Emotional development of immigrant children
KATHY JACKSON
More than one in five people in Australia were born overseas (Shu, Khoo, Struik, &
McKenzie, 1995), with many of these arriving as young adults, often recently married
and with small children or the intention of having a family once settled. Thus, there is
a large group of parents in Australia who have acculturated to one set of values and
behaviours, those of their country of origin, while their school-aged children are
acculturating into a society with values and ways of behaving that are often quite
different from those of their parents.
Many studies have shown that the experience of immigration can be stressful (Berry,
Poortinga, Segall, & Dasen, 1992; Smith & Bond, 1993), and it might be expected
that being a parent in a culture where values differ from one’s own could also be a
source of stress. This is particularly likely to be true when children bring home from
school and the broader community ways of behaving which are inconsistent with
parental beliefs about how they should behave and express themselves.
One area in which cultural differences may exist is the area of emotional expression.
Appropriate expression of emotion is culturally defined. Research from both the
West (e.g. Denham, McKinley, Couchoud & Holt, 1990) and from some other
countries such as Kenya (e.g. DeVries, 1994) shows that knowledge and skills in the
emotional area develop as the child grows and that appropriate expression of emotion
is central to social acceptance.
The study reported here attempted to discover just what Australian-born and
immigrant children aged 5 to 8 years do when they are feeling happy, sad, angry, or
anxious. Data consisted of maternal reports about emotions; children themselves
were not observed. Immigrant mothers who had grown up in Hong Kong, India and
Turkey were much more collective in orientation than Anglo-Australians and also
differed from each other to some degree on dimensions of power-distance, uncertainty
avoidance and masculinity-femininity. These women might be expected to have
learned different rules about expressing emotion from each other and also from
Anglo-Australians; the little information which is available from their home countries
suggests that this is so. They could be expected to want to teach their own children
culturally acceptable expression of emotion. The particular emotions selected were
chosen because they have been shown to be universally experienced and recognised
from a very early age (Ekman et al, 1987).
Hypothesis & Methodology
Hypotheses predicted firstly, that women from different ethnic groups would report
differences in their children’s expression of emotion and secondly, that immigrant
women would worry more than Anglo-Australian women about their children’s
expression of emotion.
In all, 124 women participated in the study. Of these, 37 were Anglo-Australian, 33
Hong Kong Chinese, 16 Indian and 38 Turkish. All Anglo-Australians were of
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English speaking background and had spent most or all their lives in Australia.
Immigrants had lived in Australia for less than 10 years, and all women were mothers
of children aged 5 to 8 years.
These women responded to a written questionnaire developed from information
obtained in interviews in an earlier phase of the study. The questionnaire consisted of
four subscales, each of which was divided into two parts, behaviours and maternal
concern/worry. It consisted of large lists of behaviours which might be expected to
occur in each emotional state. Examples of items from each subscale are as follows:
Happiness: Giggles or laughs, Plays well without close parental supervision, Gestures
more than usual
Sadness: Cries quietly, Voice changes in tone or pitch, Says “You make me feel bad”
or similar
Anger: Threatens to hurt others, Stares hard or glares, Kicks
Anxiety: Breathes quickly, Seeks extra hugs, Does something to distract
himself/herself
Mothers were asked to indicate how often their child showed each specific behaviour,
(Options were: Never, Once a month, Once a week, Once a day, More than once a
day) and how much they worried about it (Respondents circled one number on a 9point Likert scale with 1 = Never, and 9 = Almost Always).
Analysis of the Data
Turkish women were significantly younger, less well-educated and of lower socioeconomic status than Anglo-Australian, Hong Kong Chinese and Indian women.
They also acculturated least despite having lived in Australia for the longest of the
three immigrant groups. They remained uncertain in their use of English. However,
the three immigrant groups were representative of migrants from each country
currently resident in Melbourne. Also, when these demographic differences between
Turkish women and those of other ethnic groups were entered into the analysis they
contributed little towards explaining the differences between groups in children’s
expression of emotion or maternal concern about it.
Data about emotions were analysed using discriminant function analysis, which has
the advantage of permitting one to enter either sums or items as variables. This
allows the investigator to find where differences occur, not just whether they occur in
contrast to analysis of variance, a commonly used statistic in psychology, but one
where significance is calculated from mean scores. (Lester and Brazelton, 1982, have
especially warned of the loss of information in cross-cultural studies where statistics
based on mean scores are used.)
When items were entered as variables, differences between groups in the ways
emotions were expressed were significant for all four emotions.
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Mean scores for items on each scale showed that for those items which explained
most of the between- groups variance, there was a pattern of relatively high scores for
Anglo-Australian and Hong Kong Chinese mothers and lower mean scores for Indian
and Turkish mothers. This indicates that Anglo-Australian and Chinese mothers
reported seeing a large number of specific behaviours more frequently than Indian
and Turkish mothers did. There were, however, occasional exceptions to these
results.
For concern/worry, the hypothesis that immigrant mothers would worry more than
Anglo-Australian mothers was not confirmed although there were significant
differences between the ethnic groups in amount of concern expressed. AngloAustralian and Chinese mothers reported higher levels of concern than Indian and
Turkish mothers.
The findings were consistent with cultural beliefs about child development and
parenting. For example, in traditional Chinese beliefs, parents are seen as wholly
responsible for the kind of person their children becomes (Wu, 1996). Such a belief is
likely to mean that parents are alert to their children’s characteristics, and
development and may worry about it, as was found in the present study. In contrast,
Turkish working class women have been described as believing that their children
grow up rather than needing to be brought up (Kagitcibasi, 1996) and this suggests, as
found in the study, that they are likely to be less observant and less concerned about
their children’s emotional development.
How Do the Present Findings Relate to the Theme of the ‘Culture, Race &
Community?
Several aspects of this research relate to the theme of the conference. Both specific
and general, clinical and research issues arise from the findings discussed above and
from the literature about the beliefs of each ethnic group, which were not presented.
Although the present study was not concerned with clinical issues, the investigator’s
experience as a child psychologist means that it suggests various possibilities for
work with women from these ethnic groups. It should be noted, however, that the sub
samples of ethnic groups in the present study were quite small and conclusions in
relation to possible clinical work with members of these four ethnic groups should be
treated as tentative only.
Specifically, findings suggested that:
Middle-class Anglo-Australian women have relatively little awareness of their
children’s anxiety and may need help to see anxiety behaviours when they occur. A
perception in Australian families that children are noisy, cheeky practical jokers
(Dangar Research Group, 1999) may hinder recognition of more withdrawing
behaviours.
Middle-class Hong Kong Chinese women are highly attuned to their children’s
behaviour and are likely to express high levels of concern about their children’s
expression of emotion. This involvement and concern may seem out of proportion to
the Anglo-Australian observer e.g. a teacher, who often sees as ‘good’ a conforming
Asian student. These mothers may respond well to reassurance which legitimises
their concerns while acknowledging its cultural context. The present data also
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suggests that, should they seek more formal assistance with child-rearing Hong Kong
Chinese mothers are likely to be responsive to suggestions for managing behaviour
change e.g. keeping behavioural records.
Middle-class Indian women in Australia are not likely to report worry about their
children’s emotional behaviours. It seems likely that if they do express concern about
this aspect of their child’s development the problem is of some magnitude and should
be treated seriously.
Working class Turkish women are likely to accept their children’s expression of
emotion and not to worry about it. Problems perceived by others such as teachers are
perhaps likely to be considered as less significant by mothers than they are by the
teacher. A holistic view of emotions also suggests that behavioural approaches to
child management are unlikely to be followed through and family work might be
more successful.
It is not possible to make a general statement about a whole migrant ethnic group in
Australia. The recent emphasis on recruitment of skilled immigrants means that the
education and socio-economic status of some ethnic groups coming to Australia has
changed. This is especially true of the Turkish community where recent arrivals are
more highly educated than those of earlier years.
Some discoveries about Australian psychology have also been made:
There is a dearth of research into the psychological development of normal children
during middle childhood in Australia, the limited research into young people that has
been done has mostly looked at adolescents. There seems to be an assumption that
Anglo-Australian children are so like American children that we already know all we
need to know. This is a risky conclusion given the differences in history, climate and
culture in the two continents.
If there is little research into middle childhood among Anglo-Australians even less
has been focused on the psychological development of children in immigrant families.
Australian federal governments over the years appear to have perceived immigration
as a purely sociological experience. Funding for pure psychological research has not
been available and is unlikely to be so in the foreseeable future. This is a cause for
concern.
To conclude, Australians pride themselves on living in a multicultural society and the
success of our multiculturalism is seen as being confirmed, for example, through
indicators such as the high level of participation in tertiary education of second
generation Australians from different ethnic groups, or the percentage of young
people who marry out of their ethnic group in the second and third generations. It
would also seem desirable to learn about the psychological experiences of normal,
coping immigrant families such as those who formed the sample in the present study,
so that when psychological difficulties occur decisions about assistance can be made
on a more informed basis than has been possible to date.
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