There has been much research and advocacy regarding involving parents in their children’s schooling. Recent theory and practice has pointed to the need to differentiate between different forms of parental involvement in the lives of adolescents, particularly between autonomy-supportive involvement compared to intrusive parental control (Wang et al. 2007). Extensive research has shown the negative consequences of intrusive parental control (Pomerantz and Wang 2009), and these extend to the academic lives of adolescents (Grolnick 2003). However, research has not focused enough on adolescents’ perceptions regarding the legitimacy of parental authority or control over their academic life. Related to this point, some researchers (Nucci 2001; Smetana 1995) suggest that adolescents differentiate among domains of behaviors and that adolescents may consider parental control as legitimate in some domains but not in others; thus, the negative consequences of parental control are found only in domains where control is not considered legitimate by the adolescents (Hasebe et al. 2004; Smetana et al. 2004).

The current study looks into how adolescents perceive the legitimacy of parental control over a range of academic concerns. It seeks to extend earlier research that identifies domains of academic behaviors that adolescents differentiate in terms of the legitimacy of parental control. It also investigates whether perceptions of the legitimacy of parental control differ between younger and older adolescents and whether such perceptions are associated with academic adjustment.

Legitimacy of parental control and domains of behavior

Research on adolescents’ perceptions of legitimacy of parental control has drawn from some key assumptions of social domain theory (Turiel 1983), which is premised on the notion that persons have different types of social interactions, and these diverse types lead to the development of distinct domains of social knowledge. Applying this premise to actions of adolescents, parents and their adolescent children distinguish between domains of actions and of issues inherent in these actions and also between the legitimacy of parental authority in these actions (Nucci 2001). Generally, four domains of actions are distinguished: the moral, conventional, prudential, and personal domains (Nucci 2001; Smetana 1995). Issues in the moral domain are construed as having consequences related to the rights and welfare of others, and those in the conventional domain involve arbitrary and context-specific norms. Issues in the prudential domain are related to the person’s health or safety, whereas those in the personal domain have only consequences to the individual person. Defining which issues fall in which domain is not always straightforward (e.g., safety issues may overlap with issues on personal control over one’s body), and thus, there are issues that have overlapping features.

The theory proposes that parents and their adolescents distinguish among the domains in terms of how strongly the adolescent should be allowed to assert their autonomy and, thus, how legitimate parental control is over behaviors in each domain (Nucci 2001; Smetana 1995; Smetana and Daddis 2002). Generally, parents and adolescents perceive issues in the moral, prudential, and conventional domains as legitimately subject to parental control or authority (Smetana 1995), and these perceptions change little over time (Cumsille et al. 2006; Lins-Dyer and Nucci 2007; Smetana et al. 2004). As such, issues in the moral, prudential, and conventional domain are rarely the subject of conflicts between parents and their adolescents (Smetana and Gaines 1999).

However, adolescents reject parental control over the personal domain (Lins-Dyer and Nucci 2007; Smetana et al. 2005), and over time, they increasingly assert their autonomy on issues that have overlapping features, making increasing claims in their personal domain. Conflicts between parents and adolescents arise when parents seek to control actions in the personal domain or when they disagree on whether certain actions are in the adolescents’ personal domain or in the prudential or conventional domains (Smetana and Gaines 1999). Moreover, parental attempts to overcontrol the adolescents’ actions in the personal domain and the overlapping domains are associated with psychological problems in adolescence (Smetana and Daddis 2002). Indeed, greater psychological symptoms, such as more depression and anxiety, were found to be associated with perceived parental overcontrol of the personal domain, but not of the prudential and conventional domains (Hasebe et al. 2004).

Legitimacy of parental control over academic concerns

Adolescents’ perceptions regarding legitimacy of parental control over their academic lives has not been the focus of the research cited earlier, although some (e.g., Hasebe et al. 2004) have referred to a few academic-related concerns. Following social domain theory, adolescents may recognize differences in the characteristics and consequences of different acts in their academic lives and also perceive differences in the legitimacy of parental control over these acts. A recent study (Bernardo 2010) focused on legitimacy of parental control over adolescents’ academic behaviors and found that adolescents also differentiate among types of academic concerns and accept some degree of parental authority on some concerns but not on others. The study identified three domains—learning processes, subject choices, and college major choices—within the academic life of adolescents wherein the perceptions regarding the legitimacy of parental control varied. An inspection of the domains suggests that the domains seem to be defined in terms of whether the concerns relate to actually being in school/class or whether the concerns relate to what the student does in school/class. Parental inputs are considered legitimate in the former, but not the latter. Using the types of domains defined by earlier researchers (Nucci 2001), learning process seems to be like a personal domain for adolescents, whereas college major choices and subject choices may be domains with overlapping features in the sense that these domain categories are defined by Nucci (2001). Decisions regarding the learning process seem to fit the theoretical definition of personal domain as it may be perceived as having only consequences to the student and his/her own level of academic achievement. On the other hand, choices regarding subjects and college majors may be construed as having consequences for one’s family.

As that study was undertaken with Filipino adolescents, the results can be understood with reference to literature on the role of parents and family in Asian students’ educational life. Some researchers argue that Asian students view schooling in terms of social obligations towards one’s family (Kim 1997; Yu and Yang 1994) and moral acts (Tao and Hong 2000). Other scholars (Li 2004; Wang and Li 2003) argue that Asians view learning as a virtue or moral striving with a strong autonomous component coupled with the social obligation component. Thus, although Asian students may construct their participation in academic life as having strong social or family related dimensions (i.e., meeting parents’ expectations), there are still personal and autonomous elements in their academic life (i.e., how they will go about meeting these expectations). In the Philippines, the needs of one’s family is an important motivating factor for students (Bernardo et al. 2008), and certain college majors are perceived to lead to more financially rewarding professions and may thus benefit one’s family more (Miralao 2004). If so, these domains of academic behaviors may have some features of conventional and prudential domains.

To some extent, this point of view is supported by research on Asian-American parents’ involvement in the academic life of their children (Kao 2004; Schneider and Lee 1990). These studies found that among Asian-American families, successful school outcomes come from children who share decision-making duties with their parents. However, the research clarifies that Asian-American parents do not do so by discussing very specific aspects of their children’s schooling (e.g., what is being studied, the different class activities, etc.). Instead, the parents engage their children in more discussions about their educational trajectories (e.g., going to and preparing for college) with broad reminders of how important education is to the family. Thus, even the parents seem to differentiate among the types of academic matters to directly discuss with their children.

The current study

This study addresses the question regarding the relationship between adolescents’ perceptions of the legitimacy of parental control over academic concerns and their academic outcomes. It builds on earlier research (Bernardo 2010) in several ways. First, it seeks to examine a wider range of actions and issues in their academic life. In this study, 35 different academic concerns were investigated, in the hope of getting a fuller sense of the domains of related to academic concerns of adolescents. Several categories of academic behaviors are considered based on research indicating that these domains are important in predictors of academic outcomes and/or are likely to be influenced by parenting: (a) academic participation, which relates to decisions on whether or not to attend school, university, or a particular class (Kearner 2008; Sheldon 2007); (b) learning environment, which involves choices or preferences over the physical or social environments for studying (French et al. 2011); (c) learning strategies, which refer to decisions on how to work on various academic tasks (Vrugt and Oort 2008; Yip 2009); (d) academic course options, which involve issues on what areas of study to pursue in school (Cho et al. 2008; Ma 2009); (e) help-seeking, which refer to decisions on who and when to ask for help when having difficulties in school (Bong 2008; Ryan and Shin 2011); and (f) goal-setting, which involve decisions regarding the standards or goals for performance in academic tasks (Lawrence and Crocker 2009; Rand 2009).

It was predicted that Filipino adolescents would differentiate among the wider range of academic concerns. It was further predicted that the concerns would be differentiated in terms of whether the concerns relate to the students’ educational trajectories (i.e., academic participation and academic course options) and whether the concerns relate to specific aspects of the learning activities in school (e.g., learning environment, learning strategies, etc.). Moreover, it was predicted that adolescents would welcome parental inputs on the former type of concerns, but not so on the latter.

The current study also extends previous research (Bernardo 2010) by considering other predictions derived from social domain theory related research. For one, the current study involves adolescents ranging from 11 to 21 years old, and it was predicted that the perceived legitimacy of parental inputs would be higher among younger adolescents who are in the lower school levels and that this would steadily decline among older groups of adolescents who are in the higher school levels. Previous research (Fuligni 1998; Smetana 2000) indicates that adolescents tend to increasingly question and even reject the legitimacy of parental control as they get older.

The current study also looks into how perceptions of legitimacy of parental control over academic concerns relate to academic adjustment [the study of Bernardo (2010) looked into its relation to academic achievement]. Previous research (Hasebe et al. 2004; Smetana and Daddis 2002) indicates that the negative of impact of perceived parental control on their children’s psychological adjustment is specific to parental control in the personal domains, where adolescents reject parental control. Extending this line of argument, in this study, it was predicted that the perceptions legitimacy of parental control would be negatively associated with academic adjustment in domains were parental control is rejected, but not in domains were control is accepted.

To summarize, the present study looks into Filipino adolescents’ perceptions of legitimacy of parental control over a range of academic concerns and has three objectives. First, it seeks to find out if Filipino adolescents make distinctions among different types of academic behaviors (those related to their educational trajectories and those related to learning processes) and affirm the legitimacy of parental authority over these types to different degrees. Second, the study investigates whether the perceived legitimacy of parental authority decreases from younger to older adolescents by looking at cross-sectional samples. Finally, the study explores whether the relationship between legitimacy perceptions and self-reports of academic adjustment varies depending on whether parental control is legitimate or not in the specific domain of academic concerns.

Method

Participants

Participants were 1,088 adolescent students in a private school in the Southern Tagalog Region of the Philippines that enrolls students in primary, secondary, and tertiary education. The school caters to children from families in the lower middle to upper socioeconomic groups. Participants were recruited from the high school and college students, and their ages ranged from 11 to 21 years (M = 15.50, SD = 2.49). There were 571 female and 517 male participants who participated during school time and in school premises. Their parents’ ages ranged from 28 to 68 years for mothers (M = 44.19, SD = 6.20) and 30 to 84 years for fathers (M = 46.44, SD = 6.97); 80.42% of the participants grew up with both parents.

Instruments

Parental authority in academic life questionnaire

A questionnaire was prepared patterned after the Parental Authority Index (PAI; Hasebe et al. 2004). Like the PAI, the parental authority in academic life questionnaire (PAALQ) includes items that refer to matters that require some decision. The respondents have to indicate whether they accept their parents’ authority over making a decision on the matter or whether they reject this authority and instead assert their right to make their own decision.

The PAALQ comprised of 35 items referring to behaviors and decisions that adolescents may need to make related to schooling. These items were grouped into six broad categories: (a) academic participation (six items; e.g., “Drop or stop attending a subject in school”), (b) choice of social/physical environment (seven items; “Where to study for a test or exam”), (c) strategies for learning (nine items; “What references to consult for an assignment”), (d) academic course options (four items; “What course to study in college”), (e) academic help-seeking (six items; “To ask for teacher’s help on difficulties in class”), and (f) goal-setting (three items; “What grade to aim for in a class project”). Participants were asked to respond using a 5-point scale (1 = “I should be the one to decide this without having to discuss with my parents,” 3 = “My parents and I should make this decision together,” and 5 = “My parents should be able to decide and tell me what to do about this without discussing it with me”).

Academic adjustment questionnaire

This questionnaire was used by Kaplan and Maehr (1999) to assess student well-being and comprised of three scales. The first is the School-Related Affect Scale that included two subscales (positive and negative affect scales) adopted from Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey (or PALS; Midgley et al. 1993). The second scale is Perceived Academic Efficacy Scale, which was adopted from Roeser et al. (1996) and Midgley et al. (1993) also from PALS. The third is the Self-Reported Disruptive Behavior Scale that was constructed by Kaplan and Maehr (1999). Sample items and Cronbach’s α values are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Sample items and internal consistency of academic adjustment questionnaire
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Results

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses

An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine whether the adolescents in the sample regarded the different academic behaviors as different domains that warranted parental authority in different degrees. The same analytic procedure was used in earlier research (e.g., Bernardo 2010; Hasebe et al. 2004) to investigate how adolescents differentiate among various concerns in terms of the legitimacy of parental control. Data from half of the participants (randomly selected) were used in this analysis. The scree plot suggested one big and two smaller factors with Eigenvalues ranging from 1.91 to 9.78 and which accounted for 42.15% of the total variance. A varimax rotation was conducted, and factor assignment was determined using a minimum loading of 0.36. All items, except for three, loaded into one of three factors.

Factor 1 contained 23 items with loadings ranging from 0.40 to 0.75. All items came from four of the six broad categories of academic behaviors: choice of social/physical environment (all seven items), strategies for learning (all nine items), academic help-seeking (four out of the six items), and goal-setting (all three items). The items all involved decisions regarding how the learning activities will be undertaken (where, with whom, how, etc.) and was labeled “learning activities.” The factor accounted for 25.37% of the total variance. Factor 2 contained all six items from academic participation scale, with loadings ranging from 0.36 to 0.78 and accounted for 9.01% of the total variance. This factor referred to decisions relating to whether or not to attend a subject, a course, or school and was labeled “academic participation.” Factor 3 contained three of the four academic course options items. The factor loading ranged from 0.63 to 0.78, and all items related to decisions regarding which subject, course, or school to attend. The factor accounted for 7.76% of the total variance and was labeled “academic options.”

To validate the observed factors, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using the remaining half of the data. Several indexes of fit were used: root mean square standardized residual = 0.06, root mean square error of approximation = 0.07, CFI = 0.90, TLI = 0.89, GFI = 0.92, AGFI = 0.90, and χ 2/df = 3.33, all of which indicate an adequate fit of the three-factor structure with the data.

Domains of academic decisions

The three factors were interpreted as referring to different domains of academic decisions that adolescents had to address. To understand the adolescents’ perceptions of legitimate parental control over these domains, the items in each of the three factors were combined to form three-factor scales. Descriptive statistics for the three-factor scales are shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Descriptive statistics for domains of academic decisions scales
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The descriptive statistics indicate that the participants reported lower levels of acceptance of parental control for the items in factor 1 (learning activities). It seems that the items in this factor could be considered as falling within the personal domain and should not be subject to their parents’ authority. Consistent with the hypothesis, the items in factor 1 all relate to specific aspects of the learning process. In contrast, the participants tended to report higher levels of perceived legitimacy of parental authority for factor 2 (academic participation) and factor 3 (academic options), both of which relate to the adolescents’ educational trajectories. The participants’ legitimacy perceptions on these two factors were not high enough to suggest that the issues were perceived as being moral, prudential, or conventional issues. Instead, the participants’ responses are almost in the midpoint of the scale, which suggests that the adolescents were willing to make decisions these concerns together with their parents, which was predicted in the study.

School level differences

The participants were grouped into four school level groups: (a) first and second year high school, (b) third and fourth year high school, (c) first and second year college, and (d) third year college and up. The descriptive statistics for four groups and also for female and male participants are shown in Table 3. The perceived legitimacy scores for all factors were analyzed using a 4 × 2 × 3 ANOVA for mixed designs, with school level and gender as between-group variables and domain of academic behavior as within-subject variable. Consistent with the earlier description of the three factors, there was a significant main effect of domain [F(2, 2,160) = 1,225.75, p < 0.0001, partial η 2 = .53]. Post hoc pairwise comparisons of means using the Scheffe’s test indicated that the parental control was perceived as more legitimate for factor 2 (academic participation) compared to factor 3 (academic options), which was more legitimate than factor 1 (learning process). Also as hypothesized, there was a main effect of school level for factor 1 [F(3, 1,080) = 60.53, p < 0.0001, partial η 2 = 0.14]. Perceived legitimacy of parental authority decreased from the earliest to the latest school levels; the post hoc comparison of means indicated a significant decrease in average perceived legitimacy score for each succeeding school level. There was no main effect of gender [F(1, 1,080) = 1.26, ns].

Table 3 Descriptive statistics by school level and gender
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Pertinent to the research hypothesis, the interaction between the domain of academic behavior and school level was significant [F(6, 2,160) = 11.30, p < 0.0001, partial η 2 = 0.03]. The post hoc comparison of means suggests that perceived legitimacy of parental control did not uniformly decrease in all domains. For factor 1 (learning process), perceived legitimacy scores significantly decreased for each succeeding school level, but for factor 2 (academic option), the decrease was only significant for the succeeding school level after high school (see Table 3). For factor 3 (academic participation), there was no significant change in the perceived legitimacy scores across the four school levels.

Although there were no hypotheses regarding gender, there were significant interaction effects between school level and gender [F(3, 1,080) = 4.73, p < 0.003, partial η 2 = 0.01] and between domain and gender [F(2, 2160) = 11.52, p < 0.0001, partial η 2 = 0.01]. The post hoc comparison of means indicated that generally there was no difference in the perceived legitimacy scores of female and male participants across the four school levels, except for those in first and second year college. For those in this school level, the male participants had significantly lower scores than the female participants; thus, whereas the decrease seemed to follow a constant rate throughout the four school levels for the female participants, the decrease had a sudden dip from high school to college for the male participants. Regarding the domains, the male and female participants also did not differ in most of the domains, except in factor 3 (academic participation), where the female participants had higher perceived legitimacy scores compared to the male participants. The three-way interaction among school level, gender, and domain was not significant [F(6, 2,160) < 1].

Collectively, these results are consistent with the various hypotheses, as they indicate that the students in the study differentiated among different academic concerns in their perceptions of the legitimacy of parental control and that acceptance of legitimacy of parental authority decreases as the adolescent students get older, except for the domain that refers to choice of school and/or course.

Academic adjustment

How is perceived legitimacy of parental authority on academic behaviors related to the adolescents’ academic adjustment? Is the relationship between perceived legitimacy of parental authority and academic adjustment similar across the domains of academic concerns? To address these questions, participants’ scores in the three academic adjustment scales, school level, and gender were regressed to the perceived legitimacy of parental authority scores for the three factors using multiple regression analysis. Table 4 shows the correlations among the different variables, and the correlations indicate no multicollinearity. Table 4 summarizes the results of the multiple regression analysis, and for school-related affect, none of the legitimacy perception factors predicted school related affect, but gender and school level did. School related affect was more positive for students in the lower school levels and for male students. For perceived academic efficacy, perceived legitimacy of parental authority in learning activities (factor 1) was a negative predictor of academic self-efficacy. Students who were more willing to accept parental control over the choice of learning activities were also more likely to report lower levels of academic self-efficacy. The regression model accounted for a higher portion of the variation for self-reported disruptive behavior. School level and gender were significant predictors; students from lower school levels and male students tended to report higher levels of disruptive behavior. Perceived legitimacy of parental control over learning activities (factor 1) positively predicted self-reported disruptive behavior; students who tended to accept parental authority over their choices regarding learning activities were more likely to report disruptive behaviors. Interestingly, perceived legitimacy of parental control over decisions related to academic participation (factor 2) was a negative predictor of self-reported disruptive behaviors. The acceptance of parental authority seems to be associated with better academic adjustment; students who consider parental control as legitimate in this domain also tend to report less disruptive behaviors.

Table 4 Results of multiple regression analysis on academic adjustment
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The results in this section suggest that adolescents’ perceptions of legitimacy of parental control are not strongly related with academic adjustment. However, in the cases that they are related, higher legitimacy perceptions in the domain where parental control tends to be rejected (i.e., learning process) was associated with poorer academic adjustment, consistent with the hypothesis. Also consistent, legitimacy perceptions in a domain where parental control was considered somewhat legitimate (i.e., academic participation) was positively associated with academic adjustment.

Discussion

Filipino adolescents distinguish among domains of academic behaviors and decisions when it comes to accepting the legitimacy of parental authority. They are willing to accept some level of their parents’ authority on matters related to their educational trajectories, such as their continued participation or attendance in school and on choices of which school and/or courses to attend. Both domains relate to whether they continue to engage academic life, and in both cases, the adolescents in the study generally indicated that they should jointly decide these matters with their parents. In both cases, younger adolescents were more willing to affirm the legitimacy of parental authority, but the older adolescents were increasingly more likely to reject this parental authority. The pattern of responses indicates that the issues in the domain are probably not to be considered in the moral, prudential, or conventional domains, as research and theory suggests that adolescents of all ages should be willing to accept parental authority in these domains. Instead, the two domains probably have overlapping features of the conventional, prudential, and personal domains. The mean responses and the changes in the responses across the four age groups suggest that the issue of whether or not to participate in schooling seems to have a stronger prudential or conventional features compared to the issue of which school or courses to choose, as the adolescents were slightly more willing to affirm parental control in the former issue. Across the various age groups, the mean and standard deviations indicate an acknowledgement that the issue needs to be decided with the parents, which suggests a willingness to discuss the issue. This result is consistent with previous research (Kao 2004), suggesting that Asian parents are effective in socializing the value of education in their children, and they do so by making very broad and general references to how education is important for their family. Consistent with this observation, Bernardo (2009) found that adolescents from middle and upper socioeconomic groups in the Philippines reported that their parents often used discussions of how education relate to their future as a means of socializing the importance of academic achievement. Thus, the adolescents in this study may have been socialized to accept their parents’ inputs on such academic-related concerns. Moreover, the academic decisions in these domains may be perceived as having consequences beyond oneself, and to one’s family, in particular. In the Philippines, the family’s financial and social needs is a strong motivating factor for many students, who often state that they stay in school in the hope that they would help their families in the long term (Bernardo et al. 2008). Related to this point, Filipino students often choose college majors/courses that are perceived to lead to more financially rewarding careers that would benefit their families (Miralao 2004).

It should be noted, however, that the willingness of the Filipino adolescents to affirm some level of parental authority on the two domains of academic behaviors does not seem reflect what other scholars refer to as Asian students’ conceptions of schooling and academic life as involving mainly social obligations and responsibilities towards the family (Kim 1997; Yu and Yang 1994). The Filipino students’ responses in these two domains do not come even close to indicating a strong affirmation of parental authority on these issues. The response means were almost exactly in the middle of the scale with extremely low standard errors of the mean, which seem more consistent with proposals that Asian and Filipino students’ conceptions of learning and schooling have both personal autonomous and social obligatory components (Li 2004; Bernardo 2008).

Interestingly, the adolescents’ willingness to accept parental authority on the issue of school participation was a negative predictor self-reported disruptive behavior. We should refrain from interpreting any causal relationship between the adolescents willing to accept parental authority and this indicator of academic adjustment, but the association is consistent with previous research and theory (e.g., Hasebe et al. 2004), suggesting that the negative impact of parental control is limited to domains where adolescents consider parental control to be illegitimate.

We saw this negative impact in the results related to the Filipino adolescents’ legitimacy perceptions on parental authority regarding concerns related to learning processes. On these issues, the adolescents were unequivocal in rejecting parental authority and increasingly emphatic about so among the older groups. The pattern of responses in this domain suggests that acts and decisions regarding how to study, when and with whom to study or to seek help in studies, and what goals and standards of academic performance to aim for are issues in the personal domain. Consistent with research and theory on the significance of the personal domain in adolescent well-being (Nucci 2001), stronger assertions of personal autonomy on these issues were associated with higher academic self-efficacy and with less self-reported disruptive behaviors.

Unfortunately, the present study did not gather data on the actual levels of parental control on these issues, and thus, there can be no direct verification on the possible effects of parental control and overcontrol in the three domains on the adolescents’ academic adjustment. Future research should investigate these propositions more directly by getting appropriate data from the students and their parents. Future research could also address some methodological limitations in the present study, such as the representativeness of the sample of Filipino adolescents in the study. Although the sample was fairly large and came from different socio-economic sectors of Philippine society, there was no strong assurance that the students in the study fully represented the larger population of Filipino adolescents. Moreover, although the research instrument used sampled a fairly wide range of academic behaviors, it is possible that there are some other important actions and issues in the academic life of adolescents that may be treated by Filipino adolescents differently compared to those in the current sample.

The weak associations between legitimacy perceptions and academic adjustment also suggest that the two sets of constructs may not be proximally related. Indeed, there may be a host of other psychological constructs that mediate the relationship between these two sets of variables. It is possible that perceptions of the legitimacy of parental authority in specific domains influence the students’ appraisals and attributions of their experiences in school (e.g., their difficulties, successes, and failures), which may more directly influence the students’ adjustment. Legitimacy perceptions could also influence the students’ self-concept, self-reliance, and other related self-perceptions, which could also directly influence adjustment. It is also possible that the causal direction of the relationship between perceived parental authority and adjustment flows the other way. For example, it is possible that students’ awareness of their self-disruptive behaviors and low academic efficacy is what makes them perceive parental authority over academic behaviors as legitimate, or even necessary. Future research should aim to develop more precise theoretical models that account for the relationships among legitimacy perceptions, actual parental control, and academic related outcomes, among other relevant variables.

These methodological and theoretical limitations notwithstanding, the results of the present study provide a useful extension of social domain theory and research on the legitimacy of parental authority by applying these to an important sphere in the life of adolescents—their academic experiences. In general, the results indicate that for the Filipino adolescents in the study, academic acts and issues tend to be aligned with the more personal domains, although the adolescents distinguished among three domains, which seem to be differentiated in terms of whether they relate to long term educational trajectories or directly to the learning processes. It seems that the academic sphere is one of the facets of the adolescents’ life where they strongly express their autonomy, and this may be afforded by the environment of schools, which often demand demonstration of individual efforts and accomplishments. It would be interesting to investigate if parents also acknowledge that much of academic issues are in the personal jurisdiction of their adolescents and, if not, whether such differences and conflicts affect the students general and academic adjustment.

The application of social domain theory to study Filipino adolescents’ perceptions of legitimacy of parental control also provides useful inputs in the current debates regarding the importance of the experience of autonomy in non-Western cultures. As mentioned earlier, some scholars assert that Asian students view schooling as a matter of social obligation (Kim 1997; Yu and Yang 1994). Others (e.g., Heine 2003; Iyengar and DeVoe 2003) even assert that students in Asian cultures do not value these experiences of autonomy as much as their Western counterparts. However, others have pointed out that even as the external social motivations and obligations may be stronger among Asian students, these students’ academic motivations also have a strong autonomous component (Li 2004; Wang and Li 2003) and that these externally oriented achievement goals are actually related to individual-oriented mastery achievement goals (Bernardo 2008; Chan and Lai 2007; Chan et al. 2005; Ho and Hau 2008). Autonomous motivation has also been shown to be related to adaptive learning attitudes and strategies, achievement, and personal well-being in Asian students (Chirkov et al. 2003; Vansteenkiste et al. 2005). The results of the present study extend these finding by showing that Filipino adolescents assert their autonomy in relation to a range of academic issues and more emphatically on learning strategies and behaviors. This assertion is associated with some indicators of student well-being, thus affirming the importance of autonomy experiences in another Asian sample.

That adolescents distinguish among different aspects of their academic life in their willingness to affirm their parents’ authority seems consistent with recent proposals to also differentiate among different forms of parental involvement in their children’s academic life (Pomerantz et al. 2007). Thus, even in the narrow realm of their adolescent children’s academic life, it might be necessary to make more precise distinctions among the adolescents’ different acts and decisions that parents should try to influence by way of regulation or negotiation.