Navigating parent-child value differences: Capturing strategies used by immigrant parents from the perspective of East Asian young adult children of immigrants

Abstract

ObjectivesWe endeavoured to understand how East Asian immigrant families respond to one another in the presence of value differences. Across three studies, we developed and tested two novel measures to capture the strategies used to manage value differences by immigrant parents, from the perspective of East Asian young adult children of immigrants from Canada and the United States. MethodsThe measures were developed and piloted using exploratory factor analysis with an American (Study 1) and Canadian (Study 2) sample. Item reduction analysis was conducted, and the factor structure of the refined measure was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis (Study 3). ResultsFindings support the notion that children of immigrants perceive their parents to use two distinct sets of strategies to manage value differences; value-centred and person-centred. Value-centred strategies include acceptance and tolerance of value differences with their child; person-centred strategies include acceptance, rejection, and persuasion of their child. ConclusionDevelopment of these measures offer a clearer and more concrete assessment of how value differences are managed in East Asian immigrant families.