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Development and Validation of a Questionnaire on Chinese Parents’ Beliefs in Parental Roles and Responsibilities

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Abstract

Parental beliefs concerning parental roles and responsibilities are a crucial domain in the study of parental cognitions, an emic measure of which is not available in Chinese societies. In the context of a mixed-methods study on generational shifts in parental beliefs of five cohorts of Chinese parents in Hong Kong, we developed and validated a culturally- and diachronically-sensitive quantitative measure of parental beliefs on parental roles and responsibilities. A non-random proportionate sample (N = 5,707) of 5 generational cohorts of parents (the earliest cohort being parents of young children in the 1970’s and before) responded to a questionnaire of parental beliefs. An exploratory factor analysis of the data collected from the first sub-sample (n = 2,925) yielded a 23-item fivefold factor structure. A confirmatory factor analysis of the data collected from the second sub-sample (n = 2,596) demonstrated an acceptable model fit. The discovered factors pointed to parental beliefs clustered around five sets of parental roles and responsibilities: (1) parental nurturance of children; (2) parenthood as a normative life stage; (3) parental guidance of the young; (4) fulfilling children’s needs; and (5) readiness to relax and restrict parental control. Cross-cohort analysis confirms the presence of significant generational differences in all 5 sets of parental beliefs. This emic quantitative measure provides a culturally-sensitive scale for studying parental beliefs about parental roles and responsibilities in a Chinese cultural context.

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  • 15 January 2019

    The published online version of this paper missed to include or acknowledge the Funding source of this paper. The funding support information the author wished to acknowledge was “Project Funded by University Grant council (U414053)”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Social Work Department, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong

    Ching Man Lam & Siu Ming To

  2. Department of Applied Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

    Wai Man Kwong

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  1. Ching Man Lam
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Correspondence to Ching Man Lam.

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Lam, C.M., To, S.M. & Kwong, W.M. Development and Validation of a Questionnaire on Chinese Parents’ Beliefs in Parental Roles and Responsibilities. Applied Research Quality Life 15, 693–712 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-018-9682-4

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