Life and Family Values Similarity in Inter-Ethnic and Inter-Faith Couples.

Elena Yu Chebotareva,Marina I Volk

doi:10.3390/bs10010038

Abstract

Inter-cultural families are an integral part of modern society, the institution of mutual influence of different cultures, of a person’s identity transformation. The studies of marital adjustment, values, and attitudes consistency in inter-cultural couples provide contradictory results. To resolve contradictions in this area, comparative studies of inter-cultural families of different types are important. The aim of the study is the comparative analysis of life and family values in inter-cultural couples, differing by the ethnic and religious affiliation of spouses. The participants: 69 couples: 20 mono-ethnic Russian, 30—inter-ethnic, inter-faith (Russians/Arabs); 19—inter-ethnic, with a common religion (Russian/Transcaucasian, Christians). The methods: Value Survey (Schwartz), Marital Role Expectations and Aspirations (Volkova), Marital Satisfaction Test (Stolin et al.), Mann–Whitney U-test, paired T-test. In inter-cultural couples, the spouses’ life-values coincidence is significantly less strong than in mono-cultural ones. However, in couples with common religious differences, their life values reflect not so much the contradictions, but the complementarity of traditional gender values. In general, the different cultures of spouses (both ethnic and religious) optimizes the process of comparing values and family attitudes. Despite a number of difficulties, spouses from inter-cultural couples generally have more consistent ideas about their family life.

Highlights

Inter-cultural families have become an integral part of society, their number is steadily growing all over the world [1]
We pursued the aim of assessing differences in the degree of general marital satisfaction of the spouses in different types of inter-cultural couples
The study was aimed at analyzing the specifics of the hierarchy and the degree of life and family values consistency in inter-cultural couples of two different types: inter-ethnic and inter-faith

Summary

Introduction

Inter-cultural families have become an integral part of society, their number is steadily growing all over the world [1]. The wave of migration in recent years has drawn increased attention to the study of the processes of integration of migrants into the host community; including the psychological problems of inter-cultural families and their influence on the identities of spouses. Studies of marital adjustment and satisfaction with relationships in inter-cultural couples provide contradictory results. In cross-cultural couples, different cultural traditions and values of spouses cause great conflicts and, these couples are less satisfied with their marriages [6,7]. Other studies have confirmed an equal level of satisfaction and sustainability of inter-cultural and mono-cultural marriages [10]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion