Keywords

Adolescence and young adulthood are marked by seismic shifts across domains. Rapid changes in neurobiology, psychosocial functioning, and cognitive development set youth on trajectories that have lifelong implications (Arnett, 2006). Despite the surging importance of peers and outside home contexts, family processes—characterized by parenting behaviors, beliefs about parenting, and parent–child relationships—remain highly significant during adolescence and young adulthood (Bornstein, 2002). There is strong evidence that parenting is the single most predictive and protective factor in adolescent outcomes (Donath, Graessel, Baier, Bleich, & Hillemacher, 2014; Galambos, Barker, & Almeida, 2003; Hoskins, 2014).

In the U.S., more than 40% of all youth under age 18, and over half of all births, are comprised of racial/ethnic minorities (U.S. Census, 2012). Until recently, Hispanics were the fastest growing minority group in the U.S. In 2009, Hispanics were surpassed by Asians, largely due to a drop in immigration from Mexico (Semple, 2012). By 2010, 36% of all new American immigrants were from Asia. Research has not yet caught up with the burgeoning population of Asians in America. Though race and ethnicity are the locus of a growing body of social science research, studies specifically regarding Asian American youth are rare, and analyses of Asian American subgroups are rarer still (Choi, 2008). Further, parenting measures founded on Eurocentric parenting practices and theories have been generalized to Asian Americans without explicit verifications of validity (for exceptions; Choi & Harachi, 2002; Crockett, Veed, & Russell, 2010; Wu & Chao, 2011). Dynamic pathways of enculturation and acculturation are interweaved into Asian American family processes in culture-specific ways that may not be captured by conventional measures (Choi, Kim, Pekelnicky, & Kim, 2013) and the dearth of culture-specific constructs poses a methodological challenge to the study of Asian American families.

Asian American youth exhibit uniquely complex etiology. While outcomes among Asian American youth can vary greatly across subgroups (Choi, 2008), Asian American youth as an aggregated group typically exhibit fewer instances of externalizing behaviors that are harmful and disruptive to others than do youth of other race-ethnicities (Bankston & Zhou, 2002; Choi & Lahey, 2006). The relative absence of visibly problematic behavior obscures the substantial evidence for a high frequency of internalizing problems, including depression and anxiety, and suicidal thoughts, among various subgroups of Asian American youth. The extent to which culturally derived family processes moderate these outcomes is unclear (Ahn Toupin & Son, 1991; Shibusawa, 2008).

Filipino Americans and Korean Americans are the second and fifth most populous groups of Asian Americans, respectively, in the U.S. (U.S. Census, 2012). They share global indicators of social economic status (i.e., middle income and highly educated parents) but differ in family process and acculturation (Choi, 2008; Min, 2005; Russell, Crockett, & Chao, 2010). Moreover, there is evidence that Filipino American youth and Korean American youth diverge in academic outcomes and externalizing behaviors, while sharing internalizing behaviors (Choi, 2008). Strategic comparisons of the two groups would yield important associations between bicultural family processes and youth development. To date, no study has directly compared associations between parenting and adolescent developmental outcomes between Filipino American and Korean American youth. The Midwest Longitudinal Study of Asian American Families (ML-SAAF) addresses this gap in the literature. ML-SAAF traces the development of Filipino American and Korean American family processes and adolescent developmental outcomes over 5 years. In so doing, ML-SAAF tests Western parenting measures for generalizability to Korean and Filipino families and develops new constructs that measure Korean and Filipino family processes with specificity.

Family Process and Culture-Specific Measures

There is widespread consensus that family processes are among the most enduring and influential forces in adolescent development (Elkin & Handel, 1978; Youniss & Ruth, 2002). Baumrind’s threefold typology of parenting prevails in the literature (Baumrind, 1971, 1978; see Batool, 2013). In authoritarian parenting, the will of the parent dominates and insubordination is met with punishment. Permissive parenting grants the child unrestrained freedom with the parent forgoing responsibility for the child’s ongoing and future behavior. In authoritative parenting, the parent affirms the child’s individuality while setting standards for the child’s conduct; dialogic reasoning and reinforcement, rather than dictatorial restraint and punishment, are used to achieve parental objectives (Baumrind, 1978). A preponderance of studies finds that authoritative parenting and its associated warmth and acceptance is most strongly predictive of positive outcomes in adolescent wellbeing, whereas authoritarian parenting correlates to behavioral problems and negative outcomes among adolescents (Baumrind, 1971; Stewart et al., 2000).

Asian American families undergo the protean processes of enculturation and acculturation as they continuously integrate and shed aspects of both their collectivist culture of origin and the individualist mainstream culture over time (Bornstein and Cote, 2006; Choi et al., 2013). Baumrind’s typology and consequent research have been noted for their foundation on Western subjects as well as Western, individualist ideals of parenting that do not capture the complex nature of Asian American families, and recent research challenges the cross-cultural generalizability of Baumrind’s typology to Asian families (for example, see Chao & Sue, 1996; Chao & Tseng, 2002; Choi, Kim, Pekelnicky, et al., 2013). Chao and Tseng (2002) questioned the applicability of Baumrind’s typology to collectivist cultures, which emphasize interdependence, conformity, emotional self-control, and humility. Chao (1994) elsewhere rejected authoritative parenting, upheld by Baumrind as the ideal parenting stance, as the prototype for Asian Americans, finding it was not associated with better outcomes among the Chinese participants in her study. Chao further concluded that authoritarian parenting was not associated with negative outcomes among adolescents in collectivist cultures because, unlike their counterparts in individualist cultures, they interpreted strict control as necessary for hierarchical order and harmony. Similarly, Jose et al. (2000) distinguished between Western notions of authoritarian parental control, which is dominating and punitive, with Asian applications of parental control, which is “order keeping,” directive, and warm. The former is more likely than the latter to produce negative adolescent outcomes. In contrast, Sorkhabi (2005) contends that Baumrind’s typology is reliable in both collectivist and individualist cultures, but concedes that the extent to which cultural constructs account for child-rearing effects on child development is unclear.

We propose that a more accurate portrayal of family processes within the Asian immigration context may be captured through verifying the validity of conventional measures for Asian American subgroups and developing culture-specific constructs for Asian American family processes (Choi, Kim, Pekelnicky, et al., 2013). Simply applying Western-based family measures to Asian American families fails to take into account culture-specific meanings and indicators of the constructs. Rather, family process measures that were formulated using Western families should be subject to comparative psychometric testing to evaluate their generalizability to non-Western families. Of even more importance than this imposed-etic approach is the development of new, emic (indigenous) measures that capture culturally unique constructs that are not contemplated by conventional Western measures. Chao (1994), for example, operationalized the concepts of chiao shun, or training children in a supportive, highly involved mother–child relationship, and guan, caring governance, which are both specific to Chinese American parenting. Choi and her colleagues (2013) have developed new measures that assess major components of ga-jung-kyo-yuk , a process of family socialization specific to Korean American families . In both cases, the process of developing new measures specific to each target group was laborious; it included extensive and systematic literature review, including a review of the culture of origin and immigrant history, in-depth qualitative and focus group interviews with target groups to tap unmeasured content and unrecognized nuances in measured content, and an empirical psychometric property test of the newly developed measures. These steps indiscriminately used both qualitative and quantitative methods and sought active participation and feedback from the community. Taking a similar approach, the present study is a continued effort to develop new measures of parenting styles and practices that are specific to the family processes of Korean Americans and Filipino Americans while testing the validity of conventional measures. Our combined emic-etic approach provides comprehensive data on how conventional and indigenous family processes overlap and diverge among Asian American families.

Filipino and Korean Parenting

The Philippines were a Spanish colony from 1565 until the Spanish American War in 1898, when Spain ceded the Philippines to America. The Philippines were not recognized as an independent country until 1946. Spanish and American colonial influences remain evident in the Philippines today. The two official languages of the Philippines are Tagalog and English, with the former strongly influenced by Spanish. The Philippines are also over 80% Catholic, the predominant religion of Spain, compared to 3% in the rest of Asia, and 65% of Filipino Americans identify as Catholic (Center, 2013a). Further, the American occupation established health care training institutions for Filipinos to aid U.S. military stationed in the Philippines (Choy, 2003), which ensured a steady supply of trained Philippine emigrants to fill shortages in the U.S. health care sector. As recently as the mid-1980s, Filipino nurses comprised 75% of all foreign nurses in the U.S, and Filipino nurses comprised more than half of all foreign graduates taking the U.S. licensure exam in 2001 (Brush, Sochalski, & Berger, 2004).

These twin colonial legacies account for positive variances in linguistic and residential assimilation in the U.S. as well as acknowledged affinity with Latino culture among Filipino Americans (Ocampo, 2014). Filipino Americans are the least likely among Asian American subgroups to have limited English proficiency (Ramakrishnan & Ahmad, 2014) and also least likely, along with Japanese Americans, to live in a homogenous ethnic enclave (Ling & Austin, 2015).

In contrast, Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II in 1945, whereupon the U.S. occupied the southern half of the country and the Soviet Union the northern half. The Korean War (1950–1953) saw the official establishment of North Korea and South Korea. The travails of postwar recovery and a military dictatorship prompted many Koreans to take advantage of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished the quota system that had theretofore restricted immigrants from Asia. Today, the U.S., after Japan, is home to the largest Korean diaspora, with the vast majority of Korean Americans emigrating from South Korea (Zong & Batalova, 2014). Koreans, along with the Vietnamese and the Chinese, are the most likely of all major Asian subgroups to report limited proficiency in English (Ramakrishnan & Ahmad, 2014). Koreans are also more likely than Filipinos to live in segregated residential areas (Ling & Austin, 2015).

Filipino and Korean Americans have the second and third highest rates for intermarriage among Asian Americans, with Filipino Americans reporting a 54 percent rate of intermarriage, and Korean Americans reporting 39% (Pew Research Center, 2013b). Despite high rates of intermarriage, Korean Americans are perceived to be the most socially and culturally segregated ethnic group among Asian Americans (Min, 2005).

The contrasting histories of Korea and the Philippines manifest in the cultural gap between Korean American and Filipino American family processes. Filipino families have been found to be more egalitarian and less patriarchal in parent–child relations than other Asian American subgroups, markers of a more Western, individualized culture (Russell et al., 2010). However, Filipino American families still retain core cultural values of strong parental control and filial obligations, blending collectivist and individualist strains of parenting (Espiritu, 2003). Filipino American parents, like other Asian American parents, are less likely than White parents to openly express affection toward their children (Choi & Kim, 2010; Russell et al., 2010). Still, Filipino Americans are accepted to be the most acculturated Asian American subgroup (Zhou & Gatewood, 2000).

Korean American families have largely conserved Confucian ideals in continuing to emphasize family hierarchy, age veneration, and gender roles in family processes (Hurh, 1998; Shrake & Rhee, 2004). The prepotency of education and academic achievement is more evident among Korean American families than among other subgroups (Zhou & Kim, 2007). Korean American parents emphatically cultivate a strong sense of ethnic attachment and enculturation among their children (Min, 2006; Park, 1997).

Notwithstanding these differences, Korean American and Filipino American families share a legacy of colonialism as well as status as ethnic minorities in the U.S. Further, apparent overlaps in ethnic constructs such as the Filipino hiya, or a sense of shame and proprietary that motivates family conformity, and Korean che-myun, or saving face, suggest fertile ground for comparisons. Acculturation and enculturation remain dominant factors in adolescent development among Korean Americans and Filipino Americans, and this study aims to operationalize the salience of family acculturation to adolescent development among Filipino Americans and Korean Americans.

The Current Study

To develop as comprehensive a representation of the construct of Filipino family processes as possible, as well as integrate indigenous cultural notions of parenting, the current study began with extensive literature review, followed by multiple focus groups of Filipino Americans to learn what family processes were most salient to them. These themes were then reflected in the consequent item set, which included both existing scales of Filipino psychology (del Prado & Church, 2010; Enriquez & Guanzon-Lapeña, 1985) and new items that measure central Filipino values, parent–child relations , and family obligation. In addition, the research team used the primary investigator’s prior research to develop the preliminary measures for Korean American families. The preliminary measures were then translated into Korean and Tagalog.

Five-member panels from Korean American and Filipino American communities were recruited to review the preliminary survey measures of existing and new measures of indigenous Korean American and Filipino American family processes. The criteria for review included (1) the etic/emic nature of the questions; (2) the situational context or examples within the questions and whether they apply for their community; and (3) the terminology and issues related to translation across cultures. The research team, including the principal investigator, the co-investigators, and several consultants of the project, further refined items to ensure the quality of each item (e.g., redundancy, length, level of difficulty, double-barreled, and ambiguity) (DeVellis, 1991). A team of translators from both ethnicities translated and reviewed together the translated measures in an iterative process until there was consensus on the accurate translation of each item. The pilot test of items including translated versions was conducted with parents and youth (five dyads for each subgroup), through which items were further revised or removed.

This chapter reports basic psychometric properties of underused and newly developed measures of family process among Filipino and Korean American families and further examines their relations to several existing conventional measures of family process to describe culturally unique as well as universal aspects of family process among the target subgroups of Asian American families. In so doing, this study will provide a unique understanding of how Filipino and Korean American parenting styles converge and diverge from mainstream culture while modifying traditional cultural elements of the parenting process. Immigrant parents, even those who are most resistant to assimilation, do make changes and show signs of constructing a hybrid culture (Choi, Kim, Kim, & Park, 2013). Thus, we expect a coexistence of indigenous and Western parenting indicated by moderate to high endorsement of the scale items. Based on the literature, we anticipate that Filipino American parents will endorse Western parenting measures higher than Korean American parents, and expect the opposite patterns in indigenous parenting measures. In terms of the relationships between indigenous and conventional Western measures, we expect indigenous parenting measures to be positively correlated with aspects of both authoritative and authoritarian parenting, a unique pattern found among Chinese and Korean American parents (Chao, 1994; Choi, Kim, Kim, et al., 2013).

Methods

Overview of the Project

This study uses data from the Midwest Longitudinal Study of Asian American Families (ML-SAAF) . The data used for this paper were collected in 2013, the first year of ML-SAAF, with the aim of developing and testing a series of existing and new measures that capture culture-specific family process among Filipino- and Korean American families with children between 12 and 17. In this first year of the study, ML-SAAF surveyed 203 Korean American youth and 201 Korean American parents (198 families were parent–child dyads) and 140 Filipino American youth and 136 Filipino American parents (118 families were parent–child dyads)—a total of 680 individuals living in Chicago and surrounding Midwest areas. This paper uses parent data only. Self-administered questionnaires, available in English, Korean and Tagalog and both in paper-pencil and online, were distributed to eligible participants and collected in person, by mail, or online. Adult respondents were compensated $40 and youth respondents were compensated $20 upon completion of the survey.

Sample Characteristics

The average respondent age was 15.60 (SD = 1.77) for Filipino American youth and 15.28 (SD = 1.81) for Korean American youth, with a larger proportion of high school students (78.1% Filipinos and 65.6% Koreans) than middle school students. Gender distribution among youth was about equal (49% Filipinos and 52.2% Koreans were girls). Nearly 70% Filipino and 57.2% Korean youth were U.S.-born and the average years of living in U.S. among foreign-born were 6.42 (SD = 4.92) for Filipinos and 8.08 years (SD = 4.28) for Koreans.

The average age of parent respondents was 46.72 (SD = 6.81) for Filipinos and 46.56 (SD = 4.32) for Koreans. The parent respondents were predominantly mothers (83.2% of Koreans and 76% of Filipinos). One hundred percent of Korean and 90% of Filipino parents were foreign-born, with an average of 19.43 years (SD = 11.78) of living in U.S. for Filipino and 16.11 years (SD = 9.01) for Korean parents. The level of parental education was fairly high in both parent groups. Nearly 60% Korean mothers and 80% of Filipino mothers achieved college education or more, whether in Korea, the Philippines or in the U.S. Over 90% of Korean parents and 67% of Filipino parents reported being currently married. More Filipino than Korean parents reported being divorced, separated, or widowed (20.7% vs. 7.5%). The majority of parents worked full time or part time and 33.8% of Korean mothers, 9.7% of Korean fathers, 7% of Filipino mothers and 5.6% of Filipino fathers reported being currently unemployed. Only 11.3% of Filipino and 17.2% Korean families have received free/reduced-price school lunch. These data show that, overall, ML-SAAF participants come from highly educated middle income families, which is consistent with the demographics of Filipino and Korean American families in Census or national-level data such as Add Health (Harris, 2009).

Measures

Indigenous Parenting Measures

A full list of scales and their items are provided in Table 3.1. To avoid redundancy, we define each construct and how it was developed or found, without providing example items. Unless noted, scales were constructed such that higher scores indicate higher rates of the construct. The majority of response options employed the Likert scale, i.e., 1 (not at all), 2 (not much), 3 (somewhat), 4 (much), and 5 (very likely). Exceptions are described in the text.

Table 3.1 Indigenous parenting measures
Full size table

Parental Behaviors Promoting Ideal Cultural Traits . This scale assesses the level of parents’ socialization efforts to reinforce several traits idealized in Asian culture, such as humility, modesty, suppression of negative emotions, and compliant behaviors. The items were derived from ML-SAAF focus group interviews and from the literature (de Guzman, 2011; del Prado & Church, 2010; Guanzon-Lepeña, Church, Carlota, & Katigbak, 1998; Lim, 2011; Silk, Morris, Kanaya, & Steinberg, 2003).

Family Obligation Expectation on Child. A set of four items assesses the extent to which parents expect their children to assist in aspects of family life, including living in close proximity. A high level of family obligation, particularly among Filipino families, is noted in the literature (de Guzman, 2011; Espiritu, 2003; Nadal, 2011; Wolf, 1997) and was echoed in ML-SAAF’s youth focus groups.

Gender Roles . Five items ask about the parental attitudes toward gender roles, particularly in regard to restricting girls’ activities and behaviors, including maintaining virginity. This scale, too, was developed using both ML-SAAF focus groups and extant literature (de Guzman, 2011; Espiritu, 2003; Nadal, 2011; Wolf, 1997).

Expectations on Daughters. This is a two-item scale that Fuligni and Zhang (2004) developed based on urban and rural Chinese families, and was included here as part of the indigenous scales to assess parental expectation that their daughters carry out family obligations. ML-SAAF focus groups as well as the literature attest to high filial expectations of daughters among Filipino families. This set of questions was limited to parents with a daughter.

Commitment to Child’s Education. Two items measured parental willingness to support and sacrifice for their child’s education. Wu and Chao (2011) and Chao (2000) developed these items to capture Asian parental level of commitment to the education of offspring, which is often thought to be higher than other racial/ethnic groups.

Interdependence . A total of four items measures parental perception of and behaviors that cultivate interdependence between parents and children. With the exception of the child’s obedience item, which was adopted from the Enculturation scale (del Prado & Church, 2010), three items were newly constructed mainly from ML-SAAF parent focus group responses to the question of how parents foster interdependence among their children and how they perceive they differ from their Caucasian counterparts.

Shaming. In keeping with the literature, youth participants in ML-SAAF focus groups perceived use of shaming as more “Asian (or Filipino or Korean)” parenting behaviors. Accordingly, a set of four items asking about parental beliefs and actual practices of shaming behaviors was compiled from the Enculturation scale (del Prado & Church, 2010) and from Chao and Wu (2001).

Academically Orientated Parental Control . Asian parents’ controlling behaviors can be motivated by their strong emphasis on education and should be distinguished from other types of parental controlling behaviors. Thus, an eight-item scale was adopted from Chao and Wu (2001) to assess the level of parental control specific to academic-related child’s behaviors (e.g., homework, grade, and programs). ML-SAAF focus groups confirmed these parental behaviors as common.

Parental Indirect Affection . One item on parental affection was separated from other more explicit Expression of Affection items to better capture the ways Asian parents express their love to their children. Previously developed as a multiple-item scale (Choi, Kim, Pekelnicky, et al., 2013), here it is simplified to one item because of the wide variance of behaviors (e.g., some parents cook their child’s favorite food, while others work several jobs to provide more to the children).Footnote 1

Conventional Measures

Several conventional measures were selected to examine how they are endorsed by Filipino and Korean American parents and also how they relate to indigenous parenting measures. They include Authoritarian Parenting Style and Authoritative Parenting Style (Buri, 1991), Parental Explicit Affection (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 1995) including explicit verbal and physical affection, Psychological Control in which two items came from Silk et al. (2003) and Wang, Pomerantz, and Chen (2007), Autonomy (Grolnick, Ryan, & Deci, 1991; Silk et al., 2003) assessing the degrees in which parents foster a sense of independence and freedom in their children, Child-based Worth from Parental Contingent Self-Worth Scale (Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001) that measures the level of parental self-appraisal based on their child’s success or failure, Parental Rules and Restrictions which are a compilation of rules and disciplinary behaviors often asked in the literature (response options were YES and No), and Parental Monitoring and Supervision , e.g., parental knowledge of child’s whereabouts that are commonly used in studies. Finally, Parental Expectation on Child’s Performance was included; two items came from Add Health (i.e., parental expectation about their child’s graduation from high school and college) and additional two were added in regard to post-college degrees and academic excellence, to test differences in Filipino and Korean parental expectations as described by youth participants in ML-SAAF focus groups. A full list of scales and items is presented in Table 3.2.

Table 3.2 Conventional parenting measures
Full size table

Analysis

Using SPSS (v.22) and Mplus, the measures were tested for various components of basic psychometric properties, including means, standard deviations (SD) , item-total correlation, and reliability. We also examined pair-wise correlations to take a preliminary look at content and construct validity of the scales. Analyses were conducted first separately for each group, and then compared across Filipino and Korean subgroups.

Results

Means and standard deviations at the item- as well as the scale-level are reported in Tables 3.1 and 3.2. To avoid redundancy, we mainly report notable patterns and group differences of items and scales. The overall pattern was that, except for Parental Behaviors Promoting Ideal Cultural Trait, which did not differ across the groups, Filipino American parents reported stronger endorsement of indigenous parenting values and practices than did Korean American parents. Interestingly, with the exception of Psychological Control, Parental Monitoring and Supervision, and Autonomy, Filipino American parents also reported stronger endorsement of conventional measures of parenting values and practices.

Indigenous Parenting Measures

Parenting that Promotes the Ideal Cultural Traits scale was endorsed moderately by both groups (i.e., the average was 3 which corresponds to “somewhat” in the response options). Although the scale mean was not statistically different, several significant differences were noted at the item level. For example, not confronting adults were strongly endorsed among Koreans (3.58 vs. 3.10, p < 0.05). Conversely, while humility and modesty was strongly encouraged in both groups, Filipino parents reported significantly higher endorsement (3.98 vs. 4.37, p < 0.001). Although reliability as a scale was good for both groups (α > 0.75), some items with low item-total correlation (<0.3) (e.g., encouraging dependence among Korean Americans) may be considered for exclusion from this scale.

Except one item, the mean of all items of Family Obligation Expectation on Child was higher among Filipino parents than Korean parents. Filipino parents, more so than Korean parents, want their children to stay close to home after high school and expect them to help the family. Although the mean of expecting their child to take care of aging parents was not high in both groups, it was significantly higher among Filipino parents (2.52 vs. 2.94, p < 0.001). The preliminary psychometric properties (i.e., item-total correlation less than 0.3 and α > 0.8) seem good in both groups for this scale.

Similarly, Gender Roles was higher among Filipino American parents (3.04 vs. 3.38, p < 0.001). In other words, Filipino parents more strongly, than Korean parents, believe that girls should not date in high school, not stay out late, live with parents until married, and maintain their virginity. The item on disapproving girls to express negative feelings did not differ across groups. In fact, this item showed low item-total correlation among Filipino parents and may be excluded from the scale.

Expectation on Daughters was also more strongly endorsed by Filipino parents who expected their daughters to provide care and wanted them to stay close to home, more so than Korean parents. Reliability was a correlation between the two items in this case.

The endorsement of Emphasis on Education was notably high among Filipino parents and significantly higher than for Koreans (3.52 vs. 4.30, p < 0.001). Filipino parents report working very hard and doing everything for their children’s education, more so than Korean parents. The two items were moderately correlated in both groups (0.40 and 0.42).

Interdependence was significantly higher among Filipino parents both at scale and item levels. Though both groups of parents endorsed child’s obedience to parental advice on education and money, it was notably higher among Filipino (3.13 vs. 3.75, p < 0.001). Reliability of this scale was good for Koreans and fair for Filipino parents (0.75 vs. 0.69).

Although Shaming was higher among Filipino parents (2.16 vs. 2.57, p < 0.001), both groups endorse Shaming the lowest. At the item level, although parents do not seem to believe that shaming is an effective disciplinary method, Filipino parents in particular report teaching their children by comparing them to others, which youth perceived as “shaming,” as expressed in ML-SAAF focus groups. Reliability was only moderate (0.63 in both groups), probably due to low-item correlations of certain items. Those with <0.3 item-total correlations (i.e., not praising child in public for Koreans and shaming as an effective method among Filipinos) should be considered for exclusion.

With the exception of enrolling children in music classes, the rates of all items of Academically Orientated Parental Control were higher among Filipino parents. In sum, Filipino parents reported being more likely to supervise, restrict, punish, and reward academic behaviors of their children. The reliability as a scale is good (0.78 and 0.77) in both groups with a no item-total correlation <0.3.

The one-item construct, Parental Indirect Affection, was endorsed highly by both groups but significantly higher by Filipino parents.

Conventional Parenting Measures

The conventional measures had good reliability (>0.76) and showed no item with <0.3 item-correlation, with the exception of a couple of situations (e.g., Parental Monitoring and Supervision in both groups and Parental Expectation among Filipino parents). Below, we describe the group differences in these scales and later focus on the interrelations between indigenous and conventional measures.

Both Authoritarian Parenting Style and Authoritative Parenting Style were endorsed higher by Filipino parents than Korean parents (2.67 vs. 3.03, p < 0.001 and 3.64 vs. 3.84, p < 0.01), while Authoritative Parenting Style was endorsed strongly and higher than Authoritarian Parenting Styles in both groups. The item-level findings suggest a coexistence of approval of unquestioned and strict parenting and use of inductive reasoning, particularly among Filipino parents. Autonomy was higher among Korean than Filipino parents (3.72 vs. 3.56, p < 0.05), the only scale that was statistically significantly higher among Korean parents. At the item level, Korean parents reported granting more autonomy and were more likely to acknowledge their child’s knowledge. With respect to Parental Explicit Affection, the mean was significantly higher among Filipinos than Korean parents at the scale and item levels and in all items.

Parents in both groups reported low use of Psychological Control and the scale mean was not statistically different across groups, although one of the items (i.e., telling child to feel guilty) was significantly higher among Filipino parents. The Child-based Worth scale was significantly higher among Filipino than Korean parents. Filipino parents in particular feel good about themselves when their children succeed, and take their child’s success and failure as a reflection of their own worth.

In terms of Parental Rules and Restrictions , similar to Academically Oriented Control, Filipino parents reported higher use of rules and restrictions than did Korean parents (3.38 vs. 4.35, p < 0.001 and 3.09 vs. 3.95, p < 0.001). Filipino parents scored most highly on house chores while Korean parents scored most highly on restricting computer use. Parental Monitoring and Supervision scale was highly endorsed by both groups (4.08 vs. 4.18, n.s.) but did not work well as a scale (i.e., poor reliability and low item-total correlation).

Parental Expectation on Child’s Performance was fairly highly endorsed by both groups (3.56 vs. 3.72, p < 0.05) but was significantly higher among Filipino parents than among Korean parents. Filipino parents seem less concerned about advanced degrees, and this item in fact showed a poor item-total correlation among Filipino parents.

Intercorrelations

Pair-wise correlations among the scales are summarized in Table 3.3 (Filipino samples) and Table 3.4 (Korean samples). We separated Commitment to Child’s Education into two items (Working Hard vs. Sacrifice) because the two did not work well as a scale.

Table 3.3 Correlation between conventional and indigenous constructs (Filipino)
Full size table
Table 3.4 Correlation between conventional and indigenous constructs (Korean)
Full size table

Among Filipino parents, indigenous scales overall were positively correlated with one another, providing preliminary evidence of discriminant and convergent validity. Indigenous parenting constructs are interrelated and should be significantly correlated (i.e., convergent validity) but not too high (i.e., r < 0.8 to indicate discriminant validity) (Table 3.5). It was noted that the correlation between Family Obligation and Expectation on Daughters was highly correlated (r = 0.766, p < 0.001), indicating a near multicollinearity. In terms of intercorrelations between indigenous and conventional measures, Authoritarian Parenting Style was positively correlated with all indigenous parenting constructs except one (Indirect Affection), while Authoritative Parenting Style was positively correlated with child’s education-related item/scale (i.e., Working Hard, Sacrifice, and Academically Orientated Controls). In addition, Indirect and Explicit Parental Affection was positively correlated. Psychological Control and Child-based Worth were positively correlated with some of the indigenous constructs (i.e., Promoting Ideal Cultural Traits, Family Obligation, Gender Roles, Shaming, and Academically Oriented Controls), which was also positively correlated with Authoritarian Parenting Style. Autonomy was positively correlated with Authoritative Parenting Style and Explicit Parental Affection but also positively correlated with Shaming. Lastly, the correlation between Authoritarian and Authoritative Parenting Styles was positive and significant (r = 0.201, p < 0.05) among Filipino parents (Table 3.6).

Table 3.5 Correlation among indigenous constructs (Filipino/Korean)
Full size table

The correlations among Korean parents were in several ways similar to those among Filipinos with a few notable differences. Specifically, they are similar in that the correlations among indigenous constructs were largely positive and the correlation between Family Obligation and Expectation on Daughters was high (r = 0.701, p < 0.001). Authoritarian Parenting Style was positively correlated with the majority of indigenous parenting constructs, while Authoritative Parenting Style was negatively correlated with Family Obligation (r = −0.188, p < 0.05) but positively correlated with Working Hard for education item (r = 0.331, p < 0.001). Psychological Control and Child-based Worth were positively correlated with indigenous constructs (more extensively than Filipino parents), which was also positively correlated with Authoritarian Parenting Style (r = 0.537, p < 0.001 and r = 0.375, p < 0.001). Unlike Filipino parents, however, Psychological Control was positively correlated with Explicit Parental Affection among Korean parents (r = 0.304, p < 0.001), which was negatively correlated among Filipino parents (r = −0.182, p < 0.05). Expectation on Child’s Performance was extensively correlated with indigenous construct. Lastly, the correlation between Authoritarian and Authoritative Styles was not significant among Korean parents (Table 3.6).

Table 3.6 Correlation among conventional constructs (Filipino/Korean)
Full size table

Discussion

Baumrind’s conceptualization of parenting styles has been the subject of ongoing debate as to its applicability to collectivist culture s (for further discussion, see Nelson, Hart, Yang, Olsen, & Jin, 2006). This study presents evidence that the characteristics of presumed collectivist cultures in America are highly variable, and that Baumrind’s typology does not necessarily correlate with expected parenting practices within such collectivist cultures.

According to their self-reports, Filipino American parents tend to have higher expectations and exercise greater control over their children than do Korean American parents. While filial obligation is often cited as a strongly shared value across Asian cultures, the study results above show that Filipino Americans have stronger family obligation expectations of their children than do Korean American parents. When asked about the Boundary of Family,Footnote 2 the findings from this study sample (3.28 vs. 6.05, p < 0.001) were also consistent with past research on the expansive boundaries of Filipino American families. The greater number of family members renders the construct of family obligation more significant for Filipino Americans than for Korean Americans. Preeminent emphasis on family obligations, together with higher scores on the measure of Child-based Worth, is evocative of the greater pressures that Filipino American parents may place on their children. The variance is particularly notable on the item of how strongly parents desired their children to remain close to the family home upon reaching adulthood. Filipino Americans strongly endorsed this item, while Korean Americans only weakly so. The motivations for such desire are unclear—both Filipino American and Korean American parents scored lowly on filial assistance as a motivation for wanting their children close to the family home, but youth in focus groups used to help formulate these indigenous measures revealed that they felt pressure to care for their parents in the near and long term. Youths’ perceptions of parental expectations are pertinent to youth developmental outcomes; family obligation can serve as a protective factor against risky adolescent behavior, but can also serve as a vulnerability factor, particularly for poor mental health, when youth feel overburdened by competing expectations or are experiencing many negative life events (Milan & Wortel, 2015; Wilkinson-Lee, Zhang, Nuno, & Wilhelm, 2011). As further discussed below, this association may be particularly salient for Filipino American girls, who report high rates of depression (Javier, Lahiff, Ferrer, & Huffman, 2010). Though not reported here, ML-SAAF tracks youth correlates on the same measures reported above, and future publications will explore interactions between parental values and beliefs and youth outcomes.

Family obligation expectations were higher for daughters of Filipino American parents than for those daughters of Korean American parents. Besides, Filipino American parents were more likely to agree with gendered statements about the role of girls and boys wherein girls’ behaviors were strictly circumscribed, particularly with respect to romantic relations. Greater demands on daughters, combined with a restrictive view of proper feminine behavior, suggest that Filipino American girls are socialized in more onerous ways than their male or Korean American counterparts. Further refinement of these scales, together with analysis of ML-SAAF’s youth data in conjunction with the parent data presented here, may elucidate the association between family socialization of Filipino American girls and their higher rates of depression.

Filipino American parents also expressed higher degrees of behavioral control over their children, regardless of child’s gender, than did Korean American parents overall. Through the measure of Academically Orientated Parental Control, Filipino American parents’ endorsed greater managerial and structural involvement in their children’s education than did Korean Americans parents. At the same time, ML-SAAF youth data indicate that Filipino American youth tend to have lower grades than their Korean American counterparts, which raises questions about whether and how parents’ involvement may adversely affect youth achievement. There is a large body of research that finds positive associations between parental involvement in education and children’s academic achievement, but a significant number of studies have differentiated the type of involvement, as well as the timing of involvement, as critical to associated outcomes (Jiang, Yau, Bonner, & Chiang, 2011; Sy, Gottfried, & Gottfried, 2013). Alternative explanations are also plausible. Filipino American youth report being frequently mistaken for Hispanic adolescents, and subsequently experience racial discrimination typically directed at Latinos. Filipino American adolescents also report discrimination from other Asian subgroups because of their darker skin color. The possibly higher rate of racial discrimination may explain lower academic achievement among Filipino youth. Alternately, given that Filipino Americans countenance more expansive boundaries of family and maintain a strong obligation to support family members through remittances (Espiritu, 2003), it is plausible that although Filipino parents report comparable or higher income than Korean parents, their actual resources may be limited. Filipino American youth may essentially experience lower SES than reported on paper, which may explain the academic outcomes among Filipino youth despite their higher rate of academically orientated parental control and involvement.

Filipino American parents’ had high scores on indigenous measures relative to Korean American parents, but they also scored higher than Korean American parents on conventional measures. For example, Filipino American parents were more likely to see shaming as an effective method of socializing their children, but also much more likely to use explicit expressions of affection than Korean American parents. Filipino American parents also reported higher rates of both authoritarian and authoritative parenting, contrary to studies that attempt to clearly categorize Asian American subcultures into one of several traditional parenting typologies. Past studies have shown that authoritative and authoritarian parenting are inversely correlated for Caucasian parents, and positively correlated for Korean American parents (Choi, Kim, Kim, et al., 2013).

Here, the results of pair-wise correlations reveal an intriguing interrelation between indigenous and conventional measures. Namely, indigenous parenting constructs are positively correlated with authoritarian parenting, partially validating the popular perception of Asian American parenting as authoritarian (see Nelson et al., 2006). However, authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles are either positively correlated among Filipinos or not related among Korean parents (but not negatively related, as is the case among Caucasians). Indeed, some of the indigenous parenting scales such as the education-related scales, were positively correlated both with authoritarian and authoritative parenting in one or both of the Asian American subgroups.

Indigenous parenting constructs were positively correlated with Psychological Control, Child-based Worth, Parental Expectation on Child’s Performance as well as Shaming. Youth have expressed their distaste for many of these parental behaviors in ML-SAAF focus groups. Shaming and psychological control were raised as ineffective and even hurtful parenting methods, and high scores on measures of child-based worth and parental expectations suggest a familial relationship that places high pressure on youth. These indigenous measures were often positively correlated with authoritarian parenting. The emerging correlative patterns in this study may partially explain why Filipino American youth feel negatively toward indigenous parenting and feel pressured by their parents, as evidenced in ML-SAAF youth data. This set of findings supports the notion that Asian American parenting does not squarely fit the Western typology and further illustrates how Asian American subgroups differ in their parenting behaviors.

An exception to the overall high scores of Filipino American parents on conventional measures is the higher scores on items of autonomy for Korean American parents. While granting their children more autonomy than do Filipino American parents, Korean American parents indicated that they are also more likely to discourage their children to confront adults. Scores on the latter measure, rather than contravening the former, may be evidence for an enduring observance of family hierarchy and age veneration among Korean Americans. Additionally, there was no difference between Filipino Americans and Korean Americans on measures for Promoting Cultural Traits, Psychological Control, and parental knowledge of whereabouts of children.

This study has several limitations. First, the majority of parents (100% Korean parents and 90% Filipino parents) surveyed were foreign-born, first-generation immigrants. Although this demographic makeup is an accurate reflection of the current national demographics of Filipino and Korean parents in the U.S., the study results may not be generalized to second and later generation of Filipino and Korean American parents. Second-generation Filipino and Korean Americans now coming of age as young parents can provide important data in future studies on the extent to which the culture of origin is retained through subsequent generations of Asian Americans. Second, because this study used ML-SAAF pretest data collected primarily to develop and test parenting value measures that are absent in the literature, this study utilized, with the exception of measures of parental rules and controls, more psychological measures than behavioral ones. As ML-SAAF progresses in its longitudinal study with a wider selection of measures, the research team will expand its investigation to include behavioral indicators as well.

This study adds to the limited body of scholarship that differentiates among Asian American subgroups. Filipino American parents appear to practice an authoritative style of parenting, reporting more explicit and implicit expressions of affection and showing more hands-on involvement in their children’s socialization than do Korean American parents . At the same time, they also score more highly on restrictive and authoritarian measures than Korean Americans. Filipino Americans’ higher scores on almost all measures, both indigenous and conventional, may indicate a preference for the higher end of the Likert scale generally. Yet, Korean Americans’ higher scores on specific items within measures, such as more strongly endorsing enrolling their children in music or other after school class and no difference on other measures, confound the evidence for response bias. Further, scores on indigenous measures were lower than those for conventional measures for both Filipino American and Korean American parents.

Filipino American parents seem to retain more cultural values and parenting practices than do Korean American parents, even as preliminary demographic analyses suggest that Filipino American parents are more acculturated on other measures, including language use and nativity. Filipino Americans’ stronger endorsement of indigenous measures is suggestive of reactive culture retention, wherein more acculturated families intentionally inculcate cultural values and practices to protect against the accretion of the majority culture. Notwithstanding parents’ self-reports, youth participating in ML-SAAF focus groups stated their adamant opposition to the use of certain indigenous practices, such as shaming as a socialization tool. These youth provide insight into how the more expressive, but concomitantly more restrictive and expectative, parenting practiced by Filipino Americans may be negatively interpreted by youth and therefore adversely affect youth outcomes. This is especially true for Filipino American girls, who may feel the most pressure when it comes to family obligation and cultural expectations.

What is clear is that, even as conventional measures alone do not fully capture the parenting beliefs and practices of Filipino and Korean American parents , parents in both groups are reticent when it comes to indigenous measures. The lower scores on indigenous measures raise several questions. It could be that universal family processes are dominant and easily measurable in Asian American families, while indigenous parenting processes require more refined instruments capable of capturing its subtlety. Alternatively, it is plausible that in a globalized and increasingly interconnected world, Asian American parents recognize the normative value placed on conventional patterns of parenting and become less willing to openly endorse indigenous measures. Accurately identifying Asian American parenting practices is important but, whatever the case, youth perceptions of their parents’ parenting is more determinative of youth outcomes than parents’ self-report. Discerning differences between the two will provide important information about family processes and their effects on youth development. It is essential that future research carefully explicate the distinct pathways by which both indigenous and conventional parental constructs operate in relations between Asian American parents and their youth over time. ML-SAAF’s unique longitudinal data on both parents and youth will yield important information on this front.

Psychometric Properties

The preliminary results from this study show that the majority of the measures and scales have good psychometric qualities. Impending in-depth and advanced methods to establish the psychometric properties will further ensure their quality. While every effort will be made to maintain all items used in this study for the purpose of comparative analyses, items with low item-total correlations (<0.3) will be considered for exclusion. Specific examples include the item of encouraging dependence on parents and family from the scale of Parental Behaviors Promoting Ideal Cultural Traits among Koreans; Knowing parents of child’s friend may also be dropped from the scale of Parental Monitoring and Supervision. Other items may be moved from one scale to another.

As a next step, content validity and construct validity (both discriminant and convergent validity) will be examined using confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis. All scales will be run in a single measurement model and, when possible, measurement invariance will be tested across Filipino American and Korean American participants . Correlative analyses examining how indigenous and conventional parenting behaviors and values are related to youth perception of parenting and youth outcomes will also be run and shared in future publications.