My research has involved exploring alternative conceptualizations, theories, and paradigms for capturing and understanding the parenting and childhood socialization of East Asian immigrant families, primarily Chinese. I have been particularly concerned with the area of parenting style, demonstrating the need for a reconceptualization of Baumrind's widely-recognized parenting styles (i.e., comprising three types, authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive). I have demonstrated (Chao, 2001) that although the authoritative parenting style was most predictive of achievement for European Americans, this style was least effective in explaining achievement for recent Chinese immigrants. I had proposed (Chao, 1994) as a resolution to this paradox, that these parenting-style concepts are relevant for Asians, and I offered an alternative indigenous parenting style of chiao shun (i.e., a Chinese term that I have generally translated as "training"). The concept of training is based on a type of parental control that is distinct from the more "domineering" control that describes the authoritarian parenting style.

Currently, I am conducting a longitudinal study, funded by a large grant from NIH (NICHHD), that examines the effects over time of parental control, warmth, and parental involvement in school on adolescents' school achievement, and behavioral and psychological adjustment. Based on survey data of both parents and adolescents, this study will examine the cultural processes underling the effects of parenting for Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and Mexican immigrants, in addition to European Americans. Cultural processes are captured through (1) adolescents' interpretations of parenting (i.e., the affective reactions they have to parental practices), (2) adolescents' cultural beliefs (i.e., regarding filial piety, and conformity and obedience to parents), and (3) parental belief systems of parents (based on Confucian and Western notions of child development and learning). The effects of alternative conceptualizations for parental control will also be examined based on indigenous notions of parental control described by the notion of "guan," which in Chinese means to govern as well as to love. This study is unique in that it will provide analyses across two generations of immigrants from a number of Asian sub-groups, Chinese, Korean, and Filipinos, in addition to generations of Mexican immigrants. This study will also combine large samples of survey data from adolescents and parents (involving telephone interviews) with more in-depth qualitative interviews and observations of a smaller sample of adolescents and parents.