Explaining the Anomalies: Parenting Style and Academic Achievement in Latinx and Chinese Families

Abstract

The authoritative parenting style's superiority has been well documented. In opposition to the other parenting types, the authoritative parenting type showed increased academic achievement in children as well as a healthier idea of self-concept on behalf of the child. As this hypothesis was retested, there arose an anomaly in Asian and Latinx families; authoritarian parenting style correlated with academic success in these cases. This study endeavors to recreate these results in three different cultural contexts: American, Latinx, and Chinese; in an effort to ascertain the explanation as to why these cultures are the exception to the rule. The study hypothesizes that the majority of the Chinese and Latinx parenting pairs will identify as authoritarian parenting style while showing a moderate to strong positive correlation with academic success of their children. Families with results matching the previously discovered anomalies will be interviewed in an effort to determine the cause of the incongruity.

Keywords: Baumrind, authoritarian, Asian, Latinx, Chinese

Explaining the Anomalies: Parenting Style and Academic Achievement in Latinx and Chinese Families

Baumrind (1971) defined three parenting archetypes which helped determine the relationship between parenting styles and various outcomes. Each parenting type is mainly defined by the relationship between the level of expectation the parent has for the child and the amount of support the parent gives in meeting those expectations. As previously mentioned, Baumrind (1971) differentiated three types; a fourth was added over a decade later (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). The four parenting types are Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive, and Neglectful parenting. The first of the four types are identified by a high bar of expectations of the child's behavior in terms of obedience, respect, and academic performance and an evenly high amount of support and encouragement given by the parent in achieving these results. Of the four parenting types, Authoritative parenting proved to be the most significant predictor in academic performance and social-emotional stability (Baumrind, 1971; Dornbusch et al., 1987; Maccoby & Martin, 1983).

Dornbusch et al. (1987) tested Baumrind’s (1971) parent typology in a multicultural context. The research design included a diverse sample in the San Francisco Bay area, which included over eight thousand school-aged children. The methodology included a questionnaire encompassing demographic information such as economic background, home environment, parental attitudes toward particular behaviors, and ethnicity. The study repeated results described by Baumrind (1971) and affirmed the positive correlation between authoritative parenting and academic success and the negative correlation between the authoritarian parenting type and poor academic performance (Dornbusch et al., 1987). This study was different from others in that it encompassed a very diverse population, as previously mentioned. This unique quality of the study made it possible to see the differences in parenting typology according to ethnic background or culture. The study challenged the school of thought that the authoritative parent style was the only parenting typography that correlated with academic success because there seemed to be outliers in the Asian and Latinx groups. These parents, whose responses to the questionnaire had labelled them as authoritarian parenting style, actually showed a positive correlation with academic success in their children (Dornbusch et al., 1987). Interesting as it was, this was just an extraneous observation during the 80s, but forty years later, with a rapidly globalizing society, differences in cultural perceptions are anything but extraneous.

Leung, Lau, & Lam (1998) conducted experiments in Hong Kong, Australia, and the United States to determine the effects of Baumrind's (1971) parenting types within different cultural contexts. The three cultures which were the focus of the study were Chinese families, Australian families, and American families. The results from this study affirmed Baumrind's (1971) and Dornbusch's (1989) findings in support of the authoritative parent's superiority in terms of the strong correlation with academic success. Interestingly, the research also supported the findings described in Dornbusch (1989) regarding Asian families, specifically Chinese families. There was little to no correlation between the authoritative or passive parenting typologies and their children's academic success (Leung, Lau, & Lam, 1998). There was, however, a moderate to a strong positive correlation between authoritarian parenting and academic performance for these families (Leung, Lau, & Lam, 1998). The results from this research and Dornbusch (1989) beg for more explanation.

As previously mentioned, Dornbusch et al. not only revealed an anomaly among Asian families, but there was also divergence in the Latinx sample. Kim et al. (2018) focused their research on the academic success of Latino students, particularly students from Mexican and Dominican families that reside in the United States. Researchers sampled 750 students from preschool to 12th grade over one school year and found that the results previously observed in Dornbusch et al. (1989) were repeated. Although the results regarding parenting style and academic performance vastly differ from Chinese to Latinx families, Latinx families still lack the adverse outcomes of authoritarian parenting. Latinx families had little to no correlation between authoritarian parenting and academic performance in opposition to the case's usually strong negative correlation. Why doesn't authoritarian parenting seem to harm children in Latinx cultures? The results from Kim et al. (2018) confirm that Baumrind's typographies may not be as cut and dry as the scientific community would like to believe. Within each culture, a diverse range of behaviors may be expressed and received as parental love and support. This phenomenon should be considered when assessing parenting styles in the ever-expanding global community.

In Latinx families, past research has indicated the concept of respeto as a possible explanation for these results. Respeto is a concept present in Latinx cultures that emphasizes the importance of respect in many areas of life: respect for parents, elders, others, teachers, and adults (Kiang et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2018). The concept is often applied with unyielding force, demanding submission, which strongly aligns with Baumrind's (1971) authoritarian typology. However, Baumrind's (1971) typology only measures an objective view of the parent's behavior and not the intention behind the demand or how the child receives it. If the demand is made to teach the child what is best for them and the child receives it and understands it as an expression of love, then the behavior would be better characterized as an authoritative expression of parenting (Kim et al., 2018). A similar situation arises in Chinese cultural contexts.

Baumrind's (1971) parenting typology measures parenting style by objective measures and does not take cultural contexts into account. This cultural inaccuracy is compounded by the study's perspective approaching the issue of parenting from strictly Western ideals. In Western cultures, love is expressed through physical affection and words; hugs, kisses, snuggling, verbal encouragement, and affirmation. The parent expresses love this way, and the child is conditioned to receive it as thus. In Eastern cultures, affection is expressed much differently.

Children in Eastern Asian cultures, specifically Chinese, are expected to communicate love through honor, obedience, and achievement whereby honoring their parent and family; therefore, this is what parents expect and demand (Chao, 1994; Lim & Lim 2003; Xu et al., 2020). The parent is honored in this way, and the child is conditioned to provide it (Chao, 1994). The indigenous Chinese word for this concept is qin. Adolescents report togetherness and harmony as expressed through love, obedience and academic effort by the child and expressed through parental sacrifice and devotion to the child’s future opportunities (Wu & Chao, 2017). Success in honor, respect, and achievement breeds the child's pride and fosters a healthy relationship between the parent and the child (Chao, 1994). From the parent's perspective, high demand is the most excellent way to show love because honor, respect, and obedience are best for the child. In the same way, the child understands this concept as parental love (Chao, 1994). Therefore, what seems cold and demanding through Western eyes is seen much differently through an Eastern cultural lens.

Since 1971, the Authoritative parent has been the gold standard in parenting, the strategy which repeatedly produced the emotionally healthiest and academically successful children, but the world has changed drastically in the past fifty years, and parenting is no exception. The studies that determined the Authoritative parenting style's exclusivity as the only predictor of academic and social-emotional success were conducted in primarily Westernized culture. For the first time, increasing globalization has forced researchers to revisit topics that were previously thought to be established to ask the same questions but in a multicultural context. In terms of parenting, this study endeavors to determine if the authoritative parenting style is still the only parenting style that predicts academic success in children in a multicultural context. Furthermore, if not, what factors might account for the change?

Over the past fifty years, research has been spotted with these anomalies regarding Authoritarian parenting style in Asian, particularly Chinese, families (Chao, 1994; Lim & Lim 2003; Xu et al., 2020). The research showed that, in rare cases, authoritarian parenting, the harshest of the four types, positively correlated with academic success or at the very least, had no effect on the child. The same anomaly presented itself in Latinx families, although with a slightly weaker correlation than the Chinese families (Kiang et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2018). The goal is to recreate these results using a multicultural research design, measuring American, Chinese, and Latinx parents' parenting styles and their children's academic success. The desired outcome is to account for the disparity in previous data by furthering the understanding of cultural nuances concerning parenting in other cultures.

The independent variable in this research design is the parenting style of the adult. As previously mentioned, the Authoritative parenting style is defined by a high standard of expectations and a high level of support for the child in meeting those expectations (Baumrind, 1971, Dornbusch, 1987). Hallmarks of the second parenting type, the Authoritarian parent, are a high level of expectation of the child with little to no support in meeting that expectation (Baumrind, 1971, Dornbusch, 1987). This parenting style is seen as cold and harsh from Western perspectives and traditionally correlates with low academic performance and poor social- emotional development (Baumrind, 1971; Chao, 1994). Permissive parenting is characterized as having low-performance expectations for the child but a high level of responsiveness to needs and desires. This combination creates a dynamic where the child cannot fail; therefore, there is little incentive to strive for true success (Baumrind, 1971; Dornbusch, 1987). The parenting style also correlates with moderate to low academic performance and moderate to low social- emotional skills (Baumrind, 1971; Dornbusch, 1987). Finally, the fourth parenting style is the neglectful parent. Sadly, these children develop in an environment where the parent gives no expectation or support, if even present at all (Dornbusch et al., 1987; Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Understandably, these children tend to have both difficulties academically, emotional, and social. The dependent variable in this design is the academic achievement of the child. For this study's purposes, academic success will be measured with above-average grades or scores on testing concerning the class as a whole. Children of Chinese parents will have higher academic performance is their parents are identified as the authoritarian typography and Latinx children with authoritarian parents will have average to high academic performance, proving that authoritarian parenting is not always negatively correlated with academic success.

Method
Research Design

This research design will use a correlational research strategy, a longitudinal study, with two points of intersection throughout a school year, once in September and again in May. In September, parent - child pairs will be identified and selected. Each parent and child will then complete questionnaires in order to define the parent’s typology according to Baumrind’s (1971) four parenting types. The research design depends on obtaining at least fifty families of each of the three cultural demographics; for this reason, a large city would be an ideal site. To ensure the study's validity, uniformity in academic achievement measurement is critical; therefore, families involved in the study will attend public schools with the same academic measurement standards, including classroom grades and standardized testing scores.

Participants

To study the concepts of parenting style and academic success, one must first define these constructs in terms of measurable data. For this experiment, the parent's definition will be the biological parent whom the child is solely dependent upon for their physical needs. The child should live with the parent full-time and not share custody to protect the research's reliability. All participants in the study will be of lower-middle to upper-middle socioeconomic status, children aged 6-11, first-fifth grade, attending public school, and neurotypical. Parents of the children of the study will have comparable levels of education to their cultural counterparts. All parents in the study will be required to have completed high school or a General Education Development (GED) certificate equivalent. Latinx and Chinese parents must have been raised in their respective countries of cultural origin from birth to the age of at least 18 years old and immigrated to the United States as adults; this is to mitigate American cultural influences on parenting style (Chao, 1994). Natural-born American parents must have been born in America and raised by second-generation, or greater, immigrant parents.

Ethical Considerations

The research design requires informed consent from the parent for themselves and their child’s participation. Children should also be allowed to give their informed assent to participate. The research design, possible outcomes, and processes will be explained in detail to each family in their native language. Each family will then be given a consent form to sign, which will also be in their native language. Researchers will take all reasonable steps to protect participants from potential harm caused by the study, to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the participant’s information, to obtain institutional approval, to operate only within their areas of competence, and to keep accurate and timely records of all relevant data for later contribution to the greater scientific community.

Measures and equipment

First, the parenting style must be determined. To do this, each child will complete a Parental Authority Questionnaire (Buri, 1991). This questionnaire was developed in order to measure Baumrind’s three parenting types: authoritarian, authoritative and permissive (Buri, 1991). Based on phenomenological appraisals of the parents' level of support and demand by their son or daughter (Buri, 1991). This questionnaire has been supported by several studies and has been found to be psychometrically sound and an accurate measurement of Baumrind’s (1971) parenting types (Buri, 1991). Special consideration should be given to cultural dynamics such as the Latinx concept of respeto and differences in Chinese cultural expression of parental support versus parental warmth (Chao, 1994; Kim et al., 2018; Lim & Lim, 2003). One weakness in this survey is the possibility that younger children will not be able to understand certain concepts outlines within the 30 questions, therefore an neutral adult, perhaps a research assistant and not the parent of the child or the child’s teacher, will administer the questionnaire.

Next, the child's academic achievement must be determined; this will be measured using test grades, in-class assignment grades, standardized test scores, and overall class ranking respective to grade level, when applicable. High academic achievement will represent those children whose mean score is in the top 30% of the class; those students whose academic performance will be considered as average will be represented the middle 40% of the class and those students with poor academic performance will be represented by the remaining 30% of class scores.

In this research design, there are four possible independent variables: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and negligent parenting types. There are also three different levels of the dependent variable: high academic achievement, average academic achievement and poor academic achievement. Data from the independent and dependent variables will be synthesized using the Kruskal Wallis H test. The Kruskal Wallis H test is a nonparametric statistic that is used to determine the existence of statistically significant results in two or more groups of an independent variable. All data is on a continuous or ordinal scale.

Procedure for data collection

Before the school year, researchers will identify and vet candidates to participate in the research guided by the criteria outlined below. Three months into the school year, parents will participate in a formal interview to evaluate their parenting style following the Parental Authority Questionnaire (Buri, 1991). At the same point, children's academic performance will be recorded using the defined measures below. Six months later, the children's academic performance will again be recorded and compared to the previous scores and parenting style to determine the correlation. Finally, depending on the scores, those parent and child pairs that do not fit the Authoritative exclusivity model will be interviewed to understand what cultural influences may account for the differences in results.

Expected Results

Guided by past studies, the research expects to reveal an anomaly in the Chinese and Latinx groups, which shows a positive correlation between authoritarian parenting style and the child's academic performance. If past results are any indication, the Chinese experiment group will display results that strongly correlate with the authoritarian parenting style and academic performance, whereas the Latinx experiment group will moderately correlate with authoritarian parenting style and academic performance. If this hypothesis is proven accurate, researchers will have the opportunity to interview each family unit to explain this anomaly.

References

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