Do Measures of Parenting Have the Same Meaning for European, Chinese, and Filipino American Adolescents? Tests of Measurement Equivalence

As outlined in Chapter 1, intriguing differences between European Americans and Asian Americans have emerged in earlier studies of parenting. According to these studies, Asian American parents are more restrictive and control-oriented and express less overt warmth than European American parents (Bond & Wang, 1983; Chiu, 1987; Lin & Fu, 1990; Wu & Chao, 2005). However, most of the work to date has focused on Chinese American samples and less is known about other Asian groups, such as Filipino Americans, although recent studies have begun to fill this gap (Agbayani-Siewert, 1994; Fuligni & Pedersen, 2002; Pe-Pua & Protacio-Marcelino, 2000). There is reason to suspect that the meaning of some parenting practices differs cross-ethnically owing to distinct parenting philosophies and cultural norms (Chao, 1994; Lansford et al., 2005). For example, the meaning of control behaviors may vary among Chinese-, Filipino-, and European Americans: they may be viewed more positively by Asian American cultural groups, especially Chinese Americans (Lau, Lew, Hau, Cheung, & Berndt, 1990; Nomura, Noguchi, Saito, & Tezuka, 1995). Thus, Chinese and Filipino adolescents may be more likely to interpret parental control behaviors as a form of caring and to accept these behaviors as legitimate (Fuligni, 1998; Lam, 2003). Furthermore, the behaviors that signal parental support may differ across cultural groups, with direct expressions of warmth and affection being more central to European Americans’ than to Asian Americans’ conceptions of support (Chao, 2001a; Wu & Chao, 2005). If so, direct expressions of warmth might be less relevant to Asian American teenagers’ perceptions of being loved and supported. The differing interpretations of parental control and support raise the possibility that Asian Americans and European Americans hold distinct notions of parenting. Furthermore, Chinese American and Filipino American adolescents might differ from each other in their understanding of parental support and control. Filipino Americans are less likely than Chinese Americans to emphasize traditional Asian cultural values perhaps