Gender Roles in Immigrant Families

Researchers recognize that theoretical frameworks and models of child development and family dynamics have historically overlooked the ways in which developmental processes are shaped by socio-cultural contexts. Ecological and acculturation frameworks are especially central to understanding the experiences of immigrant populations, and current research has yielded new conceptual and methodological tools for documenting the cultural and developmental processes of children and their families. Within this broad arena, a question of central importance is on how gender roles in immigrant families play out in the lives of children and families. Gender Roles in Immigrant Families places gender at the forefront of the research by investigating how it interplays with parental roles, parent–child relationships, and child outcomes.

The immigrant experience stands at a dynamic intersection of transition and change. Questions regarding acclimation and assimilation are often at the fore, especially when contrasting cultures confront one another on matters of gender and parenting, and when parents and children face new expectations of themselves, each other, and their new home.

Gender Roles in Immigrant Families examines the complex societal, generational, and individual processes involved in constructing gender, ethnicity, and identity as families adapt to new cultural surroundings. The experiences of immigrant mothers, fathers, children, and youth provide readers with insights into coparenting, language brokering, power and responsibilities in families, and gendered aspects of development. Situations as varied as Turkish immigrants in Belgium and Mexicans in the U.S. highlight not only similarities and differences between cultures, but also the continuing flexibility and fluidity of human behavior. Among the studies featured:

• A critical exploration of Chinese fathers in Canada and China.
• Fathers' and mothers' perceptions of their children's psychosocial behaviors in Mexican immigrant families.
• Social support in the lives of Sudanese refugee and Russian immigrant fathers in Canada.
• Gendered conceptions of ethnicity: Latino children in middle childhood.
• Gender and developmental pathways of acculturation and adaptation in immigrant adolescents.
• Past advances and future directions in research and policy.

An in-depth exploration of an often-overlooked area for research, Gender Roles in Immigrant Families will provide family and developmental psychologists, social workers, sociologists, and policymakers a greater understanding of gender in the social identity.