Abstract
This chapter introduces the concept of acculturation goals, which refer to how individuals aspire to engage with the settlement society and preserve their ethnic culture. We report on the psychometric properties of a measure of acculturation goals within a sample of immigrant Chinese families in Canada (N = 182), including independent reports from fathers, mothers, and adolescents (12 – 17 years old). We investigate differences in parents’ and adolescents’ personal acculturation goals, whether parents hold similar acculturation goals for their adolescents as themselves, and whether adolescents accurately perceive parents’ acculturation goals for them. The results show that family members’ independent reports of their personal Canadian acculturation goals are similar in strength, that parents desire greater Canadian cultural adoption for their adolescents than themselves, and that adolescents underestimate the extent to which parents wish them to engage with Canadian society. With respect to Chinese culture, adolescents reported stronger Chinese acculturation goals than parents, parents desired Chinese cultural retention for their adolescents and themselves to the same degree, and adolescents overestimated the extent to which parents wish them to retain Chinese culture. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of understanding acculturation dynamics within immigrant families.
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Rasmi, S., Costigan, C.L. (2018). Comparing the Acculturation Goals of Parents and Adolescents in Chinese Canadian Families. In: Chuang, S., Costigan, C. (eds) Parental Roles and Relationships in Immigrant Families. Advances in Immigrant Family Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71399-1_12
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