, more
contextually-sensitive ecological models are needed in order to properly account for the
variations in parenting found in the current research (Greenfield, 2009; Tamis-LeMonda
et al., 2008).
Correlates of Mothers’ Current Parenting
In addition to the influence of demographic variables (e.g., maternal origin,
current setting), we hypothesized that mothers’ current parenting would be associated
with their own socialization experience (i.e., how they were parented). Several
predictions about the correlates of mothers’ current parenting practices were supported.
We found that parenting followed a straightforward pattern in which mothers’ current
autonomy supportive and democratic parenting, as well as their tolerance of their
children’s opposing views, was facilitated by socialization experiences that were also
supportive of their autonomy. Responsive parenting was related to mothers’ perception of
their own parents’ responsiveness. Perceived tolerance of dissent from one’s own parents
was found to be a significant predictor of mothers’ own tolerance of dissent, even after all
other variables were controlled for. Overall, although perceived parenting accounted for
some variances of mothers’ current parenting, a significant proportion of variance
60
remained to be accountable by other factors. Mothers are not simply replicating the
parenting model that they themselves had experienced. Instead, parenting beliefs and
practices that are endorsed by today’s Chinese mothers appeared to be dynamic
byproducts of both the external sociocultural environment and their own socialization
experiences; Chinese mothers are active agents in creating a socialization environment
that is conducive to the optimal development of their children and adapted to their current
social ecology. Shifts in parenting are not only happening across generations, but also
dynamically and internally as parents witness and reflect on the constant changes that are
unfolding within their immediate sociocultural environment.
Mothers’ versus Adolescents’ Reports
Research on parenting has often relied on the reports of a single reporter (usually
child reported data) for behaviors of other family members and in drawing conclusions
about the family climate. However, the present study investigated mothers’ and their
adolescent children’s reports of parenting behaviors and family climate and found that the
associations between the two reporters were generally small. The non-significant to
moderate levels of agreement between mothers and their adolescents is consistent with
findings in the existing literature conducted in the United States and China (e.g., Cheung
et al., 2016; Gonzales et al., 1996; Pettit, Laird, Dodge, & Bates, 2001), pointing to the
very different perceptions of parenting that children and mothers may have. Comparing
the two reporters’ ratings, mothers in the current study consistently reported their
parenting to be more autonomy supportive, and the family climate as more democratic
and tolerant of dissent (but not in terms of responsiveness), than do their adolescent
children. These differences in reports can be attributed to a number of possible factors,
61
including social desirability (the desire of mothers to be perceived as more positive than
their actual parenting practices), normative disagreements between mothers and
adolescents, as well as adolescents’ developmental progression toward greater concern
with autonomy issues. These interpretations will be discussed in turn.
On the one hand, mothers might tend to present themselves in a more favorable
light in terms of their parenting practices and family dynamics (e.g., Gonzales et al.,
1996; Schwarz, Barton-Henry, & Pruzinsky, 1985). Due to these potential biases,
mothers might not be as good a reporter of their own parenting. Similar to findings of the
prior studies using mothers as informants (e.g., Cheung et al., 2016; Lamborn, Mounts,
Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991; Steinberg, Lamborn, & Darling, 1994), mothers’ reports
in our study were not as predictive of child outcomes as those assessed from the
children’s perspective. On the other hand, as children get older and claim increasing
autonomy over a wider range of issues, they may desire more autonomy and perceive
their mothers in a more negative fashion if they are not being granted the autonomy that
they desire (Smetana, 2005). Most importantly, however, the results of the present
investigation indicated that adolescents’ reports of parenting, but not mothers’ own
reports, were related to adolescents’ psychological well-being. Thus, no matter how these
parent-adolescent discrepancies are interpreted in terms of their accuracy, adolescents’
own perceptions of parenting, and not mothers’ perceptions, appears to be of most
relevance when predicting their psychological well-being (see also Cheung et al., 2016).
Parenting in Future China
Although studies of parenting and family socialization experience on adolescents’
psychological well-being are abundant, this study is one of the first to investigate
62
correlates of parenting and democratic features of socialization in a non-Western setting.
A strength of the current study is that it has included three origin-setting groups of
parent-adolescent dyads – an urban sample from a setting that is fast-changing in its
modernization, a rural-to-urban sample representing parents who have moved from rural
to urban areas as they became parents of their urban children, and a rural sample of
mother-adolescent dyads from a traditional rural setting in China that has experienced
relatively minimal exposure to modern or Western parenting ideologies. This has allowed
us to explore how parenting and development varies within a culture undergoing an era of
social change.
Due to the cross-sectional nature of the current study, causality cannot be
established. While it is impossible to go back in time to longitudinally examine how
parenting has shifted with the social and economic reforms that have taken place in urban
China, we have instead utilized Chinese mothers’ retrospective reports of the parenting
they have received to assess the generational change. Social change, however, has not yet
come to an end. With the Chinese government’s modernization plan to move the majority
of the country’s population into urban city life in the next decade, many rural regions of
China are currently undergoing rapid changes that are quickly transforming the landscape
of rural areas. Children who are currently living in the rural areas are quickly urbanizing
as they become parents themselves. This has therefore given us a time-sensitive
opportunity to utilize longitudinal designs in subsequent research to obtain an accurate
depiction of the changes in socialization and its sequelae that are happening as the effects
of globalization continue to unfold in the next decades.
63
Paper 2
Children's Rights Attitudes Amongst Adolescents and Mothers in China
Abstract
This study examined urban and rural Chinese adolescents’ (12-16 years) and their
mothers’ attitudes toward children's rights (N =256, with 64 mother-adolescent dyads per
setting). We explored how different dimensions of family socialization environment,
namely responsiveness and autonomy supportive parenting, democratic family
environment, and parental tolerance of dissent, as well as sociodemographic factors may
contribute to the development of these rights conceptions in diverse settings within
China.
Chinese participants (particularly amongst the adolescents) demonstrated support
for both rights to nurturance (i.e., rights to be protected and cared for) as well as
entitlement to self-determination (i.e., rights to participate and make autonomous
decisions). Regarding to relations between parenting and children's rights attitudes, father
responsiveness emerged as a particularly important predictor of adolescents' attitudes
about their nurturance rights; whereas parental tolerance of dissent was found to be an
important predictor for both nurturance and self-determination rights. On the other hand,
only mothers' sociodemographic factors, but none of their retrospective family
socialization experience, emerge as significant predictors for their current attitudes
toward children's rights issues. The current study points to the importance of examining
environmental factors and social change in conjunction with developmental pathways and
the changing roles in one's lifespan to fully understand rights attitudes and beliefs.
64
Introduction
In study 1, I examined the relationship between socialization environment and
well-being and found that the perceptions of an autonomy supportive, responsive, and
democratic family environment are associated with Chinese adolescents’ healthy
psychological well-being. In Study 2, I will narrow the focus and examine specific
autonomy and nurturance issues, namely, how Chinese children and mothers endorse
different types of rights implicating these issues, as well as how different dimensions of
socialization environment may contribute to the development of these rights conceptions.
Over the last century, the notion of children’s rights has become prevalent along
with other historical trends including the emergence of academic initiatives in child
development and scholastic and public discourse on children’s rights (Vandenhole,
Desmet, Reynaert, & Lembrechts, 2015). Since then, there has been increased recognition
and support for the notion that children and adolescents, just like adults, are individuals
with the same basic human rights. This expanded recognition is reflected in the adoption
of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), established by
the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 1989. As the first legally binding
agreement on children’s rights, UNCRC listed a wide range of rights that focuses on
protecting the health, welfare, and well-being of individuals under 18 years of age.
Researchers generally agree that there are two main categories encompassing the range of
rights covered in the UNCRC – nurturance rights and self-determination rights (Rogers &
Wrightman, 1978; Ruck, Abramovitch, & Keating, 1998). Nurturance rights pertain to
the satisfaction of basic needs that are required to maintain children’s healthy
development, both physically and psychologically, whereas self-determination rights
65
refer to the right of children to have a voice when making decisions that are relevant to
their lives. This balance and integration of providing rights for nurturance and self-
determination to children and adolescents goes hand in hand with the two fundamental
tenets that frame the Convention: the best interest of the child and the evolving capacities
of the child (Peterson-Badali & Ruck, 2008).
While the UNCRC was ratified and approved by nearly all members of the United
Nations “on paper,” children’s and parents’ views and attitudes regarding these rights,
especially in non-Western cultures, are however not well-studied. As young people’s
knowledge and attitudes about their rights is likely an important determinant of whether
they are able to effectively utilize their rights (Peterson-Badali, Ruck, & Ridley, 2003),
examining their attitudes toward their rights also would allow us to ensure that the
UNCRC is actually achieving its protective goals (Day, Peterson-Badali, & Ruck, 2006;
Peterson-Badali et al., 2004). Similarly, it is equally important for parents, who are the
primary provider of these rights to children, to recognize and support these rights for
them to be realized (Ruck, Peterson-Badali, & Day, 2002). Parental views about
children’s rights also may influence children’s views about their own rights, either
through the influence of their sociopolitical attitudes (e.g., conservatism/liberalism) or
their parenting practices (Day et al., 2006; Peterson-Badali et al., 2004). Generally,
research in North American cultural contexts examining adults’ and young people’s
views and attitudes toward children’s rights has consistently found that both types of
rights are endorsed, with higher levels of endorsement of children’s nurturance rights
than self-determination rights (e.g., Day et al., 2006; Peterson-Badali et al., 2004;
Peterson-Badali et al., 2003; Rogers & Wrightsman, 1978; Ruck et al, 2002).
66
However, the notion of children’s rights often has been identified with
individualism and criticized as a Western cultural construction that has functional
relevance only for people from Western, democratic societies (Kaime, 2011; Murphy-
Berman, Levesque, & Berman, 1996). Specifically, cultural psychologists argued that for
individuals from traditional, non-Western societies, characterized by a collectivistic
moral orientation toward authority and the group, issues of autonomy and individual
rights are much less salient (Kaime, 2011). China is a prime example of such a
collectivist society, with its cultural ideals of filial piety and Confucianism that inform
Chinese adolescents’ and parents’ traditional moral beliefs (Peerenboom, 2002). This
question of whether children’s self-determination is considered to be important is
particularly relevant to countries where rights (especially rights to self-determination and
freedom of expression) are not strongly emphasized. Specifically, although children’s
rights to nurturance may be widely recognized across cultures, recognition of children’s
rights to full social participation and expressing their own views remains a topic with
varying perspectives and support (e.g., Ben-Arieh, Khoury-Kassabri, & Haj-Yahia, 2006;
Lahat, Helwig, Yang, Tan, & Liu, 2009). It has been suggested that in cultures that place
a strong emphasis on obedience and respect for hierarchy, children’s entitlement to
autonomy may be perceived as a threat to parental authority (Keshavarz & Baharudin,
2009). Hence, children’s self-determination rights may be more likely to be opposed,
particularly when the fulfillment of these rights are in conflict with parental wishes or
societal practices.
Cross-cultural research has attempted to elucidate these debates by examining the
views of rights of adolescents from different non-Western cultural settings. Emerging
67
research conducted across diverse cultural contexts (e.g., rural and urban China, Africa,
The Middle East, India, Korea) has indicated that rights are similarly endorsed by
children and adults in these settings, demonstrating support for a number of nurturance
and self-determination rights (e.g., Ben-Arieh & Khoury-Kassabri, 2008; Hoppe-Graff &
Kim, 2005; Lahat et al., 2009; Neff & Helwig, 2002; Ruck, Tenenbaum, & Willenberg,
2011). Departing from the presumed cultural stereotypes, Chinese adolescents were
remarkably similar to their Western counterparts in their responses and social reasoning
about their rights (Lahat et al., 2009). For example, Lahat and her colleagues (2009)
found that urban and rural Chinese adolescents endorsed both nurturance and self-
determination rights (including freedom of speech and religion), notions that are often
associated with Western ideologies, and made references to children’s personal choice
and autonomy in their justifications for endorsements of self-determination rights.
Similarly, Helwig, Arnold, Tan, and Boyd (2003) found that adolescents from different
regions in mainland China, including those from rural traditional regions, favored
decision making procedures that made room for children’s autonomy (such as majority
rule or consensus) over decision making by adult authorities for decisions involving
children in different social contexts (e.g., in peer and family contexts). In contrast to the
stereotypical construals of Chinese psychology as oriented toward filial piety and
obedience to authority, Chinese adolescents appealed to children’s freedom from the
interference of authority, their rights as persons, and the beneficial developmental
outcomes when children are given opportunities to make autonomous decisions (Helwig
et al., 2003). These findings reflect that adolescents’ thinking about rights is much more
complex and multifaceted than what can be accounted for through dichotomizing cultural
68
orientations of individualism and collectivism, or modernity and traditionalism.
Parents’ and Children’s views on Children’s Rights
Cross-generational studies comparing parents’ and young people’s views on
rights in Western cultural settings have shown that while parents are more likely to
endorse nurturance rights than their adolescents, they are less likely to favor recognition
of children’s rights to self-determination (e.g., Day et al., 2006; Peterson-Badali et al.,
2004; Peterson & Ruck, 2003; Rogers & Wrightsman, 1978; Ruck, Keating,
Abramovitch, & Koegl, 1998; Ruck et al., 2002). Moreover, children’s support for self-
determination rights generally increase with the child’s age, with older adolescents
endorsing more rights related to self-determination and also endorsing these rights more
strongly when compared to younger adolescents (Lahat et al., 2009; Peterson-Badali et
al., 2003; Walker, Brooks, & Wrightsman, 1999).
Although recent studies have begun to examine the rights attitudes, knowledge
and reasoning of children in non-Western cultural contexts (e.g., Cherney & Shing, 2008;
Lahat et al., 2009; To et al., 2017), virtually nothing is known about the relationship
between parents’ and children’s attitudes toward rights in these settings. In one of the few
published studies on this topic conducted in non-Western cultural settings, Ben-Arieh,
Khoury-Kassabri, and Haj-Yahi (2006) compared attitudes toward children’s rights in
four generations (adolescents, young mothers of toddlers, middle-aged mothers of
adolescents, and grandmothers) of Jews and Muslims residing in Israel and the
Palestinian Authority. As opposed to previous research findings conducted in Western
contexts, they did not find any significant developmental or cohort effects. Instead they
found uniform objection to children’s rights when they conflicted with parental rights
69
(across nationality and age group), showing the deeply embedded respect for parental
authority and the difference in pace in recognizing children’s rights in more traditional
societies. However, it is important to note that participants were asked to indicate their
general support for children’s rights in situations where they infringe on authority using a
binary response (either “yes” or “no”). Use of dichotomous judgments such as these,
along with general questions regarding unspecified situations, may not capture the true
variances in participants’ responses.
In contrast, Lahat et al. (2009)’s study examined adolescents’ judgments and
reasoning about children’s rights by asking participants to evaluate different scenarios in
which children’s rights issues are involved on a 6-point Likert scale. They found
universal developmental patterns across settings that included both modern urban areas as
well as traditional rural areas within China. Specifically, both rural and urban Chinese
adolescents increasingly endorsed self-determination rights with age, both in
straightforward situations and in situations where these rights conflicted with children’s
welfare interests (nurturance rights). The fact that these two studies demonstrated
contrasting findings in terms of rights endorsement in non-Western cultural contexts may
lie in the way the questions were asked. It appears that when participants were asked in a
general manner to choose between a child’s rights versus parental rights, the results were
very different from a methodology in which they were given a particular scenario to
consider. These differences in findings point to the importance of conducting more cross-
cultural studies on this topic. Indeed, both authors called for more studies of this topic
across generations (i.e., mothers and their adolescents) in order to inform our
understanding of how different socio-historical experiences encountered by different
70
generations in different cultures may influence their attitudes toward children’s rights
(Ben-Arieh et al., 2006; Lahat et al., 2009).
In light of the very few existing studies and these contrasting findings in non-
Western cultural contexts, I sought to contribute to the research literature in this area by
investigating the relationship between urban and rural Chinese adolescents’ and their
mothers’ attitudes toward children’s rights. The current generation of Chinese
adolescents (particularly those from urban settings) has come of age during a time when
China has undergone dramatic changes both socially and economically (Ma, 2002).
These adolescents have experienced a corresponding loosening of constraints in terms of
their personal autonomy and as a result, their experiences coming of age are very
different from those of their parents (Peerenboom, 2002). Hence, I expected that there
would be both generation and role differences in adolescents’ and their mothers’ attitudes
toward nurturance and self-determination rights.
Despite the developmental pattern in children’s rights attitudes cited above
(revealing significant differences between younger versus older participants in their
views of self-determination rights), the findings are sometimes confounded with the age
of the ‘target’ child (i.e., age of the story character or child of which participants were
asked to make judgment) (Day et al., 2006). While some studies specify the age of the
target child, other studies match the age of the target child with the participants’ age,
making it difficult to delineate whether the differences found between adolescents of
different age groups are a result of the developmental progression or variations in how
rights are endorsed for children of different target ages. I set the age of the target child in
our research as 12 years old in order to eliminate this confound. Lastly, gender findings
71
have been mixed, with some studies finding stronger support for nurturance rights
amongst females than males (e.g., Day et al., 2006; Peterson-Badali et al., 2004) whereas
others found little evidence of gender differences (e.g., Ruck et al., 1998; Ruck et al.,
2002).
In addition to the general descriptives of children’s rights attitudes, I was also
interested in examining the effects of socialization variables on adolescents and mothers’
thinking about rights. To this end, an overview of relevant literature on factors that
contribute to attitudes toward children’s rights will be presented in the following section,
with an emphasis on family correlates of children’s rights attitudes.
Socialization Correlates of Children’s Rights Attitudes
The emerging evidence suggests that attitudes about children’s rights are
multifaceted and influenced by a variety of factors. These factors include not only the
specific rights in question and the domain of the issue involved, but also children’s
socialization experiences with rights and the opportunity to exercise these rights in social
contexts such as the family and the school (Ben-Arieh et al., 2006; Ruck et al., 1998).
Specifically, two pathways have been hypothesized through which socialization may
exert its influence on attitudes toward rights issues. One of the pathways proposed is
based on findings which suggest that parenting that is sensitive to children’s
developmental needs is predictive of adolescents’ attitudes about their rights (Peterson-
Badali et al., 2004; To et al., 2017). Hence, how children experience rights in their own
lives may be reflected in the way they think about rights. For instance, children’s
experience with autonomy supportive parenting entailing making their own decisions
over matters of importance to the child was found to predict children’s awareness of their
72
self-determination rights, whereas their experiences of being cared for and protected were
associated with their support of nurturance rights (Peterson-Badali et al., 2004; To et al.,
2017). Moreover, To et al. (2017) studied variables beyond the general parental
autonomy support and responsiveness by investigating the unique contribution of a
democratic environment as well as the role of authority’s tolerance of dissent to
children’s attitudes toward their rights. Similar to the findings from prior research
conducted at school (e.g., Khoury-Kassabri & Ben-Arieh, 2009), parental tolerance of
dissent was found positively to predict adolescents’ support for self-determination rights,
as well as their psychological well-being, over and beyond what is predicted by other
general parenting dimensions (To et al., 2017).
On the other hand, an oppositional or reactive pathway also has been proposed,
with emerging evidence that youth who perceive especially low levels of autonomy
support--hence indicating that their basic need for autonomy is severely restricted by
agents of socialization--may form an oppositional perspective against the socialization
practices that have not met their needs (Peterson-Badali, Ruck, & Bone, 2008). This may
in turn heighten their awareness of and support for self-determination rights (Lo, Helwig,
Chen, Ohashi, & Cheng, 2011; To et al., 2017; Vansteenkiste, Soenens, Petegem, &
Duriez, 2014). Thus, there is a need for further research that is sensitive to these different
potential pathways to inform theory building in this area.
Whereas findings of developmental research suggest relationships between young
people’s socialization experiences and their attitudes toward children’s rights, virtually
nothing is known about whether these socialization effects would continue to influence
rights attitudes as one becomes a parent. In Study 1, mothers’ retrospective recall of how
73
they were parented was associated with their current parenting. Moreover, findings from
studies examining the relationship between parenting and attitudes about rights suggested
that there are positive relations between mothers’ self-perceived parenting (e.g.,
responsiveness, involvement of children in family decision-making process) and maternal
support for self-determination rights (Peterson-Badali et al., 2004). However, these
variables did not emerge as significant predictors in the regression predicting maternal
rights attitudes in the cited study. Therefore, it remains unclear how parental attitudes
toward rights and their parenting practices in the home (as well as children’s actual
experiences of rights in the home) are related.
With its long history and influence of Confucianism and filial piety, as well as its
political backdrop of Communism, which all stress the subordination of the individual to
group goals and the emphasis of subsistence rights over civil rights, China offers a unique
cultural context in which to explore these issues. Furthermore, China has undergone
tremendous economic, social and cultural transformation in the last few decades, as it
moved toward a market economy (Mackerras, 2001). These sociocultural changes also
have brought about changes in social norms and values, which have been reflected in the
everyday life of the Chinese family, influencing parenting style, family dynamics and
daily interactions, as well as beliefs about children’s rights (Wang, 2014).
The development and modernization, however, has been disproportionately
allocated to coastal urban cities, with many of the rural areas remaining traditional and
undeveloped. This has resulted in a stark contrast between the massively transformed,
developed, urban parts of China and the much more traditional, collectivistic, mainly
agricultural and rural regions of China. Comparing and contrasting parental conceptions
74
of rights from these two diverse settings would allow us to delineate the effects of
dramatic economic and social transformation on individuals’ values (including their
conceptions of children’s rights). In the mean time, studying different age groups of rural
and urban Chinese adolescents’ conceptions of rights would allow us to study the relative
effect of sociocultural environment and developmental factors on children’s attitudes
toward their rights. Lastly, exploring concepts of autonomy and rights and their correlates
in both mothers and adolescents would provide insight into how conceptions of rights are
developed and formed amongst different generations.
The Present Study and Hypotheses
The present study was designed to extend previous research on children’s rights
attitudes by comparing the perspectives of mothers and their adolescent children from
two age groups (early and mid-adolescents) and within two non-Western geographical
contexts (traditional rural and modern urban China). The current study also contributes to
the identified gaps in the literature by examining the role of family factors (e.g.,
responsiveness and autonomy supportive parenting, democratic family climate, parental
tolerance of dissent) in adolescents’ and mothers’ attitudes toward children’s rights in
diverse settings within China. Based on the findings of research conducted with North
American children and mothers (e.g., Day et al., 2006; Peterson-Badali et al., 2004; Ruck
et al., 2002), as well as recent literature examining rights understanding amongst Chinese
adolescents (e.g., Lahat et al., 2009; To et al., 2017), a number of research predictions
were generated.
Although the pace of development differed at times, Chinese adolescents were
found to follow a similar developmental pattern as their counterparts in Western cultural
75
contexts (To et al., 2017). Hence, I surmised that Chinese adolescents, regardless of age,
would endorse self-determination rights to a greater extent than would their mothers,
whereas mothers would endorse greater support for nurturance rights compared to their
adolescent children. With the Chinese Communist political climate that stresses
subsistence rights and children’s welfare interests over individual autonomy
(Peerenboom, 2002), I expected that both Chinese mothers and adolescents generally
would endorse nurturance rights to a higher extent than self-determination rights, as
found in prior research conducted in Chinese cultural settings (e.g., Lahat et al., 2009; To
et al., 2017). Consistent with prior research suggesting the influence of urbanization and
modernization on support for rights and autonomy (e.g., Lahat et al., 2009; To et al.,
2017), I expected that children’s nurturance and self-determination rights would be
endorsed more strongly by urban mothers and adolescents compared to their counterparts
in rural areas. Based on the null gender findings of To and her colleagues’ (2017) studies
of Chinese adolescents’ attitudes about rights, I did not anticipate any gender differences
in children’s rights attitudes in the present study.
With respect to correlates of attitudes toward rights, I hypothesized that children’s
attitudes regarding their rights would be related to their own experience with rights.
Hence, children’s perceptions of parental responsiveness would be related to their support
for nurturance rights, whereas their perceptions of parental autonomy support would be
related to their endorsement of self-determination rights (To et al., 2017). Findings from
To et al. (2017) suggested that parental tolerance of dissent also may have a unique
contribution to adolescents’ endorsement of their self-determination rights and hence I
expected the same pattern to emerge from our current study. In addition to the
76
straightforward, positive relations between socialization variables and children’s rights
attitudes, I would also pay attention to the potential for reactive pathways that might
result from low levels of perceived autonomy support and responsiveness (Lo et al.,
2011; To et al., 2017; Vansteenkiste et al., 2014). Regarding parental attitudes toward
children’s rights, I surmised that parental attitudes toward children’s rights would be
associated with both their retrospective recall of socialization experience and their current
social environment (urban, rural-to-urban, rural).
Method
Participants and Procedures
Study participants and corresponding demographics are the same as those
reported in Paper 1. In short, the sample consisted of 128 Chinese adolescents and their
mothers from two research sites (in urban and rural China), with 64 adolescent-mother
dyads from each setting. Among the adolescent participants, 64 were early-adolescents
(12-13 years old) and 64 were mid-adolescents (15-16 years old). Because the urban
sample contained dyads that were approximately evenly distributed between those whose
mothers were originally from urban Chinese settings (30 dyads) and those whose mothers
migrated to urban settings from rural areas at some point in their lives (34 dyads), I was
able to compare maternal origin (i.e., urban versus rural-to-urban) in our analyses. The
adolescents in both the urban and rural-to-urban maternal origin group were born and
raised in the urban area, whereas those in the rural group were born and raised in the rural
area, as was true of their mothers.
The recruitment method and procedures are the same as those reported in Paper 1;
see the Methods section in Paper 1 for more information.
77
Measures
To ensure accurate understanding and readability of the questionnaires (especially
for the rural parents), Chinese translations of all measures used in this study were first
pilot tested with four urban and four rural Chinese adolescent-mother dyads.
Incorporating feedback from the participants, some of the wording were then modified in
order to improve readability and comprehension of the questionnaires. The final versions
of all questionnaires were back translated into English by a different native Chinese
bilingual translator. This back-translated English version of the questionnaire was
compared with the original version and any discrepancies corrected in order to ensure the
accuracy of the translation (Brislin, 1970).
Children's rights attitudes. To assess adolescents’ and mothers’ attitudes to
various rights issues, the Children’s Rights Attitudes (CRA) questionnaire (Peterson-
Badali et al., 2003; originally developed by Rogers & Wrightsman, 1978; see Appendix
C) was used. Among the 40 items of CRA, 18 correspond to children’s nurturance rights
and involve issues regarding children’s entitlement to care and protection from harm
(e.g., “Children should have the right to receive medical treatment when necessary”).
Twenty-two items correspond to self-determination rights, i.e., the right of children to
exercise control over various facets of their lives (e.g., “Children should have the right to
decide which recreational activities they will participate in”). Since child care is mostly
done by extended family members in China, in contrast to the paid day care arrangements
common in North America, two items related to the right of quality child care (under the
category of nurturance rights) were modified to the right for children with special needs
to receive adequate education and assistance.
78
Using the same methods applied in previous studies of CRA (e.g., Day et al.,
2006; Peterson-Badali et al., 2004), participants were asked to respond to the children’s
rights questions by using a 12-year-old as a referent. Participants then rated the extent of
their support for each of the 40 statements of children’s rights issues on a scale from 1
(strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). An average score for each type of right was
computed, with higher scores indicating stronger endorsement of rights.
The internal consistency reliabilities attained in our present sample was
acceptable (Cronbach’s alpha for self-determination rights = .82 (adolescent), .77
(mother); and for nurturance rights = .70 (adolescent), .79 (mother)).
Autonomy support and responsiveness. Adolescent participants were given the
Perception of Parents scales (POPS, originally derived from Robbins, 1995; see
Appendix A) to assess their perceived parental (maternal and paternal) autonomy support
and responsiveness (warmth and involvement). The scales consisted of nine items about
autonomy support (e.g., “My mother allows me to decide things for myself”) and twelve
items about responsiveness (e.g., “My mother puts time and energy into helping me”). In
order to add to the understanding of father’s roles in the development of children’s rights
understanding, this study explored the adolescents’ perceptions of both mothers and
fathers’ parenting. Each item in this questionnaire was rated on a 7-point Likert-type
scale, ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 7 (very true). The internal consistency (alphas)
for the adolescent reported autonomy support = .81 and responsiveness = .83.
Mothers were asked to fill out two versions of the Perception of Parents scales
(POPS). One was modified to measure mothers’ self-report of their own current
parenting, and another one measured mothers’ retrospective report of how they perceived
79
that they were parented when they themselves were adolescents. Since the POPS were
originally created for children to report on their parents’ parenting, minor wording
changes were made in the mother self-reported POPS to minimize social desirability
concerns (e.g., one of the reversed items, “My mother doesn’t seem to think of me often”,
was not reversed in the self-report scale and rephrased as “I think of my child often”.)
Since there is no differentiation between past and present tense in Chinese language, the
POPS used by mothers when reporting their experiences of how they perceived being
parented was the same as the one filled out by their adolescents. The only difference was
that mothers were asked to recall how they were being parented when they were at their
children’s age. The internal consistencies (alphas) for the mothers’ self-reported current
autonomy support and responsiveness were .69 and .76 respectively. The internal
consistencies for mothers’ retrospective recall of how they were parented were .81
(autonomy support) and .85 (responsiveness).
Democratic climate and tolerance of dissent. To examine the unique role of
democratic family environment, both adolescents and mothers filled out the five-item
democratic family climate measure (To, et al., 2017; see Appendix B). This scale
measures particular democratic dimensions of family life and structure, such as children’s
freedom of expression (e.g., “There is mutual respect between me and my parents even in
areas in which we disagree”), perceptions of due process (e.g., “My parents will listen to
my explanation and offer a fair hearing if I am accused of wrongdoing”), and
involvement in decision making (e.g., “In my family, I am given the chance to help make
decisions”). Each item is scored on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not at all
true) to 7 (very true). Similar to the POPS, mothers were asked both to self-report their
80
current family democratic climate, as well as their retrospective perceived family
democratic climate when they were adolescents. Reliabilities of the 5-item democratic
family climate scale were .71 (for adolescent report), .62 (for mother self-report) and .80
(for mothers’ retrospective report). An additional item measuring tolerance of dissent (“It
is possible to criticize my parents’ decisions”) was presented in conjunction with the
democratic climate measure but was analyzed separately, given the unique predictive
power of this item as found in prior studies (e.g., Khoury-Kassabri & Ben-Arieh, 2009;
To et al., 2017).
Results
Initial Investigation of Potential Oppositional or Reactive Patterns
Means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations among all study variables
are presented in Table 7. Since previous studies (e.g., To et al., 2017) have cautioned
against the existence of reactive cases, I first explored the data for potential oppositional
patterns in the form of high levels of endorsement of self-determination rights when
perceived autonomy support and responsiveness were low. Although the relations
between support for self-determination rights and parental responsiveness (r = -.12
(mother), -.12 (father)), parental autonomy support (r = -.04 (mother), -.10 (father)), and
home democratic climate (r = -.12) were all negative, none of the correlations was
significant. Moreover, after five cases from the urban sample and one from rural sample
were identified as reactive cases based on To et al. (2017)’s criteria, the patterns of
correlations and regression analyses were no different from the full sample analyses.
Thus, the full sample analyses are presented in the rest of the results section.
Subsequent analyses examined Chinese adolescents' and mothers' attitudes toward
81
children's rights issues, correlates of adolescents' and mothers' attitudes toward children's
rights, and lastly, relations between mother's retrospective reports of how they were
parented and their children's rights attitudes.
82
Table 7.
Means, Standard deviations (SD), Pearson Correlations of Adolescents’ and Mothers’ Reported Family Socialization Environment and Children’s Rights Attitudes
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1. Maternal Autonomy Support (A) --
2. Paternal Autonomy Support (A) .62*** --
3. Maternal Responsiveness (A) .84*** .63*** --
4. Paternal Responsiveness (A) .59*** .81*** .69*** --
5. Home Democratic Climate (A) .71*** .53*** .67*** .60*** --
6. Home Tolerance of Dissent (A) .27** .05 .19* -.02 .20* --
7. Autonomy Support (M) .20* .10 .17 .13 .27** .25** --
8. Responsiveness (M) .08 .07 .08 .16 .27** .02 .61*** --
9. Home Democratic Climate (M) .03 -.01 .01 -.02 .12 .09 .62*** .58*** --
10. Tolerance of Dissent (M) .05 -.01 .04 .09 .09 .18* .46*** .26** .33*** --
11. Support for Nurturance Rights (A) .27** .21* .21* .29*** .19* .24** .00 -.04 -.09 .08 --
12. Support for Self-Determination Rights (A) -.04 -.10 -.12 -.12 -.12 .27** .01 -.00 -.03 .07 .14 --
13. Support for Nurturance Rights (M) .13 .06 .16 .15 .20* .24** .52*** .50*** .37*** .42*** .14 -.09 --
14. Support for Self-Determination Rights (M) .11 -.08 .05 -.04 .12 .15 .33*** .06 .18* .34*** .02 -.00 .23* --
Mean 5.28 5.23 5.68 5.31 5.34 3.84 5.49 5.81 5.61 4.77 4.94 4.09 4.90 3.57
SD 1.03 1.09 .92 1.04 1.16 1.91 .79 .76 .94 1.59 .43 .59 .59 .58
Note. (A) = Adolescent-reported; (M) = mother self-report. *p ≤.05, * *p ≤.01, ***p ≤.001.
83
Descriptive and Correlational Analysis
Bivariate correlations of all study variables are presented in Table 7. Regarding
socialization correlates of rights attitudes, adolescents’ endorsement of nurturance rights
was positively associated with their ratings of parental autonomy support, responsiveness,
democratic family climate and tolerance of dissent. Adolescents’ endorsement of self-
determination rights was positively associated with tolerance of dissent at home, but did
not correlate with any other family environment variables. In contrast, adolescents’
attitudes toward children’s rights were not related to any of the mothers’ self-reported
parenting and family climate measures. Regarding the relationships between maternal
attitudes toward children’s rights and their self-reported parenting, maternal support for
both nurturance and self-determination rights was associated with their reports of
autonomy support, democratic family climate, and tolerance of dissent. Maternal
responsiveness also was correlated with their support for nurturance rights, but not self-
determination rights. On the other hand, when adolescents’ reports of parenting were
used, only democratic family climate and tolerance of dissent were associated with
maternal attitudes toward nurturance rights, and none of the adolescent-reported
parenting variables were significantly related to maternal attitudes toward self-
determination rights. It is also interesting to note that significant correlations between
nurturance and self-determination rights attitudes were found only for mothers (r = .23, p
< .05), but not for adolescents (r = .14, p = .13) and not between mothers’ and
adolescents’ attitudes toward rights (r = .14, p = .12 for nurturance rights and r = .00, p =
.99 for self-determination rights). The univariate distributions for all measures of
children’s rights attitudes were approximately normal. Skewness and kurtosis for each
84
variable was examined and determined to be within acceptable limits (Tabachnick &
Fidel, 2001).
Similar to Paper 1, while parental education and occupational levels may act as
confounds when comparing the three origin-setting maternal groups in the following
analyses, these variables are largely orthogonal amongst the groups. In fact, these
demographic variables are central to the characteristics of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
forms of social ecologies and hence are intended to be part of the categorical
comparisons. Therefore these demographic variables were not treated as covariates in the
following between-group comparisons.
Adolescents’ Perspectives on Children’s Rights
Children’s rights attitudes were examined among adolescents using a 2 (type of
right: nurturance or self-determination) X 2 (setting: urban or rural) X 2 (adolescents'
gender) X 2 (adolescents' age group: early or mid-adolescence) repeated-measures
analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with type of right as a repeated measure. As expected,
significant main effects for the type of right indicated that there was significantly stronger
support for nurturance rights (M = 4.95 (out of 6), corresponding to agree somewhat)
than self-determination rights (M = 4.09 (out of 6), corresponding to agree slightly),
F(1,116) = 221.56, p <.001, η2 = .43).
Significant right X age group interactions indicated that, whereas children’s
support for nurturance rights was stronger in the mid-adolescent group (M = 4.85 for 12-
year-olds vs. M = 5.05 for 16-year-olds), support for self-determination rights was
stronger in the early-adolescent group (M = 4.22 for 12-year-olds vs. M = 3.95 for 16-
year-olds), F(1,116) = 16.03, p <.001, η2 = .05.
85
Mothers’ Perspectives on Children’s Rights
Mothers’ attitudes toward children’s rights also were examined using a 2 (type of
right: nurturance or self-determination rights) X 3 (origin-setting: urban, rural-to-urban,
rural) X 2 (adolescents' age group: 12-year-olds or 16-year-olds) X 2 (adolescents'
gender) repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs), with the type of right as a
repeated measure. Similar to the findings with adolescents, significant main effects for
the type of right indicated that mothers supported nurturance rights (M = 4.89 (out of 6),
corresponding to agree somewhat) to a significantly higher extent than their support for
self-determination rights (M = 3.56 (out of 6), corresponding to agree slightly), F(1,106)
= 275.71, p <.001, η2 = .52. Significant main effects for origins also were found, F(1,106)
= 7.50, p =.001, η2 = .14. Post-hoc comparisons between the three origin-settings
combinations indicated that both urban and rural-to-urban mothers were more supportive
of children’s rights issues than rural mothers (self-determination rights: M = 3.78, SD =
.64 for urban and M = 3.65, SD = .57 for rural-to-urban vs. M = 3.44, SD = .55 for rural
mothers; nurturance rights: M = 5.30, SD = .53 for urban and M = 4.93, SD = .72 for
rural-to-urban vs. M = 4.74, SD = .50 for rural mothers).
Adolescents’ versus Mothers’ Perspectives on Children’s Rights
Adolescents’ and mothers’ attitudes toward children’s rights were compared using a
2 (respondent: adolescents or mothers) X 2 (type of right: nurturance or self-
determination rights) X 2 (setting: urban or rural) X 2 (adolescents' age group: early- or
mid-adolescence) repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs), with respondent
and type of right as repeated measures. A main effect of respondent indicated that
adolescents endorsed rights (M = 4.52) to a higher extent compared to their mothers (M =
86
4.24), F(1,120) = 26.99, p <.001, η2 = .10. A significant right X respondent interaction
revealed that, whereas adolescents (M = 4.94) and their mothers (M = 4.91) did not differ
in their support for nurturance rights, adolescents (M = 4.09) supported self-
determination rights to a significantly greater extent than did mothers (M = 3.57), F(1,
120) = 34.84, p < .001, η2 = .10.Main effects for setting indicated that urban participants,
across respondents, age groups, and types of rights, endorsed rights more positively than
their rural counterparts, F(1, 116) = 17.36, p < .001, η2 = .15.
Significant age group X respondent interactions also were qualified by a significant
three-way right X age group X respondent interaction, F(1, 120) = 7.79, p < .01, η2 = .02,
indicating that the right X age group interaction described above only applied to
adolescent, not mother, respondents. Regardless of the age of their adolescents, mothers
of adolescents of both age groups did not differ from each other in terms of their support
for nurturance and self-determination rights (see Figure 1). Moreover, significant age
group X respondent interactions only applied to self-determination rights. Specifically,
views between mothers and adolescents regarding self-determination rights were most
discrepant amongst the early-adolescent group. Although mothers’ and adolescents’
endorsements of self-determination rights were still discrepant from one another amongst
the mid-adolescent group, this discrepancy was less than that found among the younger
age group (see Figure 1). On the other hand, mothers and adolescents did not differ from
one another in their support for nurturance rights in either age group. There were no
significant differences in terms of how adolescents or mothers responded as a function of
the adolescents’ gender. Adolescent gender was therefore omitted in subsequent
regression analyses.
87
Figure2.Rights X Age Group X Respondent Interactions.
1
2
3
4
5
6
NurturanceRightsSelf-determinationRights
NurturanceRightsSelf-determinationRights
Adolescents Mothers
MeanChildren'sRightsAttitudes
12-year-olds16-year-olds
**
**ns
ns
*** **
88
Hierarchical Regression Analyses: Predicting Adolescents’ and Mothers’ Attitudes
Toward Children’s Rights
To assess how adolescents’ perceptions of parenting contribute to their attitudes
toward children rights, I performed two hierarchical regression analyses on adolescents’
endorsement of nurturance and self-determination rights, respectively. To check for
multi-collinearity, tolerance statistics and variance inflation factors were examined for all
regression models and none was > 5.0. Thus, the multiple regression analyses were not
considered to be biased (Neter et al., 1990).
Adolescents’ attitudes toward nurturance and self-determination rights. In
order to avoid over-fitting of the model, only demographic variables that have significant
relations with the outcome variable were included in the first step of the regression model
as controls. Specifically, when nurturance and self-determination rights were analyzed
separately (instead of together in the repeated ANOVAs above), age group and setting
were found to be significant for nurturance rights, whereas only age group was found to
be significant for self-determination rights. In addition to the significant age group effects
described above, it was found that urban adolescents endorsed nurturance rights to a
significantly higher extent than their rural counterparts. These demographic variables
were entered in the first step of the regression analyses accordingly (Table 8). All
parenting variables (including both maternal and paternal responsiveness and autonomy
support) were included in the second step to explore the relationship between different
parenting dimensions, as perceived by the adolescents, and their attitudes toward
children’s rights.
89
As Table 8 shows, in addition to age group, father responsiveness significantly
predicted higher levels of endorsement of nurturance rights. None of the parenting
variables significantly predicted adolescents’ support for self-determination rights. The
introduction of democratic family climate variables in the third block did not contribute
significantly to either of the regression models. In the fourth step of the regression
analyses, adolescents’ perception of tolerance of dissent at home emerged as a significant
predictor, which was positively related to support for both nurturance and self-
determination rights. The regression models accounted for 24% and 17% of the variances
in nurturance and self-determination rights attitudes, respectively (see Table 8).
Table 8.
Regression Examining Correlates between Family Socialization Environment and Adolescents’ Children’s Rights Attitudes
Nurturance Rights Self-Determination Rights Variables ΔR2 ΔF β ΔR2 ΔF β Step 1 .10 6.81** .05 6.91** Age Group .19* -.22* (Setting) .16 Step 2 .11 3.88** .03 .90 M Autonomy Support .26 .22
F Autonomy Support -.25 -.27 M Responsiveness -.14 -.10 F Responsiveness .48** .15 Step 3 .00 .31 .01 .95 Democratic Family Climate -.10 -.17
Step 4 .03 4.55* .08 11.42*** Tolerance of Dissent .20* .31*** Total R2 .24 .17
Note. M = mother; F = father. *p <.05, **p <.01, ***p < .001.
Relations between mothers’ attitudes toward children’s rights and their self-
reported parenting. Next, I assessed whether mothers’ current parenting practices
predicted their attitudes toward children’s rights. Similar to the regression analyses
90
conducted for adolescents, I included only the significant main effects of origin-setting
into the mothers’ regression models as a control (Table 9). Mothers’ self-perceived
parenting in the second step was significant for both models, with maternal autonomy
support significantly predicting both higher levels of endorsement of nurturance rights
and self-determination rights (Maternal autonomy support was no longer significant in
the nurturance rights model after the addition of tolerance of dissent in Step 4, see Table
3). Maternal responsiveness also significantly predicted support for nurturance rights.
Democratic family climate was not a significant predictor in Step 3 in either models. In
step 4, mothers’ perceptions of their tolerance of dissent emerged as significant positive
predictors of their support for nurturance and self-determination rights, above and beyond
what was predicted by more general measures of parental autonomy support and
responsiveness and democratic family climate. Together, the regression model accounted
for 40% of the variance in nurturance rights attitudes and 19% of the variance in self-
determination rights attitudes.
Table 9.
Relations between Mothers’ Children's Rights Attitudes and their Self-reported Parenting
Nurturance Rights Self-Determination Rights Variables ΔR2 ΔF β ΔR2 ΔF β Step 1 .11 14.10*** .06 6.71* Origin-Setting .13 .08 Step 2 .25 22.41*** .09 5.77** Autonomy Support .18 .28* Responsiveness .34*** -.20 Step 3 .00 .00 .00 .26 Democratic Family Climate -.02 .04 Step 4 .04 7.63** .04 5.95* Tolerance of Dissent .23** .24* Total R2 .40 .19 Note. *p <.05, **p <.01, ***p < .001.
91
Relations between mothers’ retrospective recall of parenting and their
children’s rights attitudes. Lastly, I also assessed whether mothers’ retrospective recall
of how they were parented as adolescents predicted their current attitudes toward
children’s rights. Their origin-setting in Step 1 was significant for both models, with
urban mothers (from both the urban and rural-to-urban group) endorsing both rights to a
significantly greater extent than rural mothers. Controlling for demographic variables,
none of the parenting nor family environment variables as recalled by mothers in the
second, third, and fourth step was predictive of their current attitudes toward children’s
rights for nurturance and self-determination (see Table 10).
Table 10.
Mothers' Retrospective Recall of Parenting and Current Attitudes Toward Children's Rights
Nurturance Rights Self-Determination Rights Variables ΔR2 ΔF β ΔR2 ΔF β Step 1 .11 14.10*** .06 6.71* Origin-Setting
.33*** .23*
Step 2 (.05) 1.48 (.04) 1.13 M Autonomy Support F Autonomy Support M Responsiveness F Responsiveness Step 3 (.01) 1.12 (.01) .63 Democratic Family Climate Step 4 (.00) .26 (.01) 1.59 Tolerance of Dissent Total R2 .11 .06 Note. M = mother; F = father. *p <.05, **p <.01, ***p < .001.
92
Discussion
The debate about the universality of children’s rights has been a growing topic of
discussion in the past decades, which has set in motion a small body of cross-cultural
research examining attitudes about children’s rights. Studies across a range of settings
and contexts have consistently found that children and adults recognize and endorse
children’s rights to both nurturance and self-determination. However, very little research
has examined concurrently both children’s and their mothers’ attitudes toward children’s
rights in non-Western cultural settings. This is a particularly important area for research
given the debates between universalists and relativists about the relevance of rights issues
for culturally non-Western societies and the criticism of imposing Western liberal notions
of individualism and rights onto other non-Western societies (Markus & Kitayama,
1991). The current study fills this gap in the literature by examining children’s rights
attitudes amongst children and mothers in a non-Western cultural context (China) and
includes investigation of the correlates of rights attitudes in both a fast-changing, modern
urban setting and a traditional rural setting.
Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Attitudes Toward Children’s Rights
The present study found that adolescents and their mothers across diverse settings
within China demonstrated support for both nurturance and self-determination rights. In
addition to supporting the rights to be protected and cared for, Chinese respondents
(particularly amongst the adolescents) also demonstrated that they highly value
opportunities for children to exercise their rights to participation and to make personal
autonomous decisions, even though these practices are not traditionally valued in their
societies or may even run counter to existing cultural practices.
93
Consistent with previous research, both Chinese adolescents and their mothers
supported nurturance rights to a greater extent than self-determination rights, and hence
viewed the rights of children to be cared for and protected from harm as more important
than children’s entitlement to self-determination. On the other hand, whereas most of the
prior studies comparing children’s and parents’ attitudes toward rights found that adults
held more favorable attitudes about children’s nurturance rights (e.g., Day et al., 2006;
Peterson-Badali et al., 2004; Rogers & Wrightsman, 1978), adolescents and their mothers
in our current study did not differ from one another in terms of their attitudes about
nurturance rights. In fact, Chinese mothers and their adolescents in both age groups
highly endorsed nurturance rights (consistent with the rights findings of South African
mixed-race children and their mothers; Ruck, Tenenbaum, & Wallenberg, 2011).
Moreover, this is also consistent with the cultural emphasis in China on the role of
parents and authority to provide care and protection to children.
Our hypothesis that adolescents would support self-determination rights to a
greater extent than their mothers was supported. Both early and mid-adolescents endorsed
their rights to exercise personal choices and autonomy across the variety of contexts and
situations included in our measure (including freedom of expression, privacy and making
choices over areas that matter to them like friendships). However, contrary to our
expectation that the endorsement of self-determination rights would be stronger in the
mid-adolescent group, we found that younger adolescents in the current study were found
to be more likely than older adolescents to favor children’s self-determination rights. This
finding is not consistent with a previous study conducted in China in a different province
that held the target child constant at 12 years of age, in which support for both self-
94
determination and nurturance rights was found to be higher in older adolescents (To et
al., 2017). Further investigation showed that the adolescents in both age groups in our
current research were younger than the two age groups represented in the To and
colleagues’ (2017) study. Indeed, the mid-adolescent group in the current study is closer
in age and in their endorsement of nurturance and self-determination rights to the early
adolescent group in To et al. (2017)’s study. With the target child set at twelve years old,
which is very close in age to the early adolescent group represented in the current study,
it is possible that the heightened endorsement of self-determination rights was the result
of the aspiration of these adolescents for more autonomy rights for themselves (Peterson-
Badali et al., 2008). Hence, it is possible that the discrepancies between the findings of
the present and previous studies may lie in the methodological factors, i.e. the relative
correspondence between the participants’ age and the target age of the character child
being examined. Indeed, the findings of greater endorsement of self-determination rights
by early adolescents in this study is consistent with those of prior studies (e.g., Day et al.,
2006), which, like the present study, found that younger participants who are similar in
age as the target child, were more likely to support self-determination rights.
Further, it is possible that older Chinese adolescents may be responding more like
the mother participants when evaluating a target child who is younger than they are.
Similar to their mothers’ reasoning in prior studies (e.g., Peterson-Badali & Ruck, 2008;
Ruck et al., 2002), older adolescents may include maturity and competence as part of
their evaluation and view the target child in the current study as one who is still in need
of parental protection and care, and not yet fully capable of self-determination.
95
A similar explanation may account for why the differences between adolescents’
and mothers’ attitudes toward self-determination rights were most discrepant amongst the
younger age group, with the discrepancies gradually narrowing in the mid-adolescent
group. This finding is noteworthy given that previous studies have reported that
adolescent-mother conflicts peak during early adolescence (usually between 12 and 13
years of age), when adolescents attempt to expand their personal autonomy and are often
met with parental resistance (Collins, 1990; Peterson-Badali, Ruck, & Bone, 2008).
These findings provide converging evidence that while differences between parents and
their children are common during adolescence, it is during early adolescence, when the
focus of developmental needs may be different amongst adolescents and parents, that
these differences are most salient. Although the parents’ focus remains mainly on
protection and nurturance needs at this stage of development, young adolescents’ desire
for autonomy appears to be ahead of parental readiness and may be actively driving their
needs into realization (Smetana, 2011).
I did not identify a subgroup of adolescents in our current study who distinctly
show a reactive pattern in their endorsement of rights, unlike in our prior research (To et
al., 2017). However, younger adolescents in this study appear to be demonstrating a
similar pattern as they strive for and put considerable attention on rights that are deemed
just as important to them, yet may not have been fully met in their lives. These findings
of adolescents’ heightened awareness of rights that have not been fully fulfilled were also
echoed by the qualitative findings of Peterson-Badali and her colleagues' (2008) study of
maltreated children in Canada. Previously maltreated children were asked to generate
rights scenarios in order to examine the rights that were most salient for them. Similar to
96
the current study’s findings, they found that the youngest adolescents, who were often not
yet given much decision making opportunities compared to their older counterparts,
mentioned the right to make autonomous decisions more than other type of right in their
self-generated responses. As older adolescents are usually given more opportunities to
exercise these rights, they were also observed to be less concerned about such issues and
hence mentioned them less often. Peterson-Badali et al. (2008) suggested that these self-
generated rights by young adolescents have an “aspirational” aspect as they are striving
for opportunities that are not yet fully realized, which makes these rights issues
particularly salient for them. These findings are also in line with that of Helwig et al.
(2003) and Lau (1992), who found that values which are perceived as being insufficiently
realized in one’s social environment tend to be more highly valued compared to those
that are customarily granted.
The position of the older adolescents in regard to children’s self-determination
rights may reflect their greater sophistication in balancing considerations of children’s
maturity, autonomy, and the conflicting goals of social contexts, rather than simply
deference to adult authority. Previous studies conducted in Western and non-Western
settings (e.g., Khoury-Kassabri & Ben-Arieh, 2009; Lahat et al., 2009) of children’s
reasoning about rights (rather than their attitudes, as measured in the present study) has
shown that older adolescents’ thinking about self-determination rights appears to be more
complex and differentiated. Instead of simply endorsing children’s rights to make
autonomous decisions across social contexts, older adolescents seem to be more attuned
to the socialization goals of different social institutions, distinguishing among different
social contexts (e.g. family, school) when making decisions (e.g., Lahat et al., 2009).
97
However, despite less strong endorsement of self-determination rights, older adolescents
are not simply subordinating children’s autonomy rights to adult authority. Instead, the
prior literature on reasoning about rights suggests that with age, Chinese adolescents, like
their Western counterparts, made more differentiated social and moral judgments based
on social context and the type of decision under consideration (Helwig et al., 2003;
Helwig & Kim, 1999). For example, although Chinese adolescents justified the need to
rely on the superior competence of authorities to make appropriate choices regarding
certain issues (e.g., decisions about school curriculum), they appealed to children’s
autonomy and viewed children as having equal rights to contribute to decision making in
other contexts (e.g., in the peer group, or for certain family decisions), where children
were believed to have the maturity to make these decisions on their own (Helwig et al.,
2003; Helwig & Kim, 1999). Thus, with age, adolescents increasingly make more
multifaceted and differentiated social judgments, characterized by balancing concerns
with the best interests of the child along with attunement to the evolving capacities of the
child. The gradual development of adolescents’ ability to make these more nuanced
distinctions during adolescence may explain the growing rapprochement between older
adolescents and their mothers in their support of children’s rights to self-determination.
The significant correlations between mother-reported support for adolescents’
nurturance and self-determination rights indicates that mothers who are sensitive to the
developmental needs of their children are attuned to both their developing needs for
autonomy as well as their ongoing needs for care and protection. Interestingly,
adolescents’ support for nurturance and self-determination was not significantly
correlated, showing that adolescents regard these two types of rights as distinct
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constructs. Indeed, prior studies on adolescents’ social reasoning regarding their
endorsement of these rights demonstrated that they provided distinctly different
justifications depending on the type of right (e.g., Ruck, 1998). Moreover, the current
study suggests that there may be differential pathways in the development of rights
conceptions for these two types of rights, which will be discussed in further detail in the
next section.
Socialization Correlates of Adolescents’ Attitudes Toward Children’s Rights
The hypothesis that parenting and family democratic climate are related to
attitudes toward children’s nurturance and self-determination rights was generally
supported; results revealed that adolescents’ endorsement of nurturance rights was
predicted by their perceptions of parental autonomy support and responsiveness as well
as a democratic family environment. It is particularly surprising that father
responsiveness emerged as an especially important predictor of adolescents’ attitudes
about their nurturance rights. Given that mothers are often the primary caregivers in
China, child responsiveness and nurturing may be regarded as part of the role assumed by
mothers. On the other hand, Chinese fathers often assume a figure of authority and
discipline in the household (Lamb, 2004). Being responsive and nurturing may not fit
with the traditional stereotype. As a result, the experience of having responsive fathers
who are attuned to the developmental needs of the children may be particularly salient to
their children, and in turn may play an important role in the development of the
awareness of their rights. Indeed, a few studies have shown that Chinese fathers’
parenting is predictive of children’s development and outcomes, above and beyond the
effects of mothers’ parenting (e.g., Ang, 2006; Chen, Liu, & Li, 2000; Shek, 1999).
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These findings regarding the unique role of Chinese fathers in the development of
children’s understanding and endorsement of nurturance rights issues is noteworthy and
warrants further research to determine whether those findings could be replicated in other
studies and in other, non-Western cultural settings.
Contrary to my hypotheses, I did not find that children’s perception of autonomy
supportive parenting and democratic family climate predicted their endorsement of self-
determination rights. The current findings thus suggest the possibility of a differential
pathway regarding the development of different types of children’s rights issues.
Specifically, children's support for nurturance is more closely tied to their family
socialization experience, which shapes their beliefs and expectations of what to expect
from adults in terms of being cared for and protected from harm. On the other hand,
awareness and support for self-determination rights appears to arise from children’s
innate developmental needs for autonomy. Children appear to be aware of its dynamic
and negotiated nature and regard it as something that they claim over time with
development and through negotiation (Smetana, 2011).
However, tolerance of dissent seems to be an important general predictor, as it
was positively associated with and significantly predicted both attitudes toward
nurturance and self-determination rights amongst Chinese adolescents, even after
controlling for general parental responsiveness and autonomy support in the regression
analyses. Consistent with prior research among different ethnicities in the Middle East as
well as Chinese adolescents in urban and rural China (Khoury-Kassabri & Ben-Arieh,
2009; To et al., 2017), our findings suggest that children’s own experience of being able
to openly express their opinions, whether the same or different from parental views,
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facilitates stronger endorsement of children’s rights issues. Having the experience of
freely expressing themselves also shapes their belief that other children should have these
rights. It is noted that these associations between tolerance of dissent and both nurturance
and self-determination rights were found across both urban and rural settings, and for
males and females. This is striking as there are considerable differences in modernization
and traditionalism between these environments, with more traditional gender
socialization norms obtaining in rural settings (Zhang, Zheng, & Wang, 2003),
suggesting that similar processes may be at work. Given that being able to openly
criticize and express opposition to parental views is generally incompatible with
traditional Chinese cultural norms or may even be frowned upon by parental authority,
children’s experience with parents who are tolerant of dissent may be particularly salient
in promoting children’s own rights conceptions. These findings provide support for the
proposition that across diverse cultural contexts, socialization agents who are sensitive to
children’s developmental needs—especially their needs for expressing their own views—
may enhance children’s appreciation of their rights.
Since no other studies I am aware of have examined the relationship between
children’s rights attitudes and tolerance of dissent in cultural settings in which opposing
views from children are more commonly welcomed, further studies are needed to
determine whether the unique relationship between tolerance of dissent and rights
attitudes is found in other cultural settings.
Correlates of Mothers’ Attitudes Toward Children’s Rights
As expected, an examination of relations between maternal views of children’s
rights and maternal parenting practices revealed strong relationships between these
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constructs, indicating that maternal attitudes toward children’s rights to nurturance and
self-determination generally translate into their parenting behavior. Specifically, mothers’
self-reported responsive parenting predicted maternal endorsement of children’s
nurturance rights, whereas autonomy supportive parenting positively predicted their
attitudes about self-determination rights. Moreover, maternal endorsement of both rights
was related to their self-reported tolerance of dissent. The shared associations between
tolerance of dissent and both types of rights reflect that there may be similar underlying
processes, i.e., that parents who are more open to criticism may view the developmental
needs of children to take precedence over parental authority, leading to stronger
endorsement of both types of children’s rights.
Although there are clear relationships between adolescents’ socialization
experience and their thinking about rights, it is interesting to note that none of the
retrospective family socialization variables emerge as significant predictors for mothers’
current attitudes toward children’s rights issues. It appears that while socialization
experiences (e.g., experience of autonomy, exercising rights and expressing their views
freely) are related to adolescents’ current conceptions of rights, with time and as one
becomes a parent oneself, other factors (e.g., their current socio-cultural environment)
may become more directly predictive of mothers’ thinking about children’s rights.
Further research, perhaps of a longitudinal nature, should examine other contextual
factors that may predict parental attitudes and facilitate their construction of children’s
rights issues over time.
While most studies tend to depend on only one source of informants, one
particular strength of the current study was the simultaneous investigation of multiple
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informants (i.e., mothers and adolescents) to examine the relationships and whether there
are any significant differences amongst different informants. Our current findings show
that adolescents’ perceptions and experiences of rights and autonomy appear to be quite
different from mothers’ self-report of their own parenting practices. Generally, when
family socialization variables were rated by the adolescent participants, the associations
between these variables and the child’s endorsement of rights were much stronger than
the relationship between these variables when they were rated by the parents. These
findings are similar to those of Yeung and Chan (2015), who found that the relationships
between family processes and parenting practices and child mental health were much
stronger when they were rated from the perspective of children (instead of from their
parents). Although this may be partially explained by the shared variance when the
variables were reported by the same respondents, these findings also demonstrate that it is
the child’s subjective perception, as the individual who experiences the parenting first-
hand, that matters the most when investigating the correlates of children’s rights attitudes.
Conclusions
Similar to other research with participants of Western cultural background (e.g.,
Day et al., 2006; Peterson-Badali et al., 2004; Rogers & Wrightsman, 1978), Chinese
adolescents and mothers in the current study endorsed a broad range of children’s rights
including rights issues related to both nurturance and self-determination. Despite the
differences between mothers and their adolescents in their support for children’s self-
determination rights, this gap slowly narrows with adolescents’ age. As China’s efforts of
modernization continue, the shifts in sociopolitical environment likely would become an
impetus for changes in social norms, attitudes, beliefs and practices. Both Chinese
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mothers and adolescents appear to be actively constructing their own views about rights
and adapting their behaviors as they experience continuous changes in their immediate
environment and evolving norms. Longitudinal studies would be warranted in the future
in order to systematically examine how individuals’ attitudes may change and evolve
over time during periods of social change and especially as children become parents
themselves. Hence, for a complete understanding of this issue, environmental factors and
social changes would need to be considered in conjunction with developmental pathways
and the changing roles in ones’ lifespan. The current period is in fact a prime time to
study this topic. With China’s continual effort to reform and reduce the rural-urban gap,
drastic social change will likely continue to happen, particularly in the rural areas in the
next decades (Guthrie, 2012).
Although the present study extends previous research on children’s rights by
considering both adolescents’ and mothers’ conceptions of rights in two contrasting
settings within China, there are several limitations that should be noted. First, due to the
cross-sectional design of the current studies, direction of relationships cannot be inferred
from the findings. As noted earlier, longitudinal research in future studies would be
warranted to elucidate the causality of relationships and allow examination of changes in
attitudes about rights over time, human development, and social change. Secondly,
instead of using a rights attitudes measure that is derived from a Western cultural setting,
qualitative research to elicit indigenous and spontaneous rights responses from Chinese
adolescents and parents would allow us to identify rights issues that are most salient to
their lives without potentially imposing a Western cultural framework on their responses.
Moreover, findings of the present study show that tolerance of dissent is a particularly
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prominent predictor of adolescents’ attitudes toward rights; future research would benefit
from incorporating this variable when examining family socialization processes. It would
be particularly important to examine whether the unique contribution of this variable
found in the current study would be replicated and generalizable to other settings. Lastly,
given that the current studies have shown the importance and unique role of fathers’
parenting in shaping children’s attitudes about their rights, further studies need to
consider fathers’ beliefs and attitudes toward children’s rights to self-determination and
nurturance, and how these beliefs may shape the rights attitudes, beliefs, and practices of
our next generation.
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General Discussion
The papers presented in this dissertation aim to contribute to our understanding of
how autonomy, rights, and parenting may be understood in the cultural settings of urban
and rural China: two settings that have been rapidly changing at a different pace over the
past decades with the rise of modernization.
The two studies examine the relationship between different types of cultural
parenting practices and adolescents’ psychological well-being, as well as the types of
socialization practices that encourage the development of understandings of rights in the
family context. Comparing mothers from three different origin-setting groups (urban,
rural-to-urban, and rural China), encompassing urban social ecologies of the Gesellschaft
form to the rural social ecologies of the Gemeinschaft form (Greenfield, 2009), these
studies provide insight into how the extent of urbanization impacts parenting practices,
beliefs and attitudes, and consequently affects children’s development in a non-Western
cultural setting.
Socialization Pathways to Well-Being and the Development of Rights Conceptions
Adolescents’ socialization experiences appear to be important determinants
affecting their psychological, cognitive, and moral development (e.g., Baumrind, 1966;
Hasebe et al., 2004; Jia et al., 2009; Vansteenkiste et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2007).
Findings from both of our studies demonstrated converging evidence supporting the
universalist claim that children in a variety of cultural contexts benefit from family
environments which are responsive and promote children’s needs to exercise autonomy.
Consistent with the proposition of SDT, the significant associations between autonomy
supportive parenting and children’s positive psychological well-being, across settings of
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modern urban and traditional rural China, suggest universal processes in the development
of autonomy, a basic psychological need.
In addition to parenting that is responsive to children’s developmental need for
personal autonomy and rights, I also found that democratic family environments with
features like the opportunity to participate in decision making, and the ability to freely
express one’s voice—especially when the perspectives are in disagreement with the
parents’—can be an important pathway in supporting optimal child development and in
facilitating an appreciation of children’s rights. These findings are particularly intriguing
given that China is governed by the Communist party in which freedom of thought,
tolerance for dissent, and discussions related to notions of democracy are often
discouraged. Moreover, despite globalization and the widespread use of the Internet
within China, publications and digital forms of information regarding politics and
democracy are tightly restricted by the state and the Community Party of China (Guillén
& Suárez, 2005). Nevertheless, Chinese children develop notions of personal autonomy
and rights that encompass the importance of democratic participation and expressions of
dissent or criticism (see Ruck, Peterson-Badali, & Helwig, 2014 for a review). These
conceptions of autonomy, democracy and rights hence are not merely products of
Western civilizations nor are they only relevant for individuals with an independent view
of the self (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Shweder & Sullivan, 1993). Instead, these notions
appear to have functional relevance in the realization of psychological well-being and are
important for the development of rights conceptions for children in non-Western cultural
settings, even though the political atmosphere may not be fully compatible with these
ideas.
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From Global Cultural Orientations To Dynamic Shifts and Movements within
Culture and Over Time
Putting together the findings of the two studies, it is evident that social and
economic changes in China within the past few decades have brought about changes in
social norms and created ripple effects challenging traditional beliefs and practices.
Despite the long history of Confucianism in China which emphasizes hierarchy,
obedience to authority, and the subordination of the self to the social group, these
elements of the more traditional, historical collectivist culture are now combined with
values that are adaptive to a modern urban economy (Wang, 2014). Dynamic shifts in
values and cultural orientations were noted as the social change unfolds (Chen et al.,
2010). Due to the economic reforms and opening up policy that was initiated in 1978,
China, especially the urban coastal areas, has experienced rapid urbanization and
improvements in living standards and education (Mackerras, 2001). With these
socioeconomic changes came the demand for very different qualities and skills in the
labour market. This corresponds with a shift in parenting style emphasizing assertiveness,
independence, creativity, and autonomy, and a shift in attitudes toward children’s rights
that was becoming more common amongst urban parents (Naftali, 2016).
In the current studies, the findings appear to be consistent with Greenfield’s
proposition that mothers may reflect on how they were parented and modify their current
parenting in response to the new requirements of the changing social ecologies
(Greenfield, 2009). Indeed, a shift in cultural parenting practices was reported, with
mothers reporting themselves to be more autonomy supportive and more tolerant of
different opinions and criticism from their children when compared to their own parents.
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This parallels shifts in the societal beliefs and views regarding the raising of children
(Stearns, 2016). Similarly, it was found that Chinese mothers’ attitudes toward children’s
rights are no longer predicted by their own socialization experiences. Other contextual
factors like their current socio-cultural environment (e.g., the modern urban setting)
appear to be influencing their thinking about children’s autonomy and attitudes toward
children’s rights issues over time.
Hence, rather than adhering to a purely global and stable cultural orientation of
collectivism, Chinese adolescents and parents took into consideration sociocultural
change and its corresponding shift in societal demands, in their own parenting and when
making judgments about children’s rights (e.g., Wang, 2014). Moreover, variations
within Chinese culture are also evident in our studies. The impact of social change is
revealed in the different pace of attitudinal and behavioral shifts observed in parents of
different setting-origin groups. As hypothesized, the drastic reform in urban China may
have led urban parents to reflect on traditional practices and values and to integrate
modern values into their parenting to meet the new demands of a capitalist and globalized
economy. However, due to the uneven socioeconomic development and different pace of
change in rural areas, there is much less of a degree of value shift and corresponding
change in parenting practices amongst rural Chinese parents. Moreover, the finding that
rural-to-urban mothers were in the intermediate stage of this process, that is, between
urban and rural parents in terms of their rights attitudes and socialization practices, points
to the dynamic and transitional nature of parenting practices and attitudes during social
change. It is evident that shifts in attitudes do not happen overnight. The process is
gradual and likely requires active reflection on varied experiences, as reflected in the
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different pace of change in thinking and attitudes amongst rural to urban parents, who
had experienced both types of social environments (Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft). The
dynamic shifts in parenting practices and beliefs within culture and over time in
contemporary China also point to the fallacy of oversimplifying and dichotomizing
cultures as static constructs (for instance in the form of individualism and collectivism).
Constructivist Approaches to Values and Beliefs
A consistent theme that arose in both papers was adolescents’ and mothers’ active
role in their construction of values, beliefs, and in the socialization environment they
provide to their children. Instead of simply transmitting and accepting traditional cultural
practices and values from one generation to another, Chinese adolescents and mothers
appear to be actively constructing their own views about rights and parenting practices
based on several factors, including reflection on their own socialization experience, their
recognition of the innate developmental needs for autonomy, and an acknowledgement of
the socialization demands in their current social environment.
Chinese adolescents and their mothers demonstrated that they value opportunities
for children to exercise rights for participation and to make autonomous decisions (even
though these practices are not traditionally valued in their societies or may even run
counter to existing cultural practices). Moreover, adolescents were found to hold beliefs
and to endorse practices that not only reflected values that are traditionally shared by
Chinese cultures, but that also integrate their developing conceptions of autonomy, and
they endorsed rights that may be contested or insufficiently realized in their prevailing
socialization milieu. Hence, adolescents are seen as active agents within their
socialization environment as they strive for an environment that meets their
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developmental needs.
Similarly, urban mothers appeared to endorse more autonomy-related rights when
compared to what they perceived that they had received during adolescence. This is in
stark contrast to rural mothers’ reports, of which there were no differences between their
self-reported parenting and their retrospective reports of their mother’s parenting. This
suggests that urban mothers may have reflected upon the way they were raised and
integrated their knowledge of what is required in the new economy and society, which
may have differed from what they had experienced growing up. Hence, instead of
directly passing along traditional parenting beliefs and practices, this finding of shifts in
urban parenting highlights the active role of mothers in constructing their beliefs of
parenting practices in response to changes in their social and cultural milieu.
Different Pace in Value Versus Behavioral Changes
Another interesting observation derived from the two papers is the finding that
while modernization and socio-environmental change is happening at a speedy pace,
values, beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral change may occur at a different pace. On the
one hand, findings in Paper 1 illustrated that mothers’ current parenting practices remain
quite heavily influenced by the way mothers recalled they were parented (in addition to
the differential influence of urban and rural environments discussed above). On the other
hand, findings from Paper 2 illustrated that mothers’ recall of their own prior
socialization experience was not related to their current attitudes toward children’s rights.
It appears that while their own experiences of how they were parented influences their
parenting behaviors, mothers’ current environmental circumstances appear to be the most
important factor having ramifications for their explicit attitudes regarding children’s
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rights. It is possible that living in an urban environment has heightened their awareness of
the changing societal demands and led them to recognize their children’s needs for
autonomy to a greater extent than rural parents whose social environment has changed
relatively less. Moreover, there has been an increase in the general population's,
especially urban parents,' access to information about children's rights as well as an
increase in public awareness of the importance of children's rights to overall healthy
development (Naftali, 2015).
The findings that mothers’ endorsements of children’s rights, unlike their current
parenting practices, were not predicted by their own socialization experience suggest that
values, attitudes, and behavioral change may be impacted by social change in a different
fashion and at a different pace. It is possible that behaviors like parenting practices are
often more visceral and less conscious as they result from reactions to parent-child
situations. During those interactions, the continual impact of cultural traditional parenting
practices is more evident, and it is probably more likely for one to replicate the way they
were raised. This process is consistent with expectations from the social learning and
attachment theory about transmission of parenting styles across generations, as discussed
in the Introduction of Paper 1. On the other hand, acquisition of values, and specifically,
the development of rights conceptions, would be expected to involve a more reflective
process. These understandings require one to actively reflect on one’s own socialization
experiences with regard to children’s welfare and autonomy needs, and to integrate this
knowledge with current socio-cultural demands. Hence, with time, mothers’ attitudes
may no longer be predicted by their socialization experience (especially when cultural
change produces relevant new material for reflection). These findings suggest that
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different processes may underlie the changes in attitudes (children’s rights attitudes in
this case) and behaviors (e.g., parenting practices).
Moreover, social psychology research has found that measures of general
attitudes often are poor predictors of actual behaviors (Wicker, 1969). The
inconsistencies between general attitudes and specific behaviors have led many social
psychologists to question the relevance and utility of attitudes measures (e.g., Campbell,
1963; Wicker, 1969). Researchers have often attributed response biases (i.e., the tendency
to give socially desirable responses on attitudes) as one of the reasons that may have led
to the failure of capturing true attitudes, and hence led to the attitude-behavior
inconsistences. More recent approaches, however, have found that when measures of
attitudes and behaviors are at compatible levels of specificity, the correlations between
the two measures are often much higher (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005). For the current
studies, while the measures of children’s rights were rather specific (asking about rights
in specific contexts), the measures of parenting behaviors used were comparatively
general (asking general perception of autonomy support and responsiveness in the
family). Hence, specific children’s rights attitudes may not provide a good basis for
predicting and explaining general parenting behaviors. Future studies may consider
matching the levels of specificity of the attitude and behavior measures, for example, by
asking more specific parenting behaviors that are relevant to specific children’s rights
issues to further explore the relationship between the two constructs.
Mothers’ Versus Adolescents’ Reports
Research on parenting has often relied on the reports of a single reporter (usually
child reported data) for behaviors of other family members and in drawing conclusions
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about the family climate. However, the present study investigated parents’ and their
adolescent children’s reports of parenting behaviors and family climate and found that the
associations between the two reporters were generally modest. The non-significant to
moderate levels of agreement between parents and their adolescents is consistent with
findings conducted in the United States and China, pointing to the very different
perceptions of parenting that children and parents may have (e.g., Cheung et al., 2016;
Gonzales et al., 1996). Across studies examining differences in perceptions of family
climate, adolescents consistently perceive families more negatively, more conflictual and
less cohesive than their parents do (e.g., Noller et al., 1992; Ohannessian, Lerner, Lerner,
& Von Eye, 1995). Similarly, when comparing the two reporter’s ratings, adolescents in
the current study consistently reported their mothers’ parenting to be less autonomy
supportive, and the family climate as less democratic, than their mothers did. This finding
may reflect adolescents’ increased expectations regarding autonomy, leading to
discrepancies between adolescent expectations and those of their parents, as has been
well-documented in parenting research across cultures (see Smetana, 2011, for a review).
Moreover, on the one hand, adolescents may base their reports of parenting on both
observable parenting behaviors and what they perceive as appropriate for them as they
assert their growing autonomy and attempt to achieve individuation during adolescence.
On the other hand, parents’ self-reports may be based on not only their parenting
behavior, but also their cognition and intentions, which may not always be manifested in
their observable behaviors (Schifield et al., 2016).
In addition, within-rater reports were found to be generally higher than cross-rater
(i.e., between mothers’ and adolescents’) reports in the current study. Hence, while
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significant relations were found when only adolescent reports or only mother reports
were used; relations between adolescent reports and mother reports were generally non-
significant. These findings may be due to the shared-method variance and as mentioned
previously, may reflect the different viewpoints of the respondents.
Nevertheless, despite the discrepancies, Schofield and his colleagues (2016)
proposed that the low correlations between different raters of parenting is a strength
(instead of a problem), as each report is “uniquely biased” and “equally valid” in
contributing their perspectives to the constructs. Future research examining measures of
family socialization should explore whether the discrepancies between reporters depends
on the parenting construct under consideration and explore the potential of leveraging the
power of reporters discrepancies by understanding the discrepancy patterns among
multiple raters to predict outcomes (Schofield et al., 2016).
Implications for Research and Future Directions
- From Cross-Sectional to Longitudinal Studies
The current research findings also suggest some specific avenues for further
research to guide policy and practice. To date, much of the work has focused on Western
cultural contexts in a set time. The current studies, despite utilizing diverse settings in a
non-Western cultural context, like most work conducted thus far, is cross-sectional. The
disadvantage with cross-sectional studies is that the direction of causality cannot be
inferred.
For example, while our focus was on the effects of parenting on adolescents'
psychological well-being in Paper 1, recent theoretical advances and studies indicate that
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parenting is no longer understood as a one-way process. Instead, bidirectional effects
have been found, and adolescents also had a strong effect on parenting styles (Smetana,
2017). Conceptualizing parenting in isolation, without the consideration of children as
agents within their family, would not be able to capture the dynamic and interactive
nature of the socialization processes (Nixon & Halpenny, 2010).
Similarly, the relationship between social change and the development and shift in
attitudes, values, and behaviors is not a simple one-way direction of causality. Instead,
there is likely an interactive process involving the social environmental impact on
people's thinking, norms and beliefs about “proper” parenting practices and children’s
rights attitudes. This in turn further drives societal development and modernization.
Hence, in order to better understand the dynamic and interactive nature of development
and social change, it would be essential to examine social changes along with the
expansion of autonomy needs during development in adolescence, as well as the role of
social change in the socialization processes.
Moreover, virtually nothing about the factors leading to the development of
parenting practices and beliefs as one becomes parents in non-Western cultural contexts
is known. The developmental period between adolescence and young adulthood would be
a particularly interesting one to explore, as this is often a time when values and attitudes
are further developed as individuals transition to more independent thinking and possibly
parenthood. For these reasons, longitudinal studies examining socialization processes
across time, particularly during this important period of transition, would allow us to
further delineate the effects of development and modernization, and study the effects of
cultural transformation and change on parental behaviors and their development of
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children’s rights attitudes.
- From Self-reports to Observational Reports of Autonomy-Supportive Parenting
The two studies presented in this dissertation used mother and adolescent self-
reports. As discussed prior, the potential impacts of reporter effects were evident in the
current studies. To address these issues, the use of observational reports of parenting may
likely help to establish the exact way in which autonomy-supportive parenting is
expressed within Chinese socialization contexts. There remains a huge gap in
observational studies of parenting in China and especially rural settings when compared
to the large number of such studies conducted in Western cultures.
Similarly, although our study uncovered clear associations between autonomy-
supportive parenting and psychological well-being and endorsement of children’s rights
attitudes, there may be differences in the particular ways in which adolescents construe
autonomy support (or democratic family climate) across urban and rural settings in
China. Adolescents may gauge the “proper” amount of autonomy they believe they
should be given in relation to the particular opportunities for autonomy afforded by their
environments. For example, research in Western cultural settings has shown that
adolescents’ expectations for autonomy are influenced by the amount of autonomy that
they believe that their peers have (Daddis, 2011). Moreover, particular dimensions of
autonomy, such as the appropriate level of involvement of children in family decision
making or the types of child expression that may be permissible or reasonably restricted
by parents, may not be perceived in exactly the same way in urban and rural China.
Accordingly, research has found that Chinese rural adolescents sometimes do not endorse
as strongly certain self-determination rights for children (i.e., those relating to their
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decision making autonomy) as those in urban setting, or they have later expectations
about why they should receive certain forms of decision making autonomy than their
urban peers (Lahat et al., 2009; To et al., 2017; Zhang & Fuligni, 2006). Thus, future
research is needed to better illuminate the specific types of parenting practices that are
most important to adolescents’ perceptions of autonomy support, and corresponding
psychological well-being and children’s rights attitudes outcomes, in different socio-
cultural settings.
- From Quantitative to Qualitative Studies
The current studies were carried out against the backdrop of changing trends and
social norms in Chinese society. Beliefs and values are continuously shifting, and old
practices that used to be effective for children may no longer be appropriate or beneficial
for their well-being. To truly inform beneficial and effective parenting practices, there is
clearly a need for greater attention and understanding of these issues from children’s
perspectives. Hence, in addition to the use of preset questionnaires that have been derived
from Western research studies and translated into the corresponding languages, future
research should integrate qualitative components and allow the active participation of
children to express their indigenous views and thoughts on parenting and to identify
rights issues that are salient for them (Peterson-Badali & Ruck, 2008; Ruck et al., 2014).
For example, questions soliciting their perspectives on how they would parent in the
future when they themselves become parents would be a particularly interesting topic for
investigation. This would allow for investigations of reflections on current experience
while they also imagine taking on a different role in their response. Would their parenting
practices be different from their own parents, and if so, how? Are there any rights that are
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not recognized by their own parents that they would consider important to provide for
their future children? Would they take into account social change in their thinking and
foresee a need for shifts in parenting practices in the future?
This form of qualitative study involving the active engagement of children allows
children's voices to be heard and acknowledges their right to play an active role in
research that affects their lives (Peterson-Badali & Ruck, 2008; Ruck et al., 2014). It also
empowers them as active social agents with the power to make decisions in matters
related to themselves, and to influence their environment and policy about children (Ben-
Arieh, 2005). This will also allow us to gain invaluable insight into children’s
experiences of parenting practices and is imperative in our efforts in improving children’s
well-being. Additionally, parenting programs may also integrate such knowledge and
enhance parents and socialization agents’ awareness of children’s perspectives on
parenting and rights.
Similarly, while we speculate that changes in urban parenting are the byproducts of
adaptions to sociocultural environmental change, it would be important to explore this
hypothesis through direct interviews with parents of adolescents. Having parents from
different origin-settings to reflect on their own socialization experiences and to share
their thoughts on the socialization and socio-cultural factors that may have influenced
their current parenting beliefs and practices would allow us to gain a better understanding
of the Chinese parents’ experiences as they continue to face significant social change
over the next decade.
Conclusion
China has made tremendous gains in improving the condition of its children's
119
lives in the past decades. In response to the changing sociocultural context in
contemporary China, a new type of citizen with critical thinking, initiative, creativity, and
social and cultural awareness would be needed for the new global economy. Investments
in adapting the socialization climate (e.g., by parent education and teacher training) to
promote an environment that would encourage and guide children to develop capacities
to make their own rational decisions, promote children’s active role in their own agency,
and harness their potential through full participation would be an important avenue to the
realization of healthy development and flourishing in the next generation.
120
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Appendix A
Perceptions of Parents Scales (POPS)
Autonomy Support Questions about your mother.
1. My mother seems to know how I feel about things.
2. My mother tries to tell me how to run my life.
3. My mother, whenever possible, allows me to choose what to do.
4. My mother listens to my opinion or perspective when I've got a problem.
5. My mother allows me to decide things for myself.
6. My mother insists upon my doing things her way.
7. My mother is usually willing to consider things from my point of view.
8. My mother helps me to choose my own direction.
9. My mother isn't very sensitive to many of my needs.
Questions about your father.
10. My father seems to know how I feel about things.
11. My father tries to tell me how to run my life. (R)
12. My father, whenever possible, allows me to choose what to do.
13. My father listens to my opinion or perspective when I've got a problem.
14. My father allows me to decide things for myself.
15. My father insists upon my doing things his way.
16. My father is usually willing to consider things from my point of view.
17. My father helps me to choose my own direction.
18. My father isn't very sensitive to many of my needs.
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Responsiveness
Questions about your mother.
1. My mother finds time to talk with me.
2. My mother accepts me and likes me as I am.
3. My mother doesn't seem to think of me often.
4. My mother clearly conveys her care for me.
5. My mother spends a lot of time with me.
6. My mother makes me feel very special.
7. My mother often seems too busy to attend to me.
8. My mother is often disapproving and unaccepting of me.
9. My mother is not very involved with my concerns.
10. My mother is typically happy to see me.
11. My mother puts time and energy into helping me.
12. My mother seems to be disappointed in me a lot.
Questions about your father.
13. My father finds time to talk with me.
14. My father accepts me and likes me as I am.
15. My father doesn't seem to think of me often.
16. My father clearly conveys his care for me.
17. My father spends a lot of time with me.
18. My father makes me feel very special.
19. My father often seems too busy to attend to me.
20. My father is often disapproving and unaccepting of me.
21. My father is not very involved with my concerns.
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22. My father is typically happy to see me.
23. My father puts time and energy into helping me.
24. My father seems to be disappointed in me a lot.
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Appendix B
Democratic Environment Questionnaire (DEQ)
Questions about your family.
Freedom of expression/tolerance of dissent 1. It is possible to criticize my parents’ decisions. (“tolerance of dissent” item)
2. There is mutual respect between me and my parents even in areas in which we disagree.
Participation 3. My parents make family decisions without taking my opinion into account
4. In my family, I am given the chance to help make decisions.
Rule of law/ Due process
5. My parents often seem to consider themselves above the rules.
6. My parents will listen to my explanation and offer a fair hearing if I am accused of wrongdoing.
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Appendix C
Children’s Rights Attitudes (CRA) questionnaire
Self-determinationRights 1. Children should have the right to decide which recreational activities they will
participate in
2. Decisions about a child's medical treatment should be made by the child, even if the
child's life is at stake
3. Children should have the right to express ideas or opinions in school newspapers,
even if many teachers may not agree with them
4. Children should have to get permission from their parents before taking a job
5. Children should have the right to choose what they wear even if their parents
disapprove
6. Children should have the right to decide which school they will attend
7. Children should have the right to choose which religion they practice, even if it is
different from their parents
8. Parents should be able to enter a child's room without the child's permission
9. Children should have the right to choose their friends
10. Children should have the right to keep their diary private from their parents
11. Parents should be able to keep children from seeing television shows dealing with
content that parents consider inappropriate
12. Parents should be able to read their child’s diary if they have concerns about their
child
13. Children should have the right to keep their room locked even if their parents are
concerned about what might be in it
14. Children should have the right to practice their religion
15. Children should have the right to wear what they want
16. Children should have the right to work if they choose
17. It is up to parents to decide which recreational activities are too rough or dangerous
for their children to play
18. Children should have the right to choose what they watch on television
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19. Children should have the right to express their ideas and opinions
20. Decisions about a child's routine medical treatment, e.g., getting a needle, should be
made by the child
21. Children should have the right to choose which school to attend, even if their parents
disagree
22. Children should have the right to choose their friends even if their parents don’t
approve
Nurturance Rights 1. Parents should be required to take their children for counselling when they are
having emotional problems at school
2. Money from taxes should be used to ensure that children receive quality child care
3. Even if parents are extremely busy, they should always make themselves available to
talk with their child if the child has a problem
4. Children should have the right to adequate clothing
5. Children should have the right to a quality education
6. Children should have the right to receive adequate dental care
7. Children should have the right to quality child care
8. Children should have the right to an adequate breakfast
9. Adequate clothing for children may be a goal of our society, but it should not be a
right for every child
10. Children should have the right to an adequate home environment
11. Dental care should be provided to children only when their parents can pay for it
12. Money from taxes should be spent to ensure that all children receive a quality
education whether they are rich or poor
13. Children should have the right to receive medical treatment even if their parents
forbid it on religious grounds
14. The government should be required to help parents provide an adequate home
environment for children
15. Children should have the right to receive medical treatment when necessary
16. Schools should be required to provide breakfasts for those children who don't get
adequate breakfasts at home
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17. Children should have the right to have their emotional needs taken care of by their
parents
18. Children should have the right to counselling when they are having emotional
problems at school