Culture, Parenting Practices, and Moral Development

This chapter offers a critical overview of parenting practices and socialization in cultural context. Consideration is given to theory and research on the development of moral emotions, including guilt, shame, and empathy, as well as to cultural variation in the nature of parenting styles and their consequences for child development. Drawing implications for theories of motivation, cultural variation is also analyzed in the legitimacy that children accord to different styles of parental regulation. In conclusion, an argument is made regarding the need to culturally broaden psychological theories of parenting and morality, and to work toward formulating parenting interventions that are more culturally sensitive and effective in realizing culturally variable goals. Challenges are also addressed regarding ways to better understand cultural variation in parenting practices while avoiding the pitfalls of either an extreme relativism or extreme universalism.

The Long Arm of the Digital Tether: Communication with Home during Study Abroad

A growing array of technological communication modes makes it possible for students to be in increasingly frequent contact with their parents while at college, and high-frequency contact has been associated with lower autonomy and self-regulation (Hofer & Moore, 2010). This study extends this research to investigate the influence of frequent contact with family and friends while studying abroad. Surveyed at the end of a semester abroad in Denmark, 417 students responded to survey questions that addressed frequency, mode, and initiation of communication with home, as well as communication with friends. Participants also answered questions about satisfaction with connectedness abroad, autonomy, self-regulation, parental regulation, and personal and cultural learning. Findings suggest that students were in contact with family as frequently as individuals surveyed at their home institutions, that parents continued to regulate from afar, and that the most common affective reaction to less potential for connectedness was “a sense of freedom.”

PARENTAL REGULATION OF INTERNET USE: ISSUES OF CONTROL, CENSORSHIP AND CYBERBULLYING

The attraction of the internet continues to grow, mobilising the attention of many users, and impressing especially adolescents globally. Whilst the internet has provided adolescents with many benefits, such as academic support; cross- cultural interactions; social support; and exposure to the world at large, there are serious risks associated with the internet. The parents’ role in this regard becomes pivotal in ensuring the safety of their children. The mechanisms used by parents in controlling their children’s use and access to the internet were the focus of this study. For this reason, the study aimed to determine the role parents play in regulating their adolescent children’s use of and access to the internet and how issues of control, censorship and cyberbullying are addressed. The study was based on Baumrind’s (in Grobman 2008) parenting styles which formed the theoretical framework. A quantitative approach was used to gauge the responses of parents who have adolescent children. Through convenience sampling, the respondents were selected to answer a questionnaire made up of closed-ended questions. The key findings that emerged from the study revealed that parents applied the permissive style of parenting when it came to male adolescents, whilst they applied the authoritative style of parenting to female adolescents.