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Parent–Child Acculturation Profiles as Predictors of Chinese American Adolescents’ Academic Trajectories

  • Empirical Research
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Abstract

Acculturation plays a critical role in the adjustment of Asian Americans, as a large proportion of them are immigrants in the US. However, little is known about how acculturation influences Asian American adolescents’ academic trajectories over time. Using a longitudinal sample of 444 Chinese American families (54 % female children), the current study explored the effect of mothers’, fathers’, and adolescents’ individual acculturation profiles and parent–child acculturation dissonance on adolescents’ academic trajectories from 8th to 12th grade. Academic performance was measured by grade point average (GPA), and by standardized test scores in English language arts (ELA) and Math every year. Latent growth modeling analyses showed that adolescents with a Chinese-oriented father showed faster decline in GPA, and Chinese-oriented adolescents had lower initial ELA scores. Adolescents whose parents had American-oriented acculturation profiles tended to have lower initial Math scores. These results suggest that Chinese and American profiles may be disadvantageous for certain aspects of academic performance, and bicultural adolescents and/or adolescents with bicultural parents are best positioned to achieve across multiple domains. In terms of the role of parent–child acculturation dissonance on academic trajectories, the current study highlighted the importance of distinguishing among different types of dissonance. Adolescents who were more Chinese-oriented than their parents tended to have the lowest initial ELA scores, and adolescents experiencing more normative acculturation dissonance (i.e., who were more American-oriented than their parents) had the highest initial ELA scores. No effects of parent–child acculturation dissonance were observed for GPAs or standardized Math scores. Altogether, the current findings add nuances to the current understanding of acculturation and adolescent adjustment.

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Acknowledgments

Support for this research was provided through awards to Su Yeong Kim from (1) Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD 5R03HD051629-02 (2) Office of the Vice President for Research Grant/Special Research Grant from the University of Texas at Austin (3) Jacobs Foundation Young Investigator Grant (4) American Psychological Association Office of Ethnic Minority Affairs, Promoting Psychological Research and Training on Health Disparities Issues at Ethnic Minority Serving Institutions Grant (5) American Psychological Foundation/Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology, Ruth G. and Joseph D. Matarazzo Grant (6) California Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, Extended Education Fund (7) American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, Massachusetts Avenue Building Assets Fund, and (8) Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD 5R24HD042849-12 grant awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

Author contributions

SYK conceived of the study and participated in its design and coordination and drafted portions of the manuscript; YW and QC performed the statistical analyses and drafted portions of the manuscript; YS and YH participated in the interpretation of the data and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, 108 East Dean Keeton Street, Stop A2702, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Su Yeong Kim, Yijie Wang, Yishan Shen & Yang Hou

  2. Department of Educational Psychology, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, 76203-1335, USA

    Qi Chen

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  1. Su Yeong Kim
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Correspondence to Su Yeong Kim.

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Kim, S.Y., Wang, Y., Chen, Q. et al. Parent–Child Acculturation Profiles as Predictors of Chinese American Adolescents’ Academic Trajectories. J Youth Adolescence 44, 1263–1274 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-014-0131-x

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